"Your whole team should be built for 16 games."
“My whole philosophy of building teams, I owe to Bill Torrey (legendary Islanders GM). After we won (in Anaheim), I called him and thanked him. I asked him once, you won four straight Cups — people can argue that might have been one of the greatest teams ever — I’m a young GM, can you educate me on this? He said, it’s very simple. You have to win four playoff series to win a Stanley Cup, 16 games. He said, your whole team should be built for 16 games. He said, in the course of those four series, you’re going to play a big team. You’re going to play a really fast team. You’re going to play a team that relies on special teams, more like a trap team might in Jersey, a team that has great special teams. Then you’re going to see a hybrid of one of them. In no particular sequence. You’ve got to be big enough to beat the big team. Quick enough to beat the speed team. Special teams have to be good so you need power play specialists and PK specialists. Then, the hybrid, you need a blend of all it. And goaltending, obviously they had great goaltending.”
