Scoring depth a more important Stanley Cup ingredient than superstars
Welcome to part 2 of Daily Faceoff Stanley Cup Ingredients 2025-26. To catch you up: I’ve crafted a formula consisting of seven common ingredients among recent Stanley Cup champions, using the previous 10 seasons as the sample. You can click here for a more detailed breakdown of the formula and how accurately it has predicted teams going deep in the playoffs.
Earlier this week, we commenced the annual series by exploring the (fading!) correlation between team weight and championships. Next, we assess how important top-tier scorers are to capturing the Stanley Cup.
Stanley Cup Ingredient #2: TOP-10 SCORERS
We’ve teams win the Stanley Cup scoring by committee, but so many of the greatest teams of all-time to have marquee scorers, the players you can count on to fight through difficult matchups, tie games in the dying minutes or come up with iconic overtime winners. The dynastic franchises in particular have counted on superstars. That was true of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s, the New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings in the 1990s and so on. In the salary-cap era, the Penguins, Chicago Blackhawks and Tampa Bay Lightning all carried Art Ross and Hart Trophy grade talents on their championship squads.
But is the correlation still as strong today? Let’s look at the past 10 Stanley Cup champs and how many boasted at least one of the league’s 10 best scorers at the time.
We define “Top-10 scorer” as (a) a player who finished top 10 in points during the year his team won the Stanley Cup or (b) a player who likely would have if not for injury, based on per-game scoring average, and returned in time for the playoffs. The latter are marked with asterisks.
| Season | Champion | Top-10 scorers |
| 2015-16 | Pittsburgh | 2 (Crosby, Malkin*) |
| 2016-17 | Pittsburgh | 2 (Crosby, Malkin*) |
| 2017-18 | Washington | 0 |
| 2018-19 | St. Louis | 0 |
| 2019-20 | Tampa Bay | 1 (Kucherov) |
| 2020-21 | Tampa Bay | 1 (Kucherov*) |
| 2021-22 | Colorado | 1 (MacKinnon*) |
| 2022-23 | Vegas | 0 |
| 2023-24 | Florida | 0 |
| 2024-25 | Florida | 0 |
Stanley Cup correlation: Fading
Part 1 of the series led with the revelation that the heavy hockey trend was evaporating; looks like we’re two for two. The past three Stanley Cup champs, and five of the past eight, have lacked top-10 scorers in the NHL. What we might be seeing here: deeper teams who don’t tie up all their cap space in one or two superstars are better equipped for deep playoff runs. Also: load management comes into play. The Panthers, for instance, had multiple players averaging north of a point per game last season in Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart. But Tkachuk only played 41 regular season games and Barkov 67; based on their per-game scoring averages, they would’ve finished with 90 and 87 points, respectively, had they played full schedules, which would’ve landed them 11th and 17th in points. But the Panthers didn’t play Tkachuk between the 4 Nations Face-Off and start of the postseason and gave pretty much all their regulars bouts of rest in early April, sacrificing regular-season wins and home-ice advantage for a fresher team in the playoffs.
So the Panthers did have plenty of dangerous scorers but essentially encased them in bubble wrap until late April before crusading to their second straight Stanley Cup. Still, even if they hadn’t load managed their stars, they’d still be a ‘0’ in the top-10 scorers column.
Let’s take a look at the current NHL scoring leaderboard, sorted by points per game and with a minimum of 40 games played, through March 17’s action:
2025-26 scoring leaders, points per game (min. 40 GP)
1. Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning, 1.79
2. Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche, 1.69
3. Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers, 1.67
4. Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Oilers, 1.49
5. Macklin Celebrini, San Jose Sharks, 1.44
6. Mark Stone, Vegas Golden Knights, 1.35
7. David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins, 1.30
8. Martin Necas, Colorado Avalanche, 1.29
9. Mikko Rantanen, Dallas Stars, 1.28
10. Mark Scheifele, Winnipeg Jets, 1.25
Not surprisingly, eight player in the top 10 belong to a teams occupying playoff spots, not to mention some top Stanley Cup favorites in Colorado and Tampa. But the recent trends tell us to look deeper than the top 10 and see which teams if any have multiple players in the next tier down.
Is having multiple point-per game players now more important of a correlation than top-10 scorer(s)? Let’s test the theory using the past 10 champs:
Stanley Cup Ingredient #2 (Revised): POINT-PER-GAME PLAYERS
| Season | Champion | Point-per-game players |
| 2015-16 | Pittsburgh | 2 (Crosby, Malkin) |
| 2016-17 | Pittsburgh | 2 (Crosby, Malkin) |
| 2017-18 | Washington | 2 (Ovechkin, Kuznetsov) |
| 2018-19 | St. Louis | 0 |
| 2019-20 | Tampa Bay | 2 (Kucherov, Stamkos) |
| 2020-21 | Tampa Bay | 1 (Kucherov*) |
| 2021-22 | Colorado | 5 (MacKinnon, Rantanen, Kadri, Landeskog, Makar) |
| 2022-23 | Vegas | 0 |
| 2023-24 | Florida | 3 (Reinhart, Tkachuk, Barkov) |
| 2024-25 | Florida | 3 (Tkachuk, Barkov, Reinhart) |
Stanley Cup correlation: Very Strong
Bingo. Eight of the past 10 Stanley Cup winners had at least two point-per-gamers, and three of the past four have had three or more point-per-gamers.
Here’s what happens if we apply the formula to see who has the most point-per-game players today, through March 17:
2025-26 NHL leaders, point-per-game players (Min. 40 GP)
T-1. Colorado Avalanche, 3
T-1. Dallas Stars, 3
T-1. Edmonton Oilers, 3
T-1. Minnesota Wild, 3
T-1. Montreal Canadiens, 3
T-1. Vegas Golden Knights, 3
T-1. Tampa Bay Lightning, 3
T-8. Anaheim Ducks, 2
T-8. Detroit Red Wings, 2
T-8. Ottawa Senators, 2
T-8. Pittsburgh Penguins, 2
T-8. Winnipeg Jets, 2
Five of the top seven teams in the overall standings this season have three point-per-game players. Three of those teams have three point-per-game players but also at least one player in the top 10 in per-game scoring; the Avalanche, Stars and Lightning have the depth and the top-end talent. But any team with multiple point-per-game threats needs to be respected come playoff time. It seems multiple B+ or A- scorers trump having that one A++ scorer in the modern game.
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Previous instalments of Stanley Cup Ingredients 2026
Next up: Top-10 goalies
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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