What makes them successful on the ice? They're trying to win while most of the teams they play are trying to develop talent.
Washington has drafted (by my count) 28 players over the last 5 years minus the 2024 draft. As of right now, only (by my count) 6 players have played more than 5 games for Hershey. Hershey is signing players who are just shy of being NHL-level talent and are likely carried by their six registered veterans. As of this past season, they were the second oldest team in the league with an average age of over 26 years old with over 550 games of NHL experience on the roster. That puts them behind the only Chicago Wolves, who famously try to win and not develop talent (something they were perennially successful at doing until this past season).
Coachella Valley has done the same thing. They were 13th oldest in the 32 team league. Over 350 games of NHL experience despite the Seattle Kraken being in existence for only three seasons.
Look at the rosters of the teams they're playing. Are those teams trying to be competitive? Yes, but to a point. They're existing to develop talent and let the 20-23 year olds get better so they can play with the big club one day. Hershey, and to a much lesser extent Coachella Valley, aren't trying to do that. They're trying to bring home a big trophy at the end of each season. That isn't to say the fans don't want their team to win. That isn't to say the players aren't fighting tooth and nail for a chance to lift the Calder Trophy. But (for the most part) the coaches and general managers are prioritizing PP time for their 22 year old second rounder from 2021 over the 28 year old veteran who couldn't find a NHL roster spot and didn't want to go to Europe. Developing that kid is their goal over giving the vet his cookie, for better or for worse.
I never knew about some AHL teams prioritizing winning over developing, since I pay more attention to the NHL, even though the AHL & ECHL are both important for development in the US.
However, even though development will still occur, especially if you play for Hershey, Coachella, Chicago, or even Colorado from
@Avsrule2022 it makes me wonder what the AHL would look like if every team had a focused mixture between developing young players and winning the Calder Cup as well?
Furthermore, it would've been nice to see Coachella win it all, just because they're an expansion team, even though some people have mixed feelings about Vegas almost winning it all during their inaugural season, the opportunity to win it all during your first season is quite rare IMO, yet Vegas and Coachella make it look routine.
On an extra note, I remember someone mentioning their opinion (on Reddit) about the remaining NHL teams who haven't won a cup (yet) or haven't won the cup in awhile (they got down-voted as well for saying this about teams who haven't had playoff success in the NHL):
"Honestly most of those franchises suck and are poorly managed. I blame poor management for a lot of those failures. So no. I think most of them will never win a Cup or at least not for a very long time. Even though it now makes it easier for more teams to be competitive due to salary cap which is going to prevent a lot of dynasty Cup winning teams which used to happen in the old days."
