BobbyAwe
Registered User
and here you are, continuing to ignore that the league growing during Orr's tenure does NOT mean he got to play against scrubs.
There was an abundance of top talent not in the NHL because of its size. the AHL of the time was on par with mid level NHL teams of today. Expansion simply added more jobs for NHL quality players.
The 2nd expansion added already established professional franchises from a rival league. Teams that boasted elite talent that would dominate the NHL...like a certain someone named Gretzky, as well as Mark Howe, Cheevers, Parent, Tremblay.
Stop acting like the league brought in teams of beer leaguers
In the first 3 years of expansion, the St. Louis Blues went to the SC finals representing the Western Division expansion teams and were SWEPT each time. They were 0-12 against "Original 6" teams in the finals. In 1967-68, there was NOBODY from an expansion team to make the top 10 in scoring in the league, and NOBODY from an expansion team on the First OR Second All-Star team picks.
Does that sound like the expansion teams were stocked with an "abundance of top talent"? You can't be serious?