Calgary and Vancouver Are Building NHL Teams Differently

There was an interesting little discussion on TSN the other day about the NHL’s Top 50 players. Calgary, Vancouver and Seattle were mentioned as teams that probably won’t have anybody on the list. Forget Seattle for a minute. The two Canadian teams caught my attention.

The easy answer is that these are rebuilding teams, so they don't have a star.

The easy way to look at Calgary and Vancouver is to say they’re rebuilding; thus, they don’t have a superstar. Therefore, they’re also probably still a long way from being good. But maybe that’s looking at the thing backwards. Maybe these two teams are trying to build something different.

We’ve become so accustomed to thinking that NHL teams need a Connor McDavid or an Auston Matthews or some other top-end superstar before they can really become contenders. Find the star. Build around the star. Hope the star stays healthy. Hope the star has a good night in Game 7.

But what if you don’t have a star? You have to find another way.

Related: The Flames Might Have a More Valuable Trade Chip Than They Think.

Are the Flames and Canucks trying to find another way?

That seems to be what Calgary is doing. The Flames don’t have a player anybody is going to put in the Connor McDavid category. But they’re collecting good young players, particularly on defence, and they have Dustin Wolf in goal. There’s a pretty good chance that three years from now the Calgary Flames could be a very different hockey team than the one we see today.

Vancouver has a similar challenge, although the Canucks already have some established players who can play. Elias Pettersson is the obvious wild card. If he suddenly finds his game again, the whole conversation changes. But Vancouver doesn’t have to wait for one player to become a superstar to get better.

That’s what’s interesting. Maybe these teams are trying to build a hockey team rather than build a collection of stars. There’s something almost old-fashioned about that.

The goal is to build a team, not collect a few stars.

Perhaps the goal for the Flames and the Canucks is to get good players. See if these players complement each other. Get some size. Get some speed. Get good goaltending. Build a defence that can actually defend. Then see what happens.

It might take longer. It might not work. There’s no guarantee. But not having a Top-50 player doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be a bad team forever. Sometimes you just have to build the thing a different way.

Related: DeBrusk Sets the Record Straight on the Canucks