Hockey's Biggest "What if"?

[bobbyking]

After the top six, does it really matter how many teams you add on? Gordie would have dominated a six team league or a 100 team league.

also,
There were no Europeans. youre not getting the top talent in the world.

 

[DannyGallivan]

also,
There were no Europeans. youre not getting the top talent in the world.

Back then, hockey was in its infancy in Europe. There's no guarantee that any more than a handfull would have had a shot at the NHL, at best.

 

[Fenway]

Can you imagine if this had happened?

80 years ago, the Habs came close to relocation, read the story here


Then the Maroons would have been the only team in Montreal.....

 

[jghockey]

What if the Flyers had traded for Lindros while keeping Forsberg?

 

[Sweet Leaf]

Lafleur is always missing from this conversation but in some ways his story is the most what if.

Guy’s 6 years of peak is smaller than Orr’s 8. I know its the lack of major injury that makes people think Orr’s career is more tragic and Guy had a long career but you still have to wonder why Guy was the best player on the planet AINEC for 6 years easy and then mediocrity.

 

[ForsbergForever]

Lafleur is always missing from this conversation but in some ways his story is the most what if.

Guy’s 6 years of peak is smaller than Orr’s 8. I know its the lack of major injury that makes people think Orr’s career is more tragic and Guy had a long career but you still have to wonder why Guy was the best player on the planet AINEC for 6 years easy and then mediocrity.

I've often wondered this myself, he was just 28 in the last season of his six-year peak. I think it comes down to injuries and then later team strategy. He sustained a major knee injury in the 1980 playoffs and then missed big chunks of time the next three seasons after that. By 1984, the team as a whole was significantly weaker and Lafleur was older and run down. The end was when Lemaire came in as coach a proceeded to play Guy 10 min per night while preaching his now-classic defense first strategy.

 

[The Panther]

I've often wondered this myself, he was just 28 in the last season of his six-year peak. I think it comes down to injuries and then later team strategy. He sustained a major knee injury in the 1980 playoffs and then missed big chunks of time the next three seasons after that. By 1984, the team as a whole was significantly weaker and Lafleur was older and run down. The end was when Lemaire came in as coach a proceeded to play Guy 10 min per night while preaching his now-classic defense first strategy.

Right, I think the Habs were always an exceptional defensive team in Lafleur's heyday, but they were also an exceptional offensive team. But post-1980 or so they seemed to transition to more of a defense-team (although they could still score), and maybe that -- combined with the team's slightly weaker record and Lafleur's injury problems -- makes Guy's decline look sharper than it really was.

I mean, in 1980-81 he scored 70 points in 51 game and was +24. It's not too shabby. Projecting that pace to a full season, it's 110 points and a +38.

1981-82, he scores 84 in 66 games, +32. Again, projected to a full season it's 102 points and a +39.

So, we're probably looking at 8-straight 100+ point seasons without injuries in '81 and '82.

 

[CHGoalie27]

Pavel Bure's knee for me.

I'm convinced he would've been the one not only to pass 99 in career goals, but he'd have been the first to break 1000 career regular season goals. Like a great select few, his play increased with the playoffs.

 

[Normand Lacombe]

What if Bernie Parent is never traded to Toronto? It was in Toronto that Parent became a teammate of Jacques Plante, who was instrumental in turning Parent from a good goaltender to an elite, HOF goaltender. Would the Flyers of the mid-70's have faced the same issue that haunted them in the 90's, which was a lack of clutch goaltending in the playoffs?

 

[Tarantula]

What if Bernie Parent is never traded to Toronto? It was in Toronto that Parent became a teammate of Jacques Plante, who was instrumental in turning Parent from a good goaltender to an elite, HOF goaltender. Would the Flyers of the mid-70's have faced the same issue that haunted them in the 90's, which was a lack of clutch goaltending in the playoffs?

If they didn't have Parent who would have been between the pipes? Have a hard time thinking they would have had someone else as capable of Bernie. Maybe two different results in 74 and 75 finals.

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

If they didn't have Parent who would have been between the pipes? Have a hard time thinking they would have had someone else as capable of Bernie. Maybe two different results in 74 and 75 finals.

I think in 74 they don't win, the Bruins players even said they hated losing that cup and had it gone 7 they would have taken it.. However with the loss from 74 fresh on their minds I think they win in 75.

 

[L L]

What if ... Morenz had played a full career.

 

[sr edler]

Can you imagine if this had happened?

80 years ago, the Habs came close to relocation, read the story here


Then the Maroons would have been the only team in Montreal.....

