I mean am I the only person on this forum who actually thinks players (of any sport) today are better than 70 years ago? How can it be not obvious? I even saw a post on this forum saying if Howe played in the 80s he'd be getting 180+ seasons, essentially saying the opposite. This is beyond delusional.
Players generally improve as fitness/nutrition trend upwards and coaching has the benefit of accounting for everything that has come before. However, that doesn't really say anything about the talent of the players or their accomplishments. Gordie Howe was a product of the time he played in, so was Gretzky, so is Crosby, and so on. Given access to the same training methods and experiences as one another, the best players in any given age will be pretty much the same, relatively, no matter where in time you throw them. If you time machine Gordie Howe into a later era, sure he looks pretty sketchy at first, he's playing a game where none of the other players, his own teammates included, are doing what he expects them to. If you time machine little kid Howe into any era so by the time he hits the NHL, he's well aware of how the game is played in that time period, he's going to be the same dominant force he was back in his day.
At the end of the day, Gordie Howe played in a league where every other played had more or less the same opportunities to be good at hockey that he did, and he was the best at it. Any criticism you give him based on the era he played in can be turned around to ask "how much better would he have been had he had <insert modern advantages>?" Ultimately every comparison across eras comes down to that, if you believe the players of one time period have access to better training/equipment/fitness/etc, then you have to admit that the guys from outside your favourite era would be even better if they had the advantages your favourites had. Whether we're talking Howe or Gretzky, we have no reason not to assume it evens out enough that we can judge them based on how much they stood out from their direct competition.