It's one way. I don't have to tell you it depends which rules they choose to enforce.
In order to distract it from building a virus to kill all humans, I got an A.I. to build a couple of charts for me.
And because it asked nicely, I let it run some stats:
Descriptives of the Weight Premium
When evaluating the dataset as a single distribution, the overall numbers confirm a persistent, baseline physical premium:
• Mean Relative Margin: +1.79 lbs above the league average.
• Standard Deviation of the Margin: 5.52 lbs
The [A.I.'s] Takeaway: Statistically, a Stanley Cup champion's weight is largely independent of league-wide norms. While the average champion carries a ~1.8 lb advantage over the field, the extremely low \(R^{2}\) values indicate that winning size profiles are highly volatile and dependent on specific team identities rather than league macro-trends.
Of course, the analysis is only as good as the data, and I'm not confident that the teams accurately report player weights.
My takeaway (not the A.I.'s) is that size is one possible asset to bring into the playoffs, but it's not the only way to build a winner. It's probably a good buffer against the effects of the playoff grind (one boxing coach told me that the reason for weight classes was not so much the difference in how hard the boxers could hit as the amount of punishment they could absorb), but at the athletic level where everyone is at the limits, increases in size have to be paid off against decreases in acceleration and endurance.
The reason the Canucks need size is that they can't count on the League to enforce the rules. The less the rules are enforced, the more important size becomes. So, a big team is the conservative choice. The lightest team in the League this year is the Avalanche. We'll see how that shakes out.
