Big Phil
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- Nov 2, 2003
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Montreal
Edmonton/NYI pretty much a tie in my book
Montreal had drafted almost to perfection, that's what it really comes down to. Sam Pollock gets a lot of credit for building those teams, yet they were so good I don't think he gets ENOUGH credit. When they drafted, Shutt, Gainey and Robinson they weren't #1 picks. They were smart picks. Then there was the steal in 1971 of Lafleur and pretty much the same thing a few years earlier to get the rights of Dryden. Put it all together with an already potent lineup of Cournoyer, Lemaire, P. Mahovlich, Savard and Lapoints an all you needed was a good coach in Bowman.
The Habs dominated the NHL like no one else did. Perhaps the 1950s Habs can make a claim but that would be it. They just flat out, never lost! Period.
But people talk about the depleted NHL at the time. Look, this was 1976-'79. As we saw in the Canada Cup in 1976 all but one of the Canadians on the team was in the NHL. There were a few decent players in the WHA post 1976 but no one that would have been able to change the impact the Habs made anyways. And let's not forget that there were 4 other perennial 100 point teams back then too. Boston, Buffalo, Philly and NYI. The Habs beat the 2nd best team in points by 20 a couple of times. Let's not pretend Montreal was the only team with good players. There was Potvin, a young Trottier and Bossy on NYI. The French Connection with Danny Gare in Buffalo. Clarke and Barber and Parent in Philly. Ratelle, Middleton, Park, Cheevers and O'Reilly in Boston. Good teams, lots of solid HHOFers but they could not beat the Canadiens.
Edmonton/NYI pretty much a tie in my book
Montreal had drafted almost to perfection, that's what it really comes down to. Sam Pollock gets a lot of credit for building those teams, yet they were so good I don't think he gets ENOUGH credit. When they drafted, Shutt, Gainey and Robinson they weren't #1 picks. They were smart picks. Then there was the steal in 1971 of Lafleur and pretty much the same thing a few years earlier to get the rights of Dryden. Put it all together with an already potent lineup of Cournoyer, Lemaire, P. Mahovlich, Savard and Lapoints an all you needed was a good coach in Bowman.
The Habs dominated the NHL like no one else did. Perhaps the 1950s Habs can make a claim but that would be it. They just flat out, never lost! Period.
But people talk about the depleted NHL at the time. Look, this was 1976-'79. As we saw in the Canada Cup in 1976 all but one of the Canadians on the team was in the NHL. There were a few decent players in the WHA post 1976 but no one that would have been able to change the impact the Habs made anyways. And let's not forget that there were 4 other perennial 100 point teams back then too. Boston, Buffalo, Philly and NYI. The Habs beat the 2nd best team in points by 20 a couple of times. Let's not pretend Montreal was the only team with good players. There was Potvin, a young Trottier and Bossy on NYI. The French Connection with Danny Gare in Buffalo. Clarke and Barber and Parent in Philly. Ratelle, Middleton, Park, Cheevers and O'Reilly in Boston. Good teams, lots of solid HHOFers but they could not beat the Canadiens.
Mayor Bee
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- Dec 29, 2008
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I think it's a combination of both. Montreal was a juggernaut, but the league was extremely unbalanced. I think the NHL talent was slightly depleted at the time with the WHA, but I don't think that it was a major effect.
Taking a look at the competitive balance metric, the decade of the 1970s was the most unbalanced in NHL history. The most competitive year was 1979-80, which ranks 40th out of 92 seasons. 1978-79 was next at 57th, and the rest are between 68th and 83rd.
The simple facts are this. The NHL expanded far too rapidly to correct the previous errors of never expanding when every other league was, they stacked the deck with the 1967 expansion to put an expansion team into the Final, and then unstacked it with further expansion. When you combine it with a lot of marginal players taking huge paychecks to go to the WHA (and even worse players replacing them), there developed a massive disparity in talent distribution.
Yes, the Islanders went from horrid to superb. Montreal maintained a high level of excellence. Buffalo went from expansion to contention. But as a whole, having multiple teams 25 points over .500 and multiple teams 25 points under .500 was common.
Taking a look at the competitive balance metric, the decade of the 1970s was the most unbalanced in NHL history. The most competitive year was 1979-80, which ranks 40th out of 92 seasons. 1978-79 was next at 57th, and the rest are between 68th and 83rd.
