OT-Lord Stanleys Cup/Dynasty
Some interesting comparisons...
Toews is to the Blackhawks what Steve Yzerman was to the Red Wings. Similarly, defenseman Duncan Keith is to the Blackhawks what Nicklas Lidstrom was to the Red Wings. The Blackhawks also have Marian Hossa, Patrick Sharp and Brent Seabrook. The Red Wings had Brendan Shanahan, Tomas Holmstrom and Kris Draper. Including the coaching, because Joel Quenneville is to the Blackhawks what Scotty Bowman was to the Red Wing.
The Red Wings could spend more than every team when they won their three titles in six seasons. Free agency, and money in general, weren't considerations.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=770990
Given the difficulties of keeping a team together in the modern NHL, winning three championships within six years, as the Blackhawks will do if they can finish off Tampa Bay, would perhaps be no less impressive a feat than what the Islanders did by winning four in a row.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/yeah-the-blackhawks-are-a-dynasty/
For all of us on this blog with Chicago ties this has been so much fun and likely not over yet!
Very good article written before last nights game.
You need to win back to back Cups before you can be considered a dynasty. Red Wings won 3 Cups in 5 years from 97-02 and I don't consider them a dynasty. The last true hockey dynasty was... Edmonton Oilers in the 80s.
97,98,99,00,01,02...you have to count both endpoints (and not just take a difference).
(Wings fan here.)
KEITH
The 'Hawks won thy cup last night (or the night before?)
I hope they never win another.
I for one miss the Wings in the West. Original six should have been left alone.
The Red Wings getting moved to the East will be worth it if we get a Hawks-Wings Final.
Is anyone else getting a little tired of Nate Silver?
This notion of bandwagon fans baffles me - why on earth would someone become a fan when a team downright embarassing, as were the hawks for a decade? The wings made the playoffs just twice in 17 years before the 80s, were there as many fans then as during the playoff run? Great teams creating new fans shouldn't be a surprise.
The blackhawks lost a generation of fans with not only poor play, but also horrendous, off-putting management. This core of skilled, likable players has given a great hockey city a reason to get back involved and has bred a legion of fans that will be around for a long time.
The hawks may have years to go to match Detroit's current stability, but given they've had it before there's no reason expect an equally sustained following. The team is fun to watch, and a strong blackhawks franchise is good for hockey - they certainly carry their weight.
Virtually the only the group still stuck on this Chicago/bandwagon concept is Wings fans.
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Is Scotty Bowman still working for the Hawks? If so and he gets his name on the cup again. i think he might tie or surpass the current record holder for having their name on the cup most .
The recently departed Jean Beliveau - 17 times named on the Stanley Cup. 10 as a player and 7 as an executive .
it has been a difficult transition but Scotty is making the adjustment.
Fuck the Blackhawks. I legitimately hate that entire franchise (with the exception of Patrick Kane, who I would love to see on Detroit, but know it will likely never happen). They can go fuck themselves. Call me jealous, I don't care.
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But I wouldn't say the 3 Cups in 6 years for the Hawks are any more or less impressive than the 3 in 6 years for the Wings from 1997-2002. They should both stand on their own as the great teams of their respective eras, nothing more, nothing less. The comment about the Wings being able to spend a ton of money in free agency is true, but let's also not forget the fact that the core of the Hawks was built through a series of high first round draft picks because the team sucked for so long.
The Wings of the late 90's had been a consistent playoff team for a decade before they started winning Cups. They didn't have the benefit of drafting high in the first round for several years, yet they still built their core through a series of drafts that were among the most impressive in modern sports history. So if you want to ding the Red Wings a little for being able to outspend teams, don't forget to give that same team the necessary credit for outsmarting the rest of the league for several years in the draft, especially as it came to European players. The 1991 draft, especially, was a clinic of how to strike it rich in the later rounds of the draft. Fedorov, Lidstrom and Konstantinov all came from that same draft class.
