Sorinth
Registered User
- Jan 18, 2013
- 11,006
- 5,498
Europeans and Americans have increased the skill level, yes, and I think that compensates for expansion. There are also better defensive systems and better goaltenders now.
I brought up the increased European presence, you then responded by bringing up league wide numbers, which reflect grinders, not skill players.
So if we aren't going to look at the number of European players and how much the league expanded how do you suggest figuring out whether it compensates or not?
It matters because we were comparing Lafleur to Crosby.
Actually you were comparing Gainey to Staal, your actual claim was that Gainey only won his Conn Smythe because the Habs didn't have players as great as Pittsburgh's players.
As for the definition of great, that's true in general but sometimes the talent pool increases rapidly, and greater eras tend to have more great men. You'll notice that "great men" may come from many periods of history, but they are actually not uniformly distributed in time and place. Some periods and places produce more great men.
But they are only considered great because of how they are relative to their peers.
And FYI this argument started because posters criticized Arizona for retiring Doan's jersey. They're the ones committing a category error by suggesting that other teams have the same standards as the Habs. It's plausible that no team is ever going to dominate as much as the 1970s Habs did, as the league is a lot more competitive now.
Which is why your whole argument is nonsense. The Habs were a dominant team, so obviously they had a bunch of great players, right? Well Gainey was considered one of those great players, if as you claim he was just a third liner riding the coattails of those great players then he wouldn't have beaten those players for the Conn Smythe would he.