A social media trend that emerged over the past week has people posting about 2016, which if you didn’t realize, is now officially ten years ago. That got us thinking about the NHL season from ten years ago. Specifically we thought of the 2015-2016 season since it ended with a cup champion for that calendar year.
Interestingly both teams from the 2016 cup final have taken very different paths over the decade that followed. That year’s cup final was between the San Jose Sharks and Pittsburgh Penguins. The Sharks were notably making their first ever franchise appearance. Pittsburgh won its fourth championship in franchise history in six games.
What’s happened since then? Well things look pretty similar in Pittsburgh, for the most part. The trio of Sidney Crosby, who won that year’s Conn Smythe awards, Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin all still are contributing on Pittsburgh’s roster. Obviously the supporting cast has changed. For example, gone are Karl Hagelin, Phil Kessel and Nick Bonnino (remember that famous “HBK” line) as Erik Karlsson and Rickard Rickell find themselves on the score sheet nowadays.
Bryan Rust is a returning member of the supporting cast. The biggest change has been in goal where franchise icon Marc Andre Fleury (who remains a Penguins icon) has since been sent off (and now retired) and the crease now belongs to recent trade acquisition Stuart Skinner. Rookie Matt Murray did most of the heavy lifting that cup run. After some lean years the Penguins are firmly in the playoff mix once again with new head coach Dan Muse. The cup winning bench boss Mike Sullivan was in Pittsburgh up until last season.
Things are entirely different for the then Western Conference champion San Jose Sharks. After another trip to the Western Conference final in 2019 the Sharks entered an era of a prolonged rebuild. New general manager Mike Grier replaced long time Doug Wilson, architect of that 2016 team, back in 2022. The building blocks of that 2016 team were Patrick Marleau, Logan Couture, and Joe Thornton. All left San Jose and have since retired. Marleau returned twice. He and Thornton have since both had their numbers retired. They are the only ones to receive the honor from the franchise.
Three other main pieces were Brett Burns, Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier. All three are still are in the league but on different teams. Burns finds himself on the Colorado Avalanche and Meier on the New Jersey Devils. Hertl was the last to leave when he was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights at the 2024 trade deadline. Pete DeBoer was head coach of the Sharks for that cup run and they’ve gone through three others since their rebuild.
The rebuild has netted San Jose some of the most exciting young talent in the NHL. First up were the likes of William Eklund and Will Smith, and more recently Michael Misa in the pipeline. The crown jewel of the rebuild was 2024 first overall pick Macklin Celebrini who has since become a league phenomenon and international superstar. As a Sharks fan and they’ll tell you those lean years were worth it for the force that is Celebrini.
How ironic is it that one team has the same core not only intact, but being productive and producing while the other has gone through a nearly complete rebuild? If anything it speaks to the longevity of Crosby, Malkin and Letang through their storied carriers. If we want to be incredibly technical Fleury did play for Pittsburgh this season in a preseason game as well. Both teams, as of Tuesday morning, are firmly in the playoff mix for both their respective conferences. A 2016 Stanley Cup matchup repeat isn’t entirely out of the question.
Even if we said we were going to focus on the cup final let’s take a look at the “big picture” of how the league has changed since then. Two expansion teams have entered as the Golden knights and Seattle Kraken. One team relocated (or as the NHL likes to say in their word salad “went inactive while they added another expansion team”) as the Arizona Coyotes became the Utah Mammoth. Somewhat more impressive is the league has had labor peace after going through separate lockouts in 2004-2005 and 2012-2013.