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Sport
The dynasty is no more
Post-Cup winning seasons have never been more dismal, while the chances of successful Cup defences approaches zero
By Kevin Potvin
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The defending 2007 Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks were eliminated this week by the Dallas Stars in five games in the first round of this year’s four-round tournament. It marks the ninth straight year champions failed to defend the Cup. In the 19 years previous to the Detroit Red Wing’s last successful Cup defence in 1998, Cup defenders were successful 10 times, or a little over 50% of the time. Overall, in the 114 years the Cup has been awarded, it went 38 times to the defending champions, or exactly 33% of the time. We have to go back to the 1930s and 1940s to find a stretch of failed champions at least as long as the current one, at 10 years, and also to the 1920s, during which a nine year stretch of failed champions occurred. We are now one year short of tying the record for longest stretch of failed Cup defenders. Defending the Cup, typically achieved by teams one third of the time, has evidently become more difficult. Completing a season with the best record provides something far short of a guarantee of winning the Cup. In the 87 years the Stanley Cup has been exclusively awarded to NHL teams, the team with the best record has suffered a less-than-even chance of going on to win the Cup, achieving the double feat only 44% of the time. Exactly as many Cups have been awarded to teams finishing second, third or fourth, collectively (38 Cups), as have gone to teams finishing first. The best bet remains the first place team, but that team hasn’t won the Cup since 2002. It’s not only difficult these days for Cup champions to successfully defend the Cup, but it’s become difficult to even enjoy a very good season the year after winning the Cup. In the first 19 years of the modern era, commonly dated from the 1967-68 season when six new teams were added to double the size of the league, Cup winners went on to the best record in the league the following year nine times, and placed in the top three 16 times in those 19 years. But in the last ten years, finishing first after winning the Cup hasn’t happened once. In the first 19 years of the modern era, Cup winners averaged a stellar second place in the following season. But the average Cup winner the last 10 years has placed a mediocre seventh overall in the following season. And in the last nine years, not a single Cup winner has either defended the Cup or placed first in the following season. Here is the most dramatic evidence of something having changed in the last decade: In the first three decades of the modern era, Cup winners placed on average between second and third overall in the season they won the Cup, and between second and third in the season following winning the Cup, in which year they successfully defending it 12 times. In the last decade, on the other hand, teams winning the Cup, while also placing between second and third overall in their season leading to the Cup, fell, on average, to between seventh and eighth in the year following winning the Cup, and none have successfully defended it in that following year. Mind you, seven of the final eight teams still in contention this year are Stanley Cup alumni in the modern era even while Stanley Cup alumni comprise only 47% of the league. Those seven claim between them 22 of the 39 Cups awarded in this period. Dynasties are the ultimate achievement in ice hockey. The late 1980s Oilers teams, the early 1980s Islanders teams, the late 1970s Canadiens teams and the mid-1960s Maple Leafs teams are the stuff of legend fathers have been regaling sons with since rubber met ice. What killed the possibilities for a dynasty across the league so dramatically in the mid-1990s? Possibly the footprint of American-born and raised NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who was appointed in 1993 and whose grip on the league really began during the lock-out shortened 1994-95 season 13 years ago. During his controversial and rapidly changing reign, Bettman helped pave the way for Canadian teams Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques to move to Phoenix, Arizona and Denver, Colorado, respectively, and for the Minnesota North Stars to move to Dallas, Texas. He expanded the league to 30 teams in such new and decidedly un-wintry sites as Miami, Florida, Anaheim, California, Nashville, Tennessee, Atlanta Georgia, and Columbus, Ohio. He also was instrumental in blocking the move of the Nashville Predators to Hamilton, Ontario most recently. Bettman presided over the expansion of league revenues from $400 million to $2.2 billion in his 13 years. And in 2004, he presided over another lock-out of players that caused the cancellation of an entire season for the first time in all North American professional sports history, a labour fight that nearly busted the players’ union and resulted in a salary cap imposed on all teams’ payrolls. It’s difficult to say how Bettman’s changes might have killed the phenomenon of the dynasty. But it does seem that the ultimate achievement in the NHL, the dynasty—a string of consecutive Stanley Cups successfully defended—has somehow been rendered a thing of the past by him. For those who enjoyed studying long-term mastery of the game and the historical bookends of styles and approaches that dynasties stood for, the era of the dynasty has sadly passed.
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The Republic of East Vancouver masthead
The Republic of East Vancouver supports no party, advocates
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