Penguins and Predators made the Stanley Cup Final with patience, not big trades

In the past, you’d rarely accuse NHL teams of being free-wheeling, free-agent spenders or big-splash trademakers.

That’s changed lately, with teams like the Florida Panthers exhausting massive amounts of cap room to overhaul their team last summer. Big trade swings have already happened this spring, with the Stars and Hurricanes trading for new starting goalies mid-playoffs.

So it’s fascinating that the two Stanley Cup Final teams this year go against that grain so often. Aside from two notable exceptions, the Nashville Predators and Pittsburgh Penguins have reached this point with team-building patience.

One was a lauded change of scenery, and the other one is still shocking to this day.

Phil Kessel’s time in Toronto had run out, so the Leafs traded the speedy scoring winger to Pittsburgh for prized prospect Kasperi Kapanen. We’ve already seen how this played out. Kessel is now as key a core member in Pittsburgh as Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin.

Meanwhile, the Subban trade last summer still has us shaking our heads. If you’re not deriving some sort of schadenfreude from Subban reaching the Stanley Cup final in his first season after the trade, you’re lying. Penguins winger Chris Kunitz said after Game 7 that the Predators have four Erik Karlsson-type defensemen; Subban is one of them. They don’t get to this point without that gutsy trade last summer.

Oh, the suitors were there. I think. Probably.

Just look at how quickly the goalie market dried up. The offseason hasn’t begun yet, and Ben Bishop and Scott Darling are already off the market. And Bishop was traded at the trade deadline.

So surely the Penguins could’ve gotten something for their now-backup netminder. At the time, something seemed worth it with the idea of Fleury leaving in the expansion draft that’s looming. But Penguins GM Jim Rutherford decided on inaction. His team won the Stanley Cup last year in part because it had a capable backup (Matt Murray) ready to step in when its starter got injured.

That non-move paid off in spades. Murray got injured before Game 1 of the first round and didn’t reappear until the Eastern Conference Final. In the meantime, Fleury re-asserted himself as a strong starting goalie. Do the Penguins escape that Capitals series without his late-game heroics? Doubtful. Do they escape with rookie Tristan Jarry manning the pipes instead? Even less so. The best move is the one the Penguins didn’t make.

None of the Predators’ defensemen is over 30 years old, but many of them feel like they’ve been around forever. If you follow hockey casually the names might sound somewhat familiar, even if you couldn’t tell me anything about them. Ryan Ellis. Mattias Ekholm. Roman Josi.

All were drafted almost a decade ago: Josi (second round) in 2008 and Ellis (11th overall) and Ekholm (fourth round) in 2009. All of them became NHL pros just two years later.

That’s not entirely normal. The common idea in hockey is that defensemen and goalies need a lot of time marinating in the minors before they’re truly ready for the NHL. Learning on the fly is not ideal and can sometimes lead to teams souring on their young d-men and moving on from them earlier than they should — especially for a team like the Predators, who have been on the cusp of contention off-and-on throughout those defensemen’s careers.

But Predators GM David Poile, known for his well-trained eye for quality defensemen, never pulled the plug early on his young defenders. The only time he did was with Seth Jones, who he traded to fill a huge gap: top center Ryan Johansen.

That developmental patience obviously paid off. Josi is one of the league’s best two-way defensemen. Ellis is as gritty as any talented, offensive-minded blueliner in the game. His 16 goals this year are a career-high. And Ekholm is exceptional at each end. Adding Subban only rounded out the best top four in the league.

It’s natural for NHL teams to try and copy the blueprints of the league’s successful franchises. The blueprints of the Cup finalists this year are simple. Draft well. Invest in patient development. Stay off the high-spending train in free agency. Don’t make panic trades, mortgaging the future for a 50-50 shot at winning it all. And don’t just move players because you might lose them. Losing them is worth it if you win a Cup. Depth is more important than anything. That one big trade you make should accentuate, not deplete, the depth you’ve spent years molding.

The Penguins and Predators might not be the splashiest teams this season. But they’re the gold standard of franchise-building in the NHL right now, and their Stanley Cup Finals berths are proof.