The simple facts are this. The NHL expanded far too rapidly to correct the previous errors of never expanding when every other league was, they stacked the deck with the 1967 expansion to put an expansion team into the Final, and then unstacked it with further expansion. When you combine it with a lot of marginal players taking huge paychecks to go to the WHA (and even worse players replacing them), there developed a massive disparity in talent distribution.
Yes, the Islanders went from horrid to superb. Montreal maintained a high level of excellence. Buffalo went from expansion to contention. But as a whole, having multiple teams 25 points over .500 and multiple teams 25 points under .500 was common.
Nalyd Psycho
Registered User
I think a large part of the imbalance was an imbalance in GM quality. Pollock, Torrey and others were just picking on the rest of the league.
The ultimate match up would be the Habs 76-77 team that only lost 8 games in the regular season and 2 in the playoffs vs the 87-88 Oilers team, IMO.
Could the Oilers firepower get by the Habs big 3 on defense in a 7 game series?
I'm not sure.
Could the Oilers firepower get by the Habs big 3 on defense in a 7 game series?
I'm not sure.
The '77 or '78 Habs against the '87 or '88 Oilers or the '81 or '82 Islanders. Would be tremendous matchups. I think stats are irrelevant because the Canadiens played in a different era, while the Oilers and Islanders collided three times in the 80's and there was never a playoff meeting between the Canadiens and Islanders. Many felt in '79 had the Islanders matched up with the Canadiens for the Cup, the Islanders would have won. They had more points then the Habs (in the regular season) and had the better record against them head to head in the regular season (3-1 I believe) as well. The "What Ifs"!!!!!
During their dynasty, the Oilers only faced a handful of hall-of-fame defensemen: Denis Potvin, Al MacInnis and Raymond Bourque.
Against the Habs, they would've been in trouble.
Against the Habs, they would've been in trouble.
The eras weren't that much different in that goalies were still wearing small equipment and playing the stand-up style into the late 1980's and the trap hadn't yet taken over.
The 70's and 80's were both wide open hockey decades. The biggest difference would be the speed that the Oilers had which was a lot like the 70's Soviets played. We all know what happened when they faced the Habs on New Year's eve in '75.
Kyle McMahon
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Arguably, and yes. That Montreal team has a valid claim as the best of all time, as do several other dynasties. "Which dynasty was greatest?" is a question that I don't think really has a correct answer. But people tend to get too easily carried away by the eye-popping point totals they put up. The extreme disparity between the good and the bad in that era meant that there were several other teams putting up monster point totals as well, but this is often overlooked.
1976: Canadiens at 58-11-11, 127 points. But the Flyers had 118 points, only losing two more games than Montreal. Boston only lost two more than that. The Sabres and a still very young Islanders team cracked the 100-point plateau, meaning 5/18 teams were over 100 points.
1977: Montreal's historic 60-8-12 year. The same four other teams mentioned above had over 100 points, though more tightly bunched together this year with between 104-112 points. There was no middle ground to speak of this year. Just 6/18 teams finished with 70-90 points, the range where you would expect the majority of the league to fall in.
1978: Montreal goes 59-10-11. As usual, the Bruins, Flyers, Sabres, and Isles finish with 105-113 points. Only 5/18 teams are in the expected 70-90 point range. Five others fail to win more than one quarter of their games played.
1979: The Islanders finish one point ahead of Montreal, 116-115, and some semblence of balance is starting to be restored. The 100-point Bruins are the only other team to hit the century mark. Only two teams finish with under 60 points. Seven teams fall into the 80-95 point range, providing a highly competitive second tier of teams.
This isn't meant as an argument against the Habs' greatness, just a reminder that the regular season point totals need to be viewed within their context. That Montreal compiled a 24-8 playoff record against those strong Bruin, Flyer, and Islander clubs during the four Cup wins is more impressive.
VMBM
And it didn't even bring me down
Probably. I've always thought that Montreal's edge on defense would have been greater than any advantage Edmonton had offensively.
Then again, the Oilers had the greatest hockey player of all-time in his prime, so you never know what would've happened.
VMBM
And it didn't even bring me down
Yes, Dryden let in 3 goals despite facing only 13 shots and the game ended in a 3-3 tie.
The Oilers were the Oilers and the 1975 CSKA was the 1975 CSKA, and it was just 1 game anyway. A poor argument IMO (if you indeed meant that since the Habs dominated the Red Army team in '75 = the Habs would have dominated the Oilers).
