Class of the Metropolitan Division
Who is The Class of the NHL Metropolitan Division?
Great question, we’re going to tell you.
We took a look at metrics across thirteen different categories like Playoff Appearance Percentage, Playoff Series Wins Over the Past 10 Years, All-Time Team Points Leaders, and more. We weighted certain metrics, came up with a point system and have come to a definitive consensus. Let’s dive in!
The first, and perhaps most obvious metric to look at is Metropolitan (Met) Division titles:
The Capitals dominate this first category having won five of the possible nine — outside of Washington, only the Carolina have won multiple division titles going back to back in ‘22 and ‘23.
But that in itself reveals an important detail — the division has only been around for nine years and eight seasons (COVID ruined 2021) — it was established when the league restructured in 2013, so we can’t pull all our pucks in that bucket.
Playoff Appearance Percentage
This is one of the most important metrics in our opinion — a good team needs to earn a spot in the postseason on a consistent basis. And, maybe surprisingly, the class of the division in this particular metric is Philadelphia.
Historically, the Flyers been a very consistent playoff team, even if that hasn’t been the case recently (only the Devils have appeared in the playoffs fewer times over the past 10 years).
Still, we need to give credit where it’s due — the Flyers have made the playoffs an impressive 40 times in 55 seasons — that’s a 72.7% clip. They were a virtual lock for the playoffs through the entire 70s and 80s missing the postseason only twice and appearing in the Cup final 5 times, winning two. They went on another incredible streak starting in ‘95 making 11 consecutive appearances and 16 of 17 seasons from 1995-2012.
As you might expect, the Penguins and Capitals follow close behind right around 67%, and the division’s only Original 6 team, the Rangers, place fourth at 64.6%.
Playoff Appearances Last 10 Years
As we created the criteria for this assessment, we came to a consensus that we should place a little extra weight on recent performance specifically; so in this metric we look at each teams playoff performance over the past decade (2014-2023) — number of playoff appearances and playoff series wins:
Looking at these first two charts back to back reinforces why Pittsburgh and Washington probably feel like the class of the division — they’re at the top of both of these metrics, a picture of consistency while the Flyers have moved to the back of the pack.
It also shows how important the near-future is when it comes to perception. Crosby and Ovechkin have obviously helped their respective franchise’s image and success, but one player does not make a team. The Flyers had Giroux that 10 year span after all.
The two New York teams have done well in this category — The Rangers enjoyed a lot of success in the early part of this decade, making a Finals appearance in 2014, and the Islanders picked things up on the back end making three straight playoff appearances in the post-Tavares-era going to the Conference Finals in 2020 and 2021.
Stanley Cup Championship Percentage
So — it wouldn’t be fair to include Stanley Cup Wins as a metric — obviously — because some teams have been around much longer than others (Rangers were founded in 1926, the Blue Jackets in 2000). Although the Rangers have only managed four championships in their 96 seasons while, say, the Islanders won four in just 50 — still, it should have been a big advantage.
The fairest metric we felt was percentage (Cup wins ÷ number of seasons):
The Penguins have won the Stanley Cup an impressive 9% of the time — five cups total: two back-to-back in the Lemieux-era (1990-91/1991-1992) and three in the Crosby-era (plus a finals loss in 2008).
They’re followed closely by the Islanders who won all four of their cups consecutively in their 1980s dynasty years. The Devils land in third at 6% with three championships during the Brodeur-era.
The Blue Jackets are the only team yet to bring home the cup.
All-Time Goal Leaders
In the following sections, we took closer look at each franchise’s top players. The Face of the Franchise adds a lot of value to a team — it also shows how effective ownership and management is at drafting, trading attracting and keeping franchise players.
We’ll start with All-Time Goal Leaders — leading the pack here by leaps and bounds is the only player still active with his team — the Great Eight, Alex Ovechkin:
If you’re a hockey fan, you have to be excited about what Ovechkin is doing. At the completion of the 2023 season, he sits just 72 goals behind Gretzky’s record — a record nobody thought could be challenged. It’s not a definite that he’ll get there — that’s still a shitload of goals to score — but it’s going to be fun to watch him try over the next few seasons.
Super Mario holds the Penguins record in this category at 690 — at the time of this writing, Sidney Crosby is about 150 goals shy of that mark — Sid will probably need five more good seasons if he hopes to challenge that record, we’ll see what happens!
