When a team is woeful on the ice, it's nice to have a young roster to fall back on. With youth comes potential, and with potential you find hope.

In fact, the management of the Calgary Flames two Western Canadian rivals used the age card to wrap up their seasons, and put a positive spin on the future of their franchises.

Edmonton: "We have the youngest team in the NHL and we're definitely good enough to compete and win in the NHL playoffs," said Oilers president Patrick LaForge. "I don't think anybody wanted to play against us."

Vancouver: "As the youngest team in the playoffs, we're just going to get better. I don't see any need to go out and get a high-priced guy and I think history has proven that it's a miserable failure in most cases", said Canuck's GM Brian Burke after his squad was set aside by the eventual Stanley Cup Champions.

But is a lot of youth a good thing?

Not if you look at the statistics.

Quotes like the two above refer to the average age of a hockey team, but an average age can be very misleading.

Do you include every player that has played a minute for the team in that season? Do you only include players that have played a set number of games?

To get a better handle on true contributing roster age, Calgarypuck.com established the core of each team based on minutes played on a game in game out basis. The analysis featured each team's top six forwards, top four defenceman and top goaltender for 11 of 20 players. On most NHL teams the remaining 9 players have a much smaller role to play, and shouldn't factor in to a true age quotient.

The cores analyzed were based on off-season changes this year. For example, the Flames have Martin Gelinas in their core numbers despite the fact he was a Hurricane last season.

Last year's standings show stark differences in age when you look at on ice success.

Elite teams (teams with greater than 95 points) had an average age of 31.0 when the core of each team is examined as compared to 27.6 of the NHL's poorest entries.

To put that in perspective - that's a difference of 3.4 years of age per core player, or over 35 years of experience across the core of each team.

Only three of the top ten youngest teams (by core) made the playoffs last season, while only three of the top ten oldest squads found a way to miss out on the dance.

Clearly experience matters, but that is where the story gets complicated.

Oldest Clubs Team Points Core Age Det 114 33.1 NYR 76 31.3 Stl 88 31.2 Chi 91 30.5 Tor 91 30.5 Wha 79 30.3 Car 83 30.0 Phi 92 29.9 Mon 81 29.6 Dal 84 29.6

Youngest Clubs Team Points Core Age Van 84 27.5 Atl 50 27.3 Nas 67 27.1 Edm 87 26.9 Tby 66 26.9 NYI 88 26.6 Ott 91 26.5 Cgy 77 26.3 Fla 56 26.1 Buf 75 25.3

Often when a team falls on bad times moves will be made to shed veterans for youth to start a rebuilding process with young, unproven players.

If too many experienced players are moved the team will suffer greatly in the standings, but often recover in a shorter period of time.

Conversely, if a team doesn't cut deeply enough they'll continue to be slightly below average, just bad enough to miss the playoffs and disappoint their fans, but not bad enough to gain the assets to turn the corner.

The latter has been the rebuilding method used by the Flames, a fact they still battle today, with a largely rebuilt lineup.

When it's clear that an all-youth approach is failing miserably, teams try to find mentoring veterans to help lead the way. In the case of the Flames, established but rapidly declining veterans were added to the team each and every year because that was the only type of player they could afford.

Veterans still in their prime cost money, and money is in short supply for small market clubs.

# Team Avg. Age Payroll Rank Age Rank $ Rank Diff 1 NYR 31.3 65.9 2 1 -1 2 Phi 29.9 62.5 8 2 -6 3 Stl 31.2 60.9 3 3 0 4 Col 28.5 60.2 15 4 -11 5 Det 33.1 53.6 1 5 4 6 Wha 30.3 52.4 6 6 0 7 Mon 29.6 50.5 9 7 -2 8 Tor 30.5 48.9 5 8 3 9 Dal 29.6 47.9 9 9 0 10 Bos 28.8 47.1 13 10 -3 11 SJ 28.5 46.0 15 11 -4 12 Chi 30.5 45.2 4 12 8 13 Ana 28.7 41.2 14 13 -1 14 NJ 28.4 39.4 17 14 -3 15 NYI 26.6 34.6 26 15 -11 16 Van 27.5 34.3 21 16 -5 17 Car 30.0 34.1 7 17 10 18 Edm 26.9 33.2 24 18 -6 19 LA 29.3 32.5 11 19 8 20 Pit 27.7 32.3 20 20 0 21 Buf 25.3 31.5 30 21 -9 22 Fla 26.1 31.4 29 22 -7 23 Cgy 26.3 29.7 28 23 -5 24 Tby 26.9 28.7 24 24 0 25 Pho 28.3 28.3 18 25 7 26 Ott 26.5 28.2 27 26 -1 27 Cbs 28.3 26.0 18 27 9 28 Min 29.1 23.1 12 28 16 29 Nas 27.1 22.3 23 29 6 30 Atl 27.3 22.2 22 30 8

As a result the mentoring goal is never achieved.

You get players with diminishing skills that have great difficulty leading by example on the ice.

When a quality veteran does come up for bidding, the "have" teams scoop close to all of them up driving a further chasm between the top and bottom teams.

The table to the right shows the age to dollars comparison in the National Hockey League.

The rank differential (column #7) indicates the variance between each club's rank in average core age (column #5) and total payroll (column #6). A tight variance between the two suggests a team has an age that closely matches their budget. Only four teams have a variance that exceeds ten spots, and 16 teams have the variance at five spots or less.

The Colorado Avalanche are an exception to the rule amongst the high payroll clubs because they've done more with their youth than any other team. Players like Alex Tanguay, Chris Drury, and Milan Hejduk play large roles with the club despite their age and limited experience.

In two full years at the helm, Button has moved out veteran goaltenders that were on a sharp decline (Grant Fuhr, Mike Vernon) for a player in his prime, but with experience in Roman Turek.

On the blueline he added unrestricted free agent Bob Boughner, and up front he's made the largest impact by adding Dean McAmmond, Craig Conroy and Martin Gelinas. All four of these players have a very specific thing in common - their contract value. They all represent second tier, reliable veteran hockey players that are still on top of their core competencies.

Bob Boughner is still in his prime when it comes to being a bruising defenceman with grit, for example.

If the rest of this "vision" plays out, the assembled veteran core will lead the way for a talented, but inconsistent younger core that continues to gain experience with every game.

The timing rests firmly on this young core's collective shoulders, it could come this season, it could come next season, and sadly it may never come.

It's the incremental improvement of players like Denis Gauthier, Robyn Regehr, Derek Morris, and Jarome Iginla that will lead the Flames back to the playoffs, under the guidance of a much stronger support system.