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I would say this makes a very good argument based on regular season points totals for the Canadiens. Those other 100-points teams were poweful competition and yet the Canadiens consistently scored quite a few more points than they did over four years. What was the Canadiens' regular season record against those other powerful teams during these years?
reckoning
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Regular season results from 1975-76 to 1978-79:
Vs. NY Islanders: Montreal was 11-4-1. New York went 3-1 in the last season (78-79) when Montreal had slipped a bit, so that would make the Habs 10-1-1 against them in those first three years.
Vs Philadelphia: Montreal was 10-2-4. Not much to say there, Montreal had their number.
Vs Boston: Montreal was 11-3-5. Ironically, all three Boston wins came in the 76-77 season where Montreal only lost eight games all year.
Vs Buffalo: Montreal was 11-7-1. It should be noted that this includes Montreal's 4-0 record against them in 78-79 when Buffalo was no longer a 100 point club, so that would make them Buffalo 7-7-1 against them during the first three years of the dynasty. No other team came even close to a .500 record against Montreal in that span. The two teams never met in the playoffs during this period.
Overall this makes Montreal 43-16-11 against those four teams over those four years. To put that into perpsective, had they played against just those four teams over an entire season, they'd be expected to finish with about 111 points. Coupled with the 24-8 playoff record, it was just total domination that hasn't been matched.
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Psycho Papa Joe
Porkchop Hoser
Quite simply the most complete, most dominating and best team I've ever seen in the NHL. If there was a better team prior to me starting to watch, I would loved to have seen them, because they must have been pretty damned incredible to top the 75-79 Habs.
Psycho Papa Joe
Porkchop Hoser
Islanders, because at their peak, they would never have lost to an 88pt Calgary team.
Kyle McMahon
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Those teams were strong to be sure, but not all-time great teams that you'd expect to be putting up 110 point seasons. In a statistically normalized league you'd probably see those Montreal teams with 115-120 points and the others around 100 or 105. I think all the elite teams had their point totals boosted a little by the plethora of doormat teams available to hammer on a regular basis.
The 1982 team did need two late goals and a subsequent OT winner to avoid losing to the 75-point Pittsburgh Penguins...
Psycho Papa Joe
Porkchop Hoser
But at the end of the day they still won. The Isles had a knack of winning even if they played like crap.
But it's still very close between them and the Oilers, but if I have to choose a reason to choose one, it's the loss to Calgary. That and IMO the Isles had better depth and were a more well rounded team.
Morris Wanchuk
.......
What always disappoints me about these conversations is that the early 1970s Bruins should be included if only they were more disciplined. I was never there to see them, but reading from various sources was that those guys loved to party and it hurt them from being the dynasty they could have been.
Psycho Papa Joe
Porkchop Hoser
Most teams and players loved to party in the 70's. The Bruins were hardly unique in that regard.
The Bruins of the early 70's are probably most comparable with the Pens of the early 90's. Both teams really should have won more cups, but for various reasons, ended up with just two each.
John Flyers Fan
Registered User
Add Mark Howe to that list, as he's a better defenseman than a number of those currently enshrined.
Hockeynomad
Registered User
Many are convinced the 1960 Canadiens was the best, but I believe it was Montreal Canadiens of 1977. Why, their defence , the Big 3, was so dominant and controlled the game flow. And Scotty Bowman did employ a team concept, ie: defense wins championships.
The Hockey News writers voted the '76 Canadiens as greatest team ever. Here back a few years.
I agree Scotty Bowman was the difference
I agree Scotty Bowman was the difference
Mayor Bee
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I don't know anyone who's convinced that the 1959-60 Habs are the best. In fact, most who would pick a team from the latter half of the 1950s tend to gravitate more toward the 1955-56 edition, myself included.
brianscot
Registered User
In winning their four cups from 75-79, Montreal went a cumulative 48-10 in the playoffs.
They beat a very good Boston team 3 times; a young Islander team twice (granted it was pre-Bossy); and a great defending champion Philadelphia team (and crap what a series if Parent and Macleish had been healthy.)
As a devoted Boston fan, it was the only Montreal squad that I couldn't hate.
They beat a very good Boston team 3 times; a young Islander team twice (granted it was pre-Bossy); and a great defending champion Philadelphia team (and crap what a series if Parent and Macleish had been healthy.)
As a devoted Boston fan, it was the only Montreal squad that I couldn't hate.
