Due to expansion drafts and the like, some of these sponsorship era players were dispersed anyhow or were mentored by such players. Jacques Plante -> Bernie Parent, to keep it central to the Flyers winning.
By all means, I'm reasonably certain Plante delivered a significant impact on Parent's development during his brief stint in Toronto. Rather fortunately, the mentor/protege relationship isn't unique to the Sponsorship Era but spans across all generations in the historical record of human civilization. In this manner, the argument in support of this hypothesis is specious, at best.
While Philadelphia won a couple (without having to play Montreal...), it doesn't outright dismiss the value of sponsorship-led development...that's a little bit of specious reasoning I think..."if the game is getting faster and more skilled...how come the Blues won this year?" Yeah, it's there and it happened...but if sports always predicted the exact expected result it wouldn't be watched. The Flyers were a blip on the radar in a decade owned by Montreal and Boston...
The Flyers were a blip on the radar during the 1970s, but the Bruins were not? From 1969-70 to 1979-80, Boston won two Stanley Cups and appeared in five Stanley Cup Finals. During the exact time period, Philadelphia won two Stanley Cups and appeared in four Stanley Cup Finals. Of a significant note, the Bruins lost in the Stanley Cup Finals to the Flyers in 1974. When drawing comparison it appears very disingenuous to suggest one of those teams as a blip on the radar. That's a remarkably sizeable number of blips for each team and very comparable in scale. Perhaps the Bobby Orr halo effect influences logic and reasoning at times?
Yeah, there's a lot of talk about fairness and balance here, and that's all well and good, but that's not what's on the table is it? We're talking about league quality and the things that effect that. I'm not gonna sit here and defend it as a means to parity...but the player development and what it produced - the individuals it produced - that's what's for dinner here. The turmoil of that time produced relative chaos, which we don't really come to fully realize until around 1980. The WHA was a minor league and it was infused into a professional league...it's like having a car drive into your living room and going "well, at least we have more storage space now..." when it's most certainly a negative...
I'm at a considerable loss in understanding your perception of the 1980s as a period of more turmoil and relative chaos relative to the 1970s. There were 32 professional teams during the height of the WHA period, dating to 1976. This was reduced to 21 professional teams for the 1979 season and the player totality was reduced over a three year period to be folded within the NHL structure. Your suggestion that the WHA league "was a minor league infused into a professional league" actually weakens your supposition that the 1970s NHL comprised a relatively strong period. Once again, those 1970s WHA teams had a winning record against NHL teams over a large sample size (63 games). The stronger 1970s NHL teams were actually beating up on weaker NHL teams which were marginally inferior to those very WHA teams. Give pause and consider that fact. If this was occurring during the 1980s period, it would be the first point of contention for the detractors of that time period. When it doesn't fit the narrative, it's both completely and unfortunately overlooked. Choosing witty narratives about cars in living rooms does nothing to alter that fact.
I'm not sure how or why we'd come to this conclusion actually...didn't you/we already prove the effectiveness of the sponsorship-led teams by pointing how successful Montreal was for forever?
This completely misinterprets my point. The reason Montreal was successful for such an incredible period of time was not because of the superiority of the Sponsorship Era, but the inherent unfairness of the system. During the initial years of the Draft Era, the Canadiens were deeply stocked with players unfairly acquired during the Sponsorship Era. They occasionally moved those players to the expansion teams for draft picks because the expansion teams desperately needed NHL-ready players. This structure benefited Montreal significantly, allowing them to trade remnants from the system for draft picks into the early 1980s. Once the benefits of the Sponsorship Era completely dissipated by the 1990s, the Canadiens faded into irrelevancy and have perpetually remained there to present day. I won't digress into the 'French Canadian Rule' as it pertains to the early draft system because I don't believe the Canadiens significantly benefited from this additional bias.
I think the game deteriorated as the 70's progressed and the early 80's were a complete cluster**** before beginning its recovery in the later parts of the 80's...that's evident in all the goofy **** that happened as it's almost a 1:1 match to the WWII years (and probably the WWI years, but I'm not quite as well-versed in that)...
Similar outputs are not necessarily reflective of identical inputs. It's near certain that increased scoring during the WWII era was reflective of talent depletion and resources redirected to the war effort. The rational for increased scoring during the 1970s and 1980s likely require a more hybrid approach towards such rationalization. I'm having difficulty recognizing why you feel a linear approach most closely approximates objective reasoning. You often note the importance of nuances in one's evaluation procedures but when something aligns with your pre-existing beliefs, it appears refinements are no longer beneficial to the process. I clearly cannot comprehend dismissing the significant probability that skater development/coaching outpaced goaltending evolution during the 1980s. Considering the contraction of the professional player pool and the complete dearth of 1970s transitional goaltending stars, it's the most logical starting point for any critical analysis.
you think the game immediately got worse because the NHL added a few more teams in the early 70's and a minor league was created that sucked away some legitimately good talent for a short time?
A few? The NHL expanded from 6 to 18 teams. It tripled in size. The WHA also added 14 professional teams. They poached a significant amount of NHL talent from a league which quickly added almost 300 additional players to league size previously recorded at less than 150 players. I find the progression of discussion rather unfair when we are not addressing the facts in proper fashion. This is altogether an astonishing change in league size and an appreciable additional dilution of the talent pool by the WHA. It was certainly not a problem for a short period of time. It was a conspicuous problem for almost the entire 1970s decade.
(I don't mean that to sound as dismissive as it reads...but I just can't produce the brain power to tidy it up, apologies) Is that kind of where we're at? And if so, is there a particular piece of the puzzle you want to tackle next?
No offensive taken. I don't find it dismissive in the slightest. I find it profoundly unaware. To that point, I see you're an aspiring scout. Let's consider the possibility you desire to retain an NHL affiliation and you manage to secure an interview to facilitate this career objective. Imagine a scenario where the interviewer requests you to elaborate your thoughts on player development as it relates to the current game. Would you consider a reply which reveals your belief in a need to 'refine' our player development, broadly reflecting the techniques of the 1960s? I can confidently assure you that revealing this perception to any professional organization would immediately disqualify you as a candidate. I wholly cannot perceive how anyone with an active involvement in the modern game regards the technical development from almost 50 years prior as a superior choice. My strictly logical conclusion is a misunderstanding of one era or both. For that reason, I'm apprehensive to tackle anything next.