Behind Lemieux is arguably the best pure goal scorer of all time, Mike Bossy. Mike’s career — like Lemieux’s — was cut short due to injury, but he is the NHL’s all time leader in Goals Per Game at 0.762. Mario is right behind him in second — who knows what the record books might look like had those two stayed healthier.
No other teams premier goal scorers reached the 500 mark and only one player is still active — Eric Staal — who has scored 451 career goals for six different teams (at the time of this writing).
All-Time Point Leaders
Mario Lemieux leads this category with 1,723 career points which is good for eight on the all-time list. He’s also the only player in the top 10 that didn’t get to 1,000 games played — in fact he’s the only player in the top 40 that didn’t hit the 1,000 game mark. The Penguins have had no shortage of brilliant offensive talent over the years including Ron Francis who is on this list for the Hurricanes (Francis had 613 points for Pittsburgh, seventh all time for the organization). Second on the Penguin’s all time list is Sidney Crosby, who at the time of this writing sits at 1,470 points. He’ll need another four good seasons to catch up to Lemieux — should be fun to keep an eye on.
Ovechkin trails Crosby in this category, but he’s still tops for the Capitals. Peter Bondra, the previous record holder at 825 points, was passed by both Ovi and Nicklas Bäckström (1,016 points).
Trottier comes in at third on this list, nineteenth all time (1,425 points including his time with the Penguins in the early 90s. Nobody on the Islanders is close to approaching this record — Tavares was the perhaps the last hope before he left the franchise at 621 points, but even that was a longshot (he’s now at 948). For reference, Josh Bailey is the next active Islander on the list at 576 but his best days are behind him. The new face of Islanders hockey is Mat Barzal who might have the talent to put up numbers like this, but he hasn’t produced enough yet to seriously be in this conversation.
Philly’s last franchise player Claude Giroux got somewhat close to Bobby Clarke’s record before shipping out to Ottawa — he ended his tenure with the Flyers at 900 points. No active player is looks likely to make a run outside of maybe Travis Konecny, but not likely.
Patrik Elias was a stud — leading the Devils organization in points with 1,025. Jersey has new crop of offensive talent lead by Jack Hughes with a ton of hockey in front of them.
The Rangers have been around since the 1920’s and Rod Gilbert remains the only player in franchise history to surpass the 1,000 point mark and it will stay that way for a while, we don’t see anyone currently in the organization likely to challenge this record.
Ron Francis and Rick Nash round us out under the 1,000 point mark for their clubs (we include Hartford Whalers history with Carolina). Francis is fifth all-time with 1,798 points over the span of his career which was split between Hartford/Carolina and Pittsburgh. Sebastian Aho will likely challenge this record (447 points / 489 games played). Nash’s record may stand for a while — defenseman Zach Werenski might be the best possibility (245 points / 416 games played).
All-Time Point Leaders Defensemen
Look at the two New York teams dominating this category — they sit seventh and eighth respectively on the all-time list for defensemen (Leetch at 1,028, Potvin played his full career with the Isles). It’s especially impressive to see two of the league’s current premier offensive defensemen, Kris Letang and John Carlson, side by side with Leetch and Potvin — both Letang and Carlson are top-10 among active defensemen (3rd & 6th) and both approaching the 1,000 game mark (Leetch retired at 1,205 and Potvin at 1,060).
Zach Werenski will be fun to continue watching — the young defenseman has a lot of career ahead of him and we expect he’ll be up there with Letang and Carlson.
The other defensive metric that we included in this evaluation is Plus/Minus — in the future, we’re considering using Goals Above Replacement (GAR) as a metric as well.
All-Time Goalie Wins Leaders
God damn Martin Brodeur — doubt anyone will be touching this single-team record in our lifetime. He’s number one all time, in a class of his own — towering over Lundqvist (459 / 6th all time) and Fluery (536 with 4 teams / 3rd all time). Metropolitan division teams have been home to some of the best goalies, continuing with the new generation of talent in Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin and Carter Hart.
Other goalie metrics that we included in this evaluation are Save Percentage, Shutout Percentage and Goals Against Average.
Results
And the winner — the Class of the Metropolitan Division is….
The Pittsburgh Penguins
Thanks for reading — we plan to update this again at the end of the 2023-24 season, so check back again. Questions, errors, concerns email chris@beastcoastcoffee.com
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Data sourced from Champs or Chumps and Quant Hockey. All content and imagery is open for share and use, please just credit Beast Coast Coffee & Collectibles where relevant. Thank you!.
