was hockey talent better in the 1970s-1990s or 2000-2020?

[Legionnaire]

Coaching philosophies change when a team doesn't have enough talent.

 

[Nick Hansen]

Incomparable. Hockey isn't like basketball or soccer where generations can simply be compared.

The sport has evolved tremendously between decades for the past 50 years. Between rule changes and equipment upgrades and training/coaching methodologies it's simply impossible. Hockey is also one of the most luck based sports so that throws another wrench into things.

If we're talking from a purely objective standpoint modern hockey players are much better than their historical counterparts, due in no small part to technological advancements that they're privy to

Don't agree at all. Soccer, which is my main sport, they were literally walking around in some instances as late as the early 90's. Soccer has evolved insanely much in terms of pace and speed. Watch a game from 1950's Montreal Canadiens and a game from today, and I guarantee you that the difference between a high level game of soccer from then and today is much bigger.

What's interesting about hockey is that it has been much more up and down in its development, I think soccer has had a steady upward evolution through its history while hockey was a joke for a bit in the late 70's/early 80's. Soccer was more steadily upwards.

 

[OrrNumber4]

I will say, watch a game from the 50s and the pacing and structure seem remarkably similar to today's game.

 

[Sentinel]

3. Like you said, the supporting pieces of todays NHL-teams are far better than before. We had guys who literally couldn't skate. Now everyone is a star. Take your average 4th liner today and he's a thousand times better than his peers from the 70's or 80's. Coaches roll with 4 lines nowadays, no more goons.

I get it, it's from the 90s but...

I dare you to play ANY 4th line from today's league against Detroit's 4th line (aka "The Grind Line") of McCarty-Draper-Maltby. I will laugh my butt off. Hell, I'd play them against McDavid! They contained Lindros, I think they would do OK against Skinny McD.

Oh, a fun fact: in 2006 Draper was selected over Crosby for the Olympic Games.

 

[ziggyjoe212]

I may be biased because I started watching hockey in 1998 but hockey is far better now.

When watching highlights from the 70's and 80's, you can tell the goalies and defenses were pathetically bad. Sure the increased offense is fun and all but watching non existent d isn't fun.

 

[Sentinel]

Yeah there's much more parity of talent nowadays. 70's and 80's had absolute plugs in the lineup that couldn't do much of anything.

I take Detroit's 4th line from 2002 than current Detroit's 2nd line. Talk about plugs!

 

[Sentinel]

Don't agree at all. Soccer, which is my main sport, they were literally walking around in some instances as late as the early 90's. Soccer has evolved insanely much in terms of pace and speed. Watch a game from 1950's Montreal Canadiens and a game from today, and I guarantee you that the difference between a high level game of soccer from then and today is much bigger.

What's interesting about hockey is that it has been much more up and down in its development, I think soccer has had a steady upward evolution through its history while hockey was a joke for a bit in the late 70's/early 80's. Soccer was more steadily upwards.

If you think the Canadiens, the Islanders, the Oilers, and the CSKA of that era were "a joke," you have no business being a hockey fan or drawing any kind of conclusions. Literally, some of the best hockey was played then.

When watching highlights from the 70's and 80's, you can tell the goalies and defenses were pathetically bad. Sure the increased offense is fun and all but watching non existent d isn't fun.

Which of today's goaltenders will overtake Tretiak, Smith, Fuhr, and Roy in the all-time rankings?

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Today is far, far better.

 

[Nick Hansen]

If you think the Canadiens, the Islanders, the Oilers, and the CSKA of that era were "a joke," you have no business being a hockey fan or drawing any kind of conclusions. Literally, some of the best hockey was played then.

Obviously there were some great players and teams but come on, look at the defense some teams presented. Complete joke IMO. Gotta add it was a result of the big expansion of the number of teams, though. It got better as the 80's progressed, though, and the early 90's might be my favorite time of hockey ever.

 

[Sentinel]

Obviously there were some great players and teams but come on, look at the defense some teams presented. Complete joke IMO. Gotta add it was a result of the big expansion of the number of teams, though. It got better as the 80's progressed, though, and the early 90's might be my favorite time of hockey ever.

Sure. Defense. Denis Potvin, Brad Park, Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, Guy Lapoint, Borje Salming, Slava Fetisov, Alexei Kasatonov. Complete joke.

 

[Hockey4Lyfe]

Mario and Gretzky were head and shoulders better than everyone there is today.

Take out those two though and it’s probably pretty similar to what it is today but with 5x more players being just as good.

 

[wabagee]

Remove Gretzky and Lemieux from the league entirely, and it was still a much higher-scoring environment, both in terms of goals per game and the number of players scoring 100+ points in any given season. In the 80s we had seasons like:

Yzerman	155
Nichols	150
Bossy	147
Stastny	139
Coffey	138
Maruk	136
Dionne	135
Kurri	135
Nilsson	131
Savard	130

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Hawerchuk	130
Messier	129
Trottier	129
Goulet	122
Pederson	116
Rob Brown	115
Bobby Smith	114
Brett Hull	113
Dave Taylor	112
Robitaille	111

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

There were 118 instances of a player in the 1980s scoring more than 100 points. Names like Rick Middleton, Mike Bullard, Charlie Simmer, Neal Broten. Not exactly world-beaters.

