The first edition of this series focused on the acquisition of star players. Whether through the draft or via trades, the primary objective of a team entering a rebuild is to build a core of young stars that will allow it to compete in the future.
This second instalment shifts the focus to the next step: how teams transition out of the rebuilding phase and what that process typically looks like among eventual champions.
It is often said that it is easy to “tear down” a team; getting out of that first phase is what represents the real challenge. Over the past half-decade, several teams have tried to exit their rebuild without success: the Red Wings, the Sabres and the Senators (who finally made the playoffs last season). In reality, the two phases are intimately linked. Executives who manage to skillfully tear down their roster will be rewarded down the line.
Trading players over age 24
Given the typical length of a rebuild, a team entering this process should maximize the value of its players while they are in their prime. We now know that this period generally falls between ages 23 and 26. Obviously, some players beat the odds and manage to remain effective for longer stretches, but since it is difficult to predict which players will actually do so, perhaps it is better to play the odds. Who would have predicted such a sharp decline for Jonathan Huberdeau, for example? By maximizing his value, the Panthers were able to acquire a clearly more valuable asset, in part because of his age.
Given the average duration of a rebuild (which we will address in the next paragraph), a team must anticipate that its players over the age of 24 will be entering their thirties by the time the team becomes competitive again.
In our sample, teams rarely have a player over the age of 29 as part of their star core (using Patrick Bacon’s definition: top 18.5% of the NHL or 1.5 WAR per 82 games over a career). When that was the case, the player was generally acquired via trade once the team was competitive again. At that point, the question is no longer whether a player will still be competitive in five or six seasons, but simply whether a player who may already be beating the aging curve can manage to do so for one or two more years.
The Canadiens are in a good position on this front. The oldest member of the Habs’ core, Nick Suzuki, is only 26 years old. It should also be noted that he has the traits of a player who can remain successful for a long time, since his performance does not rely strictly on physical attributes that tend to regress with age, but rather on his hockey sense.
Five seasons without making the playoffs
Five seasons without making the playoffs are generally required to accumulate enough pieces to build a winning team. At first glance, the Canadiens do not meet this condition. However, those five seasons are not always consecutive. Teams experience ups and downs, and development is not linear. In general, the teams in our sample missed the playoffs at least five times over a seven-year span. This is also the case for the Canadiens. Montreal missed the playoffs three consecutive seasons under the Gorton–Hughes regime, but the team had also finished 24th overall in 2019–2020 and 28th overall in 2017–2018.
Good teams make big jumps
If you have read the first edition of this series, you may remember that according to Patrick Bacon’s research, 18.5% of players account for 81% of wins above replacement (WAR). In other words, the players who truly influence a team’s destiny are star players.
In recent seasons, some teams have tried to declare their rebuild over by adding depth players to their group. That strategy is doomed to fail, as those players do not affect results enough to pull a team out of the basement of its division. Instead, those teams risk handing out contracts that could become burdensome once the team is actually competitive. More importantly, this approach can deprive a team of the high draft pick it desperately needs. If those additions are not enough to make the team truly competitive, they can still be sufficient to knock it out of prime draft lottery positions. As a result, a team loses its best access to the players who will eventually make up the top 18.5%. These are the players who allow a team to exit its rebuild, since they influence more than 80% of the results, again according to Bacon.
Even though we generally expect teams to improve gradually, that is not always the case, and it is especially rare for teams that eventually win a championship. On the contrary, teams tend to make big jumps that pull them out of the bottom of the standings, and it is their stars who contribute most to that success. This is exactly what we are witnessing this year with players like Celebrini and Bedard (before his injury), who seem almost single-handedly to be altering the trajectory of their respective franchise.
This is also what Montreal managed to do last season. The Canadiens went from 28th overall in the NHL in 2023–2024 to facing the Capitals in the playoffs the following season. This year, the Habs are on track to eclipse the 91 points they recorded last season, flirting with the 100-point mark (on pace for 99.7 points). These results are made possible by the young star core the Canadiens possess. The team’s depth remains a real issue, one that will need to be addressed later if Montreal wants to become a championship-calibre team.
To put it simply, teams that try to add depth without enough elite talent end up in the mushy middle: not good enough to make the playoffs consistently, but too good to earn the high draft pick that would add another star. The best teams make a big leap when exiting their rebuild. That only happens when the star core is strong enough. If not, a team is better off securing another high pick.
The goalie during the rebuild is never the goalie who wins the Cup
The teams in our sample had a different goaltender when they won the Cup than during their rebuild. On reflection, this makes sense: if your goalie is good enough to win a championship, perhaps he is too good to allow you to consistently draft in the top five over an extended period. That said, there are different models. Some championship teams relied on a true franchise goaltender, while others leaned on a goalie who happened to have a few strong seasons when it mattered most.
The arrival and success of Jacob Fowler suggest that the Canadiens may be leaning toward the first model. Fowler currently ranks first in goals saved above expected per game among goaltenders who have played at least two games, according to MoneyPuck.
As for Samuel Montembeault, research by Rob Vollman has shown that goaltenders are incredibly unpredictable from one season to the next. Only those that are truly elite (roughly the top five) consistently repeat their success year after year. In other words, if a team has a goalie who is performing decently before its contention window opens, it may be worth considering a trade, since there is no guarantee that this goalie will still perform when it truly matters. In short, it might have been easier to trade Montembeault when he was at the peak of his value, but that is much easier to say now than it was less than a year ago, when he was part of Team Canada’s plans.
Two star centres
Still using Patrick Bacon’s definition, championship teams generally have two star players who play centre. Some of these players sit right on the border of the top-18.5% threshold defined earlier, meaning that it is not necessary to have two true superstars. Still, this is an area where Hughes and Gorton have work to do. It also depends on what you think of Michael Hage.
Of the five criteria covered today, the Canadiens meet the vast majority of them. The question of a second centre remains open, but Jacob Fowler appears well on his way to settling the goaltending issue.
In the coming days, I will take a look at what the cap sheet of a championship team typically looks like, in order to see whether the Canadiens are on the right path.