I dont think Vorbiev will ever play because it will cost way too much to insure him and there is no way the Leafs will front that, unless they can get him to sign some sort of waiver
the more i think about it the more I want them to go after Tanguay, he isnt getting a ton of offers (that are known) and he would make a nice contributing forward.
too bad there arnt any good scoring centers out there

The biggest thing about developing your own stars is that it allows you more money to fill out the rest of the roster.

Last year Malkin was a $3.8M cap hit and Staal was a $2.2M cap hit.
This coming year Malkin will be a $8.7M cap hit and Staal will be a $4M cap hit.

One quibble Fedorov was drafted by the Wings in the infamous 1989 Draft.

Rod Brind’amour was drafted by St. Louis, played three seasons there, then nine in Philly before being traded to Carolina.

Selanne, Pronger and Niedermayer were pretty important free agent signings in Anaheim.

Stillman and Justin Williams were big in Carolina, and Ward got a chance to shine in the playoffs only after Gerber had a great regular season.

St Louis wasn’t drafted by Tbay, he was picked up as a free agent after Calgary dumped him.

Langenbrunner led the Devils in scoring in the playoffs in 2003. He was acquired via trade.

Shanahan and Hull were important to the Wings team in 2002.

Most good teams aren’t built one way… it’s a combination of drafting, player development, trades and free agent signings.

In addition to the hot goaltender exception, there’s also the injury exception.

I’d argue that Carolina won their cup because their opponents were so banged up. By game seven of the conference finals Buffalo was so depleted they were forced to play a lucky winner from the audience each night on defence. In the finals the Canes played against Edmonton’s back-up after Roloson blew out his knee in game one.

During Tampa’s cup season they didn’t have a single notable injury. That may have been the healthiest team to ever make a cup run.

I wonder how Detroit would have done had Lidstrom not had testicular trauma and was able to play his usual spotless 30 minutes a night…

I believe I mentioned later on that St. Louis was not drafted. Kubina I just miss-typed I think. Fedorov is an exception because he was a star in Russia first, but he was “drafted and developped” by Detroit to an extent.

Yes, there are plenty of free agent additions who helped those teams, but all of them (minus Carolina, they are the exception with only Staal as a home-grown star) have two home-grown stars. Usually a first and second line centre (with the second line centre being more of a 1A than a 2).

Teams to watch:
Chicago (Toews and Kane)
Colorado (Stastny and Duchesne)
Flyers (Richards and Carter)
Bruins (Savard and Kessel)
Kings (Kopitar and Frolov)
Canucks (Sedin and Sedin) have the goalie, too. What are they missing?

Very good point about the salary savings from growing your own. Sens for example developped Alfie and Spezza, but the third piece, Heatley, might have cost them too much. Three big ticket guys is too many. It hurts your depth. Montreal will suffer through this, as will the Rangers (although, the 94 team would be the exception to the “you can’t buy a championship” rule).

Obviously there are no sure things (see injury exception, among other things), but seems to me the way to go is grow your own.

Didn’t Brad Richards win the Conn Smythe the year they got the cup? That was definitely a 3-man effort that year..

But I really don’t think this formulaic crap makes much sense.

2/3/4 – it takes a whole team to win a Stanley Cup. Star forwards help a hell of a lot, but they aren’t a requirement. Having a top D man is great, but if he’s injured it hurts you a lot – look at Pittsburgh with and without Gonchar this past season.

Anaheim might have had Getzlaf and Perry when they won their cup, but Selanne and MacDonald were more important in their cup winning run, and I’d say Pronger, and Neidermayer and Giguere had more to do with it than either of the “2” you cited.

Hurricanes had a few things going for them, not the least of which was Cory Stillman, who you seem to be forgetting. Stillman was one of the best hired guns for the playoffs in recent years, as he also lit it up with Tampa Bay the year they won the cup. He was a free agent signing and he was one of the top scorers for both squads when they won their cups.

Brad Richards was a hell of a lot better when the Lightning had Stillman, Modin, and Fedotenko playing with them. St. Louis and Lecavalier were a lot better too. Funny how a supporting cast can do that.

Marc Savard was drafted by Calgary and bounced around before landing in Boston. He wasn’t developed by the Bruins. Nor was Zdeno Chara, or Denis Wideman, or Michael Ryder, or Tim Thomas (he was developed in Finland really), or Manny Fernandez. They’ve got some young talent, but apparently they can’t resign all of it.

Washington and Chicago are the next closest thing, but now they’ve got problems with free agency don’t they.

Why Detroit gets credit for having a big “2” when they had Fedorov, Larionov, Konstantinov, Fetisov, Kozlov, and more recently Holmstrom, Zetterberg, Franzen, Lidstrom, etc. Let’s face it, they were developed by the Soviet Red Army and the Swedish Elite League… not Detroit’s minor league system… development my arse. Heck toss in the fact that the team blew for the first decade Yzerman was on the club and you could argue against him developing so much as them adding pieces around him. I won’t bother getting into Chelios, Lidstrom, Shanahan, Hull, etc. at this point since I digress.

Ottawa has “developed” nowhere and they’ve gone through Alfredsson, Hossa, Bonk, Havlat, Spezza, Heatley, and apparently next up is Kovalev. I wonder if they’ll ever get it done? probably not. They had all those great D too… Chara, Redden, Phillips… so much for the best laid plans.

Dallas developed Modano, Langenbrunner, Hatcher… but then they also had Verbeek, Nieuwendyk, Carbonneau, Hull etc. I mean you can’t seriously think they win the Cup without all those veterans that played in previous Cup finals.

Let’s face it… the team needs some seasoning, and deciding whether or not we get one great forward through free agency now or later has nothing to do with it.