What if the Montreal Arena didn't burn down and the Wanderers stayed afloat instead? Then no Maroons anyways.

Montreal early on had quite a number of teams to appeal also to its either anglophone or Irish community → Montreal AAA (HC), Montreal Vics, Montreal Shamrocks, Montreal Wanderers (those 4 clubs played in the ECAHA against each other) and then Art Ross had a club (as a player/manager) in the 1909 CHA called All-Montreal HC. The first francophone club was Le National de Montreal (Montreal Nationals) going through the FAHL & CAHL (and CHA). Lalonde, Laviolette and Pitre played for the Nationals.

By the way, regarding arenas burning down, Sam Lichtenhein (owner of the Montreal Wanderers) had an unlucky (and perhaps also suspicious) track record with fires and arenas burning down. First his fathers department store burned down in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and the family moved to Montreal. Then in 1918 Montreal Arena burned down, and twice fires also destroyed the ballparks of the Montreal Royals baseball club which Lichtenhein also owned.

What if arenas couldn't burn down?

 

[CHIP72]

No dominating a league with 30 teams (compared to dominating a league with 6 teams) would've been significantly more impressive. But it didn't happen

This makes no sense. A top professional league in any sport that has fewer teams is going to have a higher talent level because there are fewer spots for the players to fill and only the top players are going to fill them. Dominating a smaller, top level league with only elite players is much harder than dominating a larger, top level league that has some elite players but also a lot more average and marginal players.

One can argue even today that it would be harder for an "average" NHL player to sustain an NHL career in the Original Six era than it is now. Sure, the talent pool teams can draw from is much bigger now, mainly because many countries besides Canada produce NHL caliber players and those guys play in the NHL. (The population base for countries that have NHL players, including Canada, is also bigger than it was in the 1940s-1960s.) But is the talent pool now 5 times larger than it was during the Original Six era? I definitely think it is more than 2 times larger and it may be 3 times larger. But 5 times larger? In all honesty I think that's a stretch.

 

[CHIP72]

I'm somewhat surprised no one has mentioned this "what if?", but what if the NHL allows the St. Louis Blues to move to Saskatoon in 1983?

*Saskatoon probably has a team for about a decade, and becomes the #1 team targeted for relocation in the 1990s, before Quebec and Winnipeg. It is possible the Blues become the team that moves to Denver or Phoenix, while the Nordiques and/or Jets move elsewhere or possibly even stay put.

*It is possible the Saskatoon team isn't particularly successful after a short period of time because players don't want to play in such a small market, so the team moves even earlier than the early to mid-1990s. Perhaps the Blues relocate to one of the markets that received an expansion team in the early 1990s, such as Ottawa, one of the aforementioned relocation markets like Denver, or one of the markets that never received a team but had or built an arena, such as Hamilton, by the late 1980s.

*St. Louis becomes one of the strong candidates for NHL expansion in the early 1990s. It is also possible the Saskatoon team moves back to St. Louis as the first of the Canadian teams to relocate in the 1990s.

*After losing the Blues, St. Louis only has two major league pro teams, the baseball Cardinals and football Cardinals. Perhaps St. Louis does more to keep the football Cardinals in St. Louis, meaning they never move to Phoenix in 1988 and the Rams never move to St. Louis for 21 seasons (1995-2015). The Rams moved to St. Louis because their owner at the time, Georgia Frontiere, was from St. Louis. Perhaps the Rams stay in the Los Angeles area and move back to the LA Coliseum after the Raiders move back to Oakland, or perhaps the Rams end up being the team that fills the void in Baltimore in the 1990s, or the void in Cleveland after the original Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996. Perhaps instead of selecting Charlotte and Jacksonville as expansion cities in the early 1990s, the NFL selects Phoenix instead of either Charlotte or (more likely) Jacksonville as an expansion city at that time.

 

[CHIP72]

You're right.
Lemieux in New Jersey and Muller (?) in Pittsburgh would've radically changed the fate of both teams. Muller was a Devil, and pretty good in his time there but if Pittsburgh didn't tank as much as it looked like, Mario would've been in New Jersey and they most likely wouldn't be those 'stereotypical' Devils. Their philosophy and style of play I think would've been totally different, and the rest of the NY metro teams might've changed how they went about their business.