Several other big pieces of the core (Yzerman, Holmstrom, Osgood, McCarty, Kozlov) also came through the draft, as did key contributors like Keith Primeau and Ray Sheppard, who were traded in 1996 and 1995 for championship mainstays Brendan Shanahan and Igor Larionov. Those moves had nothing to do with money - they were legitimate hockey trades where the Wings got the better end of each deal and found two big pieces to help win the Cup.
I think the 2002 team was the only one of the 3 Cup teams where the Wings leaned heavily on free agency to get them over the hump (short term contracts for Hasek, Robitaille and Hull after the core had aged a bit).
Both teams had good competition to fight through. The Wings had to deal with the Avs, Devils and Stars while the Hawks have had to deal with the Kings, Rangers and Bruins (in terms of perennial contenders and high end teams of the era).
The only time they really utilized the lack of a salary cap was in 2002 when they signed Hull, Robitaille, and Hasek. Stevie Y was a high draft pick, but guys like the Russian 5 and Lidstrom were all taken after the first and second rounds.
When the Blackhawks make the playoffs 25 years in a row let me know
Mark Dantonio posts as Stringer Bell?
Your tears are ice cream. The color of your envy is Spartan green.
As a Wings fan, I envy no other NHL franchise. I guess I just forgot that hockey didn't exist in Chicago until 2008, prior to which the Blackhawks were always near the bottom in attendance numbers.
This. Literally suck long enough and you'll be rewarded, it's just the Hawks finally had good leadership to develop and build the team, there's a reason everyone was happy when Wirtz died. Look at Edmonton.
I actually like how the Blackhawks play and yeah, they're probably a dynasty, but lets see how many they win when they start paying Toews and Kane real money. The Wings have won in both eras consistently and are still easily the model franchise of the NHL.
They are maxed out until 2023. So is Hossa, the hawks tried to screw with the NHL and the NHL bit back.
They instituted a rule that hits the hawks hard if Hossa retires before the end of his contract (when he will be 41), gives them a lot of dead money.
I am red wing fan here in Chicago. Have to admit the hawks are fun to watch, but sick of the fans and dynasty talk. Nothing will ever beat the the first cup for the wings.
As much as the wings thrived with no salary cap, the Hossa situation hurt them and put the hawks over the top, when he left Detroit.
Hawks are going to be good for a long time, because of Kane and Toews, but they are really hitting cap issues now and Hossa is getting old and so is Keith. Sharp is likely gone.
My guess is this is the pinnacle for the hawks ( not a bad place to be).
Kane and Toews just next year are going to be hitting essentially the max against the cap. They've been relatively underpaid (compared to say Crosby/Malkin as a duo) til now.
The pain starts now. It is relative. Most likely just losing Sharp this year. Curious how the mileage is going to effect Keith and Hossa. Plus Keith is sooooo underpaid.
Capgeek being gone sucks (RIP Matt Wuest) but I belive Sharp is for sure gone, and Saad could be extremely vulnerable to an offer sheet. It's going to have to be a mini-reload and relying on some prospects, like they have the other times.
A hugely impressive feat by the redwings. Which is hilarious to me as to why you (generally) call Blackhawks fans "bandwagon".
The wings have made the playoffs for some on this boards' entire lives. The Lions are boycotted in ways that make Old-Man-Wirtz's ownership tactics worthy of a bomb threat. So which is it?
At some point it turns from "bandwagon fans" to "fans" or doesn't, and I think Chicago is past that point at least for filling up the UC and bars and getting a lot of local support.
That doesn't mean there weren't a ton of extremely annoying, so-called lifelong fans that got a well earned bandwagon tag six years ago.
Lots of credit to the Blackhawks organization, but I didn't call the Wings a dynasty when they did the same and I don't think the Hawks are a dynasty. I also refuse to believe anyone is favorably comparing Keith to Lidstrom in good faith (no offense to Keith, who is a great defenseman). Yzerman's comments about him aside, Toews is no Yzerman either.
