Shopping at the Trade Deadline: A winning path to the Stanley Cup
Building a contender at the NHL Trade Deadline isn’t as simple as checking off a shopping list of must-have ingredients for a Stanley Cup recipe.
But what if it was?
Over the past few years at Daily Faceoff, using the previous 10 NHL seasons as my case-study subjects, I developed a list of traits that were most common among the Stanley Cup winners. I came up with seven. And voila, the Stanley Cup ingredients series was born.
So far, we’ve explored the correlation factor of average team weight, having at least one top-10 scorer, having a top-10 goaltender, exhibiting strong analytics, having an elite penalty kill and possessing at least one player who previously won the Cup. Next up, we examine the importance of stretch-run tinkering. Should you add a piece at the trade deadline, or is the hyped late-season upgrade in the vein of Butch Goring actually overrated?
Stanley Cup Ingredient #7: Trade Deadline Deals
On one hand, every fan base loves to see its team chase the biggest game at the deadline. How exciting was it to be a Carolina Hurricanes fan earlier this month when they finally took a risk and acquired a top-tier rental in Jake Guentzel? On the other hand: you could make a case that any team feeling the need to land the top player on the market might not have been good enough to begin with. Typically, teams that go on to win the Stanley Cup are year-long powerhouses that don’t need additional stars and instead add complementary pieces to fill specific needs.
If you look at the moves made by the past 10 champions, you don’t see many all-stars or award winners. But you do see lots of names, period. Almost every Cup champ made at least one important midseason acquisition en route to glory.
In this case, we’ll define a trade deadline addition as a player acquired within a couple months of the deadline that year. The Blues did trade for Michael Del Zotto in 2019, by the way, but we won’t count him given he didn’t suit up for any playoff games.
| Season | Champion | Deadline Additions |
| 2013-14 | Los Angeles | M. Gaborik |
| 2014-15 | Chicago | A. Vermette, K. Timonen, A. Desjardins |
| 2015-16 | Pittsburgh | C. Hagelin, J. Schultz |
| 2016-17 | Pittsburgh | R. Hainsey, M. Streit |
| 2017-18 | Washington | M. Kempny, J. Jerabek |
| 2018-19 | St. Louis | None |
| 2019-20 | Tampa Bay | B. Coleman, B. Goodrow |
| 2020-21 | Tampa Bay | D. Savard |
| 2021-22 | Colorado | A. Lehkonen, J. Manson, A. Cogliano, N. Sturm |
| 2022-23 | Vegas | I. Barbashev, J. Quick |
Stanley Cup correlation: VERY STRONG
For the third time in the past four seasons, the eventual champion acquired at least one crucially impactful top-nine forward at the deadline. Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow improved Tampa’s penalty killing and formed a lethal third line with Yanni Gourde across 2019-20 and 2020-21; Artturi Lehkonen scored four of Colorado’s 16 game-winning goals during their 2021-22 run; and Ivan Barbashev slotted into a dynamite first line alongside Jack Eichel and Conn Smythe Trophy winner Jonathan Marchessault to help Vegas lift its first Cup last year.
The data suggest you must get busy and find the missing pieces at the deadline if you’re the GM of a contender – but not that you must pony up for the hottest commodity on the market. The closest recent champ to following the latter route was the 2013-14 Kings, who landed Marian Gaborik. He ended up leading the postseason in goals that spring. But even he was a buy low at the time, mired in a rocky season.
So the takeaway isn’t that you need to outbid your competition for the top player at the trade deadline if you want a Stanley Cup. It’s that sitting on your hands and making no upgrades is the wrong path to a championship.
Previous instalments of Stanley Cup Ingredients 2024
Team Weight
Top-10 Scorer(s)
Top-10 Goaltender
Expected Goal Differential
Penalty Killing Efficiency
Stanley Cup Rings
Next up: Applying the seven-trait formula to determine a Stanley Cup pick
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