The NHL was simply a better league. No amount of meaningless World Championships can prove otherwise.
I usually like your posts about the NHL but your lack of European hockey knowledge
is funny. How can you be so positive the NHL "was simply a better league". Just
because most of European players weren't allowed to play in the NHL due to political
reasons, so you couldn't see them playing? Alright, but they were allowed after the
fall of The Iron Curtain. The result?
In the period from 1991-2006:
Best goaltender, most Harts: Hašek (Euro)
Most Art Rosses: Jágr (Euro)
Most Norris Trophies: Lidstrom (Euro)
etc
What's your Top 10 of the world's best players during 1991-2006 period? Mine is Hašek, Jágr, Lidstrom, Bure, Forsberg, Lemieux, Bourgue, Sakic, Roy, Brodeur. It's 50/50.There's no reason to think it was significantly different between 1975-1990 for instance.
I don't get how you can say that the European hockey was less developed in the
70's. Russians were actually even better than now. People claim Kovalev and Yashin
are underachievers, I'm pretty sure these players wouldn't be floaters under someone like Tikhonov.Don't forget that the CSKA were an army team. Their players were soldiers and they were trained like soldiers. Makarov failed in the NHL since he missed this army discipline. Anyway, do you consider Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Malkin, Frolov, Zubov,Kovalev, Datsyuk, Nabokov, Khabibulin etc worse or less talented than any of today's Canadian players? If not, then there's no reason to claim Kharlamov, Mikhailov, Petrov, Makarov, Firsov and others were worse than Canadian stars like Orr, Esposito, Potvin, Cournoyer or Lafleur.
Canada had more depth and was better overall than Czechoslovakia in the 70's,
I agree. But compared to USSR, I'm not sure at all.
And one can say the Stanley Cups won in the 70's and 80's are meaningless since
the best Euros were not allowed to play in the NHL that time. I don't agree with this,
but it's the same logic like that you are using in order to ridicule "meaningless World
Championships".