I could definitely get behind calling the Wings success hiring Bowman-present a dynasty, but I didn't feel that way in 2002 (I was young at the time, though, and probably didn't appreciate how much of an accomplishment three in six is). It might just be semantics, but the old Oilers, Canadiens, Celtics, UCLA MBB during their runs seem more dynasty-y than anything around right now.
I agree the Blackhawks are very talented and can get to the Wings 1997-2008 level as a franchise, but if some bad luck strikes and they have a few down years right away, nobody is going to be filming a 30 for 30 on a Blackhawks dynasty.
...you can win less than half your games & make the playoffs. It's not exactly a major accomplishment.
Yes, making the playoffs 25 years in a row isn't a major accomplishment. I mean, it's only been done like 2 other times in history, but yeah you're right.
the second longest current streak by an nhl team making the playoffs is 9, I'd say what the Red Wings are doing is pretty impressive.
I'm going to need a citation to a long list of teams that consistently make the playoffs to support this claim.
2011 seahwaks? under 500
half the eastern conference in nba? under 500
baseball has 500 teams make it from time to time too
other three league maybe not as frequent, but still holds true that it happens in american sports
28 years in a row-not that big a deal.
Right it's exactly the same thing.
Not sure how to take your comment. Are you being sincere or sarcastic and trying to say they are not the same? because the only thing i see different is one is 25 and one is 28 so yea, not exactly the same- the blackhawks is longer.
Sarcastic, because if anything as easy as it is to make the playoffs now (16 of 30 teams) it was even easier back in the day, especially for a big market team like the Hawks.
besides one having 4 stanley cups and 6 finals appearances as opposed to other having 2 finals apperances and 0 cups?
i agree
3 in 6 years is impressive, but to me it will always slot below winning back-to-back titles. Just like how the Spurs or the SF Giants achievements rank a little lower for me because they haven't won anything back-to-back. There is just something more impressive about being the defending champ and taking everyone's best shot and still coming out on top that puts it above non-consequtive titles.
The Red Wings could spend more than every team when they won their three titles in six seasons. Free agency, and money in general, weren't considerations.
NHL was once the easiest sport for repeat winners: 45 percent of Stanley Cup winners had also won the championship in the previous season, and 75 percent had won a Stanley Cup within the previous three years.
Red Wings B2B was impressive but since the Salary Cap what Hawks have done is even more so.
No...no, it really isn't. You play it like the Wings were the only ones in the league who were spending. Colorado spent, Dallas spent, St. Louis spent, Philly spent, New Jersey spent. Congratulations and all for being smart enough to take Kane first overall and Toews third overall, but when your stars are grossly underpaid it's easy to build a team around them. They only just started making what they're worth last summer.
The Red Wings spent like a big club, but teams like the Rangers, the Avalanche, the Flyers, etc. were all in the same ballpark, and at times spent more than the Wings.
The problem was that LOTS of NHL teams just didn't spend much money. When Nashville will barely crack $20M for the whole roster, that's an indictment on the Preds and not Detroit's willingness to invest in talent. In addition, the Wings did all of this while remaining competitive for decades; every other team in the past 20 years has cratered and rebuilt to varying degrees via the draft; the Wings haven't missed the playoffs in 24 seasons. That's damn impressive, and so if they've spent a bit more than average (in no small part because of local support) to stay competitive, I don't see how that should be held against them.
Ask any professional athlete who has tried to repeat as champions, the season after is way harder, due to the short summer, the increased time spent on non-sport responsibilities, and hang-over. That's before you get to the season and having a target on your back and a second extended playoff run. It's just grueling, and more impressive than winning non-consecutive championships.
The interesting question with all of this "dynasty" talk is this: if the Kings win another Cup in the next two years, who is the team of the decade and the real dynasty?