One of the biggest impacts of the Devils getting Mario Lemieux in 1984 instead of the Penguins is there is a very good chance the Penguins would not be playing in Pittsburgh today. It was a very mediocre market for hockey before Lemieux came along*, and to my knowledge there had been rumblings for a few years before Lemieux joined the Penguins that the franchise could move from Pittsburgh if it didn't improve its attendance. Without a transcendent talent like Lemieux, it becomes much more likely the Penguins' attendance continues to be poor, and the team moves to a different market sometime in the latter half of the 1980s. (Of course, Lemieux saved the franchise in Pittsburgh a second time in the early 2000s when his contract was converted into an ownership share and he was inclined to keep the team in Pittsburgh rather than move it to another city, which encouraged the city of Pittsburgh and state of Pennsylvania to help provide funding for a new arena.)

*I'd argue Pittsburgh is still only a decent hockey market today; they've only drawn well when they've had very good/great teams with marquee players and have not drawn well when they have merely good teams without marquee players. However, that's a topic for another thread.

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

What if the Avs actually though coaching and player development was important? During the time when the Avs were Cup Contenders they basically ignored the important of coaching, repeatedly hiring the least qualified candidate and just assuming the talent of the team would lead them to the promised land. Still think that if they had one of the top tier coaches during that era they would have won another cup or two.

 

[Thenameless]

also,
There were no Europeans. youre not getting the top talent in the world.

Canada does produce the top talent in the world. Especially in the era that you guys are talking about.

 

[c9777666]

What if the Nordiques caved into Lindros' demands, he fell in the draft, they chose someone else #1, and he ends up somewhere without a threat to not play for them?

Quebec held onto him for a year as a trade bargaining chip.

Heck, what if he had landed on the Devils at #3? (Lindros and Stevens perhaps as teammates, but no Niedermayer)

 

[CHIP72]

What if the Montreal Arena didn't burn down and the Wanderers stayed afloat instead? Then no Maroons anyways.

Montreal early on had quite a number of teams to appeal also to its either anglophone or Irish community → Montreal AAA (HC), Montreal Vics, Montreal Shamrocks, Montreal Wanderers (those 4 clubs played in the ECAHA against each other) and then Art Ross had a club (as a player/manager) in the 1909 CHA called All-Montreal HC. The first francophone club was Le National de Montreal (Montreal Nationals) going through the FAHL & CAHL (and CHA). Lalonde, Laviolette and Pitre played for the Nationals.

By the way, regarding arenas burning down, Sam Lichtenhein (owner of the Montreal Wanderers) had an unlucky (and perhaps also suspicious) track record with fires and arenas burning down. First his fathers department store burned down in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and the family moved to Montreal. Then in 1918 Montreal Arena burned down, and twice fires also destroyed the ballparks of the Montreal Royals baseball club which Lichtenhein also owned.

What if arenas couldn't burn down?

Many sports facilities, especially baseball parks, burned down in the late 1800s and early 1900s because they were made out of wood. They were built in the period before the use of reinforced concrete became commonplace. Reinforced concrete has many advantages over its components (concrete/stone and steel) as well as over wood; it is durable, largely fireproof, doesn't rust, can support large structures, and can be sculpted with ornamental designs. In baseball, arguably the most important ballpark ever built was Shibe Park in Philadelphia, which was opened at the beginning of the 1909 season. It was the first ballpark (and probably outdoor sports stadium) built using reinforced concrete. Most MLB teams moved into ballparks built using reinforced concrete within a decade; those parks could be larger, support cantilevered upper decks, and would not burn down, unlike many ballparks built before 1909.

I suspect the early hockey arenas burned down because they didn't use reinforced concrete. When larger arenas using reinforced concrete were built, like the Montreal Forum, Maple Leaf Gardens, Chicago Stadium, and the Boston Garden, they were used as venues for many decades.

 

[cole von cole]

What if Hasek never injured his groin in the 99-00 season, or during the 2006 Olympics?

What if Yzerman never slid knee-first into the post?

What if Clarke never slashed Kharlamov's ankle?

What if Montreal fired Tremblay instead of trading Roy?

What if Malkin was suspended for game 3 of the 09 finals?

 

[Terry Yake]

"with the first pick of the 2005 NHL draft, the mighty ducks of anaheim select...sidney crosby"

bryan fogarty is another one

 

[alko]

And imagine: All this theories really happen. According to Multiverse Theory.

 

[CharlestownChiefsESC]

So many on here. If we have any FHM players on here you could act these out lol

 

[Hockey Stick]

Little late to the party, but I remember seeing a video after the Chara hit on Pacioretty years ago. At the end of the video it said, 'what if max died?'
I mean God forbid something like that ever happen, but I wonder what kind of rule changes they'd try to implement if it happened