NHL preseason: The Viktor Stalberg effect

Matt Horner
September 29, 2011

After a long, unrelenting summer, the first sign of on-ice action is met with jubilation in the hockey community. NHL training camps open, the media takes note and the first official games of the year are played after an almost unbearable three-month absence. Sure, they’re preseason games, but come September, fans will take anything they can get.

Maybe it’s the lengthy wait  between the Stanley Cup Final and the first exhibition game of the new season, but a disconcerting trend has developed among such hockey-starved fans, one that regularly involves the hastiest of hyperbole surrounding some of the headline-grabbing prospects during the first few weeks of play.

Call it “The Viktor Stalberg Effect.”

In 2009, Stalberg, then of the Toronto Maple Leafs, scored six goals in eight preseason games. He possessed, it seemed, blazing speed and was looked at as the “real deal” in Toronto, a city not unfamiliar with preemptively anointing their heroes.

Stalberg’s preseason dominance led to a disappointing rookie season that culminated in 14 points in 40 NHL games and a demotion to the American Hockey League.

Stalberg was dealt to Chicago as a part of a package that brought Kris Versteeg to the Leafs the following year, but the change of scenery resulted in only 24 points in 77 games with the Hawks. Now, while it’s too early to write Stalberg off, he hasn’t looked like the player he was perceived as during that magical preseason – and maybe he never will.

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Another vivid example is Brandon Bochenski. In 2005, Bochenski, then a promising Senators forward who scored 70 points in the AHL during the lockout, scored nine points in five preseason games.

This led Don Cherry to predict that Bochenski would win the Rookie of the Year Award over heavy favorites like Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. Instead, Bochenski played 20 games, was sent back to the AHL and is currently playing in the Kontinental Hockey League after years of failing to crack the NHL.

Those two are prime examples of why you should never put too much stock into games where teams ice rosters largely composed of youngsters soon to be sent back to the AHL or, in some cases, Junior hockey. It’s not until the final preseason game that teams have a lineup that will even resemble the one it will take into opening night. Plus, according to the CBC’s Elliotte Friedman, veteran players don’t really start trying until the second week of exhibition play.

Over a stretch of five to 10 games played against largely minor league lineups, almost anyone can get hot and look like a budding superstar. For that reason, the scoring leaders don’t usually resemble those at the end of the regular season.

Last year, Phil Kessel led all preseason scorers with 10 points in six games. By the end of the regular season he was tied for 36th. Other past leaders include Mike Comrie, Andy McDonald and Derek Roy. Out of the three, only Roy finished higher than 20th in league scoring. More strikingly, over the last four years, only five players who finished in the top 10 in preseason scoring finished that way at the end of the regular season.

If we, as a hockey community, intend on ignoring a player’s individual stats in the preseason, we must also discount overall team performance since it’s not all too informative either.

Calgary went undefeated in seven preseason games last year and brought hope to the Flames faithful that their squad would rebound after a disappointing 2009-10. They fell flat on their face to start the regular season and missed the playoffs.

It’s not really important if a team has a lousy record in the preseason either. In 2010, the eventual Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins went 1-3-1 and the Vancouver Canucks went 3-5. The year before, the Philadelphia Flyers only won two of their seven preseason games, yet made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final; similarly, the Chicago Blackhawks only won one of four preseason games, but ended the season with a championship parade.

Good or bad, a team’s preseason record, like players’ statistics, guarantees absolutely nothing.

But despite the triviality of the preseason, there’s one adage that’s always true: the only way you win in the preseason is by escaping without an injury.

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The Author:

Matt Horner