After watching the Jackets this season the answer to that question is a resounding no. However, the success of the Lake Erie Monsters has many people, myself included, curious if AHL success correlates to future NHL success. The example commonly brought up is the Tampa Bay Lightning. It wasn’t that long ago when they were a bottom team in the league selecting third overall. While the Lightning struggled, they had a dominant AHL team carried by guys like Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat, players who now represent the core of their NHL franchise. Given their success, I wanted to see if this correlation occurred for other successful AHL teams or if Tampa Bay was just an exception.
Looking back at every Calder Cup Finalist since the 2004-05 lockout gives us a sample of 22 teams. I looked at how the NHL team did in the following seasons, both in the immediate and long term future. I also looked at the average age of the top six playoff scorers. Using the top six provides an idea of who was driving the team’s success. An argument could be made to use the average age of the entire team but I felt that could be skewed easily by having a large veteran (or youth) presence. Using playoff scorers allowed me to include players who were not part of the team during the regular season. Zach Werenski for example, is a massive part of this run for Lake Erie, but of course spent the regular season playing in the NCAA. If the theory for Tampa Bay is correct where the younger the average age, the more likely the NHL team would be to have success, winning with prospects should be much more beneficial than winning with AHL lifers.
We will start with how the NHL teams did in the immediate future, looking at whether they made the playoffs the following season. The teams that missed the playoffs, have brackets indicating how many seasons after reaching the AHL finals it took the corresponding parent clubs to reach the NHL playoffs. I have bolded the teams that had an average age under-23 as they are the most comparable to the Monsters. All data gathered from HockeyDB.com.
Turning our attention again to the seven bolded teams, six have made the playoffs multiple times in the years since. Not only did these teams make the playoffs, they had a ton of success as you can see by the fact that Philadelphia and Tampa Bay both advanced to the Cup Final. In contrast, Washington has struggled in the playoffs but has been a dynamite regular season team and Montreal despite their recent struggles were able to get to two Conference Finals. The worst case scenario is in Toronto where the Leafs only managed one playoff appearance and weren’t able to get out of the first round.
Finally, I looked at notable players for each team. I tried to look for players who, at the time, would have been considered prospects or were young enough to think they could make the NHL. This didn’t happen in every case as the older teams just didn’t have a ton of prospects to choose from. What I wanted to show here was that even when the NHL team didn’t have success the AHL team was still able to develop quality players. Take the Toronto Marlies for example. The Leafs haven’t done very well since that Calder Cup run, but that Marlie team did produce Nazem Kadri and Jake Gardiner who have gone on to become strong NHL players.
The hope for the Jackets is players like Werenski and Bjorkstrand can become part of their young core alongside Seth Jones, Ryan Murray, Brandon Saad and whoever the team takes with the third overall pick in the draft.
Conclusion
As much as I would like to answer the question posed in the title with a “yes…, I would consider it more of a “maybe… since we can’t say anything definitively. A lot more goes into building a sustained contender than just the success of the AHL team. With that being said, the Blue Jackets are on the right path as they have built a young and successful AHL team. They should be expected to make the playoffs within the next two seasons and from there should see a sustained run of playoff appearances. Whether or not they reach the pinnacle of hockey will depend on how players develop and if management can continue to add and maintain talent.
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