The 1929-30 Bruins were largely the result of liberalized forward passing rule changes without all the necessary adjustments in place to offside rules.
A rule change which affects every team in the league is a very different subject than massive roster losses that affect different teams in drastically different ways. 1943/44 had both, yet you attribute effects to only one.
From their 1942/43 squad, the 1943/44 Habs lost Joe Benoit and Gordie Drillon to the military. Two good goal-scorers, but compared to the other teams, they had it easy.
The champion Red Wings lost Sid Abel, Harry Watson, Eddie Wares, Jack Stewart, Alex Motter, Jimmy Orlando and goalie Johnny Mowers. That's basically half the team, and certainly more than half in terms of player value.
Toronto lost Billy Taylor, Gaye Stewart, Syl Apps, Sweeney Schriner, Bud Poile and goalie Turk Broda.
The Rangers lost Lynn Patrick, Hank Goldup, Alf Pike, Vic Myles, Bob Kirkpatrick and Scotty Cameron.
Chicago lost Max Bentley, Red Hamill, Bob Carse and George Johnston. Other than Bentley, that's not bad. But losing Bentley alone would have been bad enough.
Boston lost only one position player of import in Jack Shewchuk (and a lesser one in Jackie Schmidt), but also lost a fellow named Frank Brimsek.
So Montreal had it easy with respect to player losses to the military. They also added Bill Durnan and Maurice Richard, of course, which by itself may have propelled them to the top of the league, but in terms of a historic season the sudden, drastic reduction in quality in most of the other teams has to be considered.
And as I said in my post, it has "a bit" of an effect. So attempting to read this as me writing off the 1944 Canadiens is bizarre.
Linking the 1943-44 results to WWII circumstances is like linking 1929-30 results to the 1929 October stock market crash. Coincidental but no cause and effect connection.
See above. Two First-Team All-Stars and four Second-Team All-Stars from the previous season were in the military. Half of the league's starting goalies were in the military; those three were one-two-three in GAA in 1942/43. Three of the top six point scorers were in the military. None of these players were lost to the Canadiens; the great majority of the good players were lost to other teams. To suggest this has no effect on the game on the ice, particularly with respect to the best teams' relative performance, that it's mere coincidence, is nutty.