It's only happened 22 times in the past 10 years, and it's not because players have gotten worse.

You don’t think they were good players?

 

[wabagee]

I may be biased because I started watching hockey in 1998 but hockey is far better now.

When watching highlights from the 70's and 80's, you can tell the goalies and defenses were pathetically bad. Sure the increased offense is fun and all but watching non existent d isn't fun.

The goalies actually had too work back then, not just use geometrics.

 

[Sentinel]

70s: Esposito, Clarke, Hull, Mikita, Lafleur, Trottier, Kharlamov, Petrov, Mikhailov, Maltsev, Yakushev.
80s: Gretzky, Lemieux, Bossy, Kurri, Messier, Yzerman, Stasny, Dionne, Makarov, Krutov.
90s: Fedorov, Bure, Jagr, Sakic, Forsberg, Lindros, Kariya, Selanne, Hull Jr., Modano.

Which post-lockout players, outside of the Big Three + McDavid, can measure up to these stars? Thornton? He is an analog of Oates. Bergeron? He is an analog of Gainey and Lehtinen. Datsyuk? OK, yes. Stamkos? Kucherov? Draisaitl?

Many of you simply don't remember how phenomenal those star forwards were. They put the fear of god into their opponents. People always knew when they were on ice and always expected a goal.

And I'm not even mentioning defense and goalies. Hasek alone was better than anybody post-lockout. The only two players who won two Vezinas were Thomas and Bobrovsky. He won THREE TIMES as many, with two Harts to boot, and with far inferior equipment. They are not sniffing the HHOF, and he can be practically issued a throne there.

 

[BlueBaron]

Well there never used to be so many good Americans, hockey seems to have grown there. it seems like it is about the same in Europe and dipping slightly in Canada so it seems like the talent pool size is about the same. This suggests to me talent would be the same unless there has been an evolutionary bump recently.

If this was just about bringing Gretzky down, please just stop. It's tired. He's the best ever. No debate. You can argue about Bobby vs Mario if you want.

 

[newfy]

Todays third and fourth lines are stronger than they were in the past because the game has changed and goons have been removed. That doesnt mean the top talent is better nowadays though. Gretzky would absolutely be the bet player in the league today.

With this kind of thinking you would think that players who played in the 90s wouldn't have been able to keep up in the 2000s. But players like Jagr, Lemieux and others even as older players did very well in the 2000s against these 'superior athletes'
Jagr even up until 2016.

This is what I never understand about people who shit on the 80s and 90s. We have players that can be directly compared across these eras. Gretzky at almost 40 with a broken down back could still finish top 5 in the league in scoring in 1998. Lemieux came back in the middle of the dead puck era having not played for years from cancer (and he was a guy who didnt train to begin with) and still lit the league on fire against a bunch of guys that Crosby could never outscore by the margin that Lemieux did while Crosby was in his prime. Sakic was going 100 points and a point per game at the ages of like 39/40. Lidstrom was winning Norris trophies to the age of 40 something. Jagr dominated etc etc.

You get the point. A guy like Crosby played against all these forwards basically and when they were way out of their primes they were still pacing near the topof the league in scoring.

The example to bridge the gap between the high scoring 80s and now is Mario Lemieux.

A retired, 35 year-old, Lemieux came back to the league, in mid-season, after not playing for 3 years. He had lost all of his speed but still put up 76 points in 43 games...in 2000-01. He was on pace for 145 points. So despite being far far far from his prime, Lemieux scored at a pace that would put him 25 points better than Crosby's best season.

Crosby has been around for a while and it is clear that the "improved quality" of the league since he entered hasn't really affected his scoring in a major way.

To wrap this all up, Gretzky was better than Lemieux, pre-injury (Gary Suter 1991, thanks asshole!). Lemieux was better than Jagr. Jagr was more prolific than Crosby and Crosby still scores almost the same today as he did when he was younger. Therefore Gretzky would put up a billion points today.

Exactly.

And a big part of this is that people dont understand is the 80s/90s group of stars were fed by Canada and America getting even more hockey crazy after the 72 summit series and the mircale on ice. America had their greatest batch of players at this time shortly after Mircale happened and then died off until now. The baby boomer generation was big and it was cheap for people to play hockey. Enrollment in Canada is down since then, even if some smaller European countries have joined the pipeline.

Top line talent didnt play against 3rd/4th liners and bottom pairing dmen anyways so the bottom part of the lineups being better is irrelevant.

 

[BlueBaron]

You have to remember though, Jagr is an absolute freak of a work-horse. His workout routines are just insane. If you've never seen it, I highly recommend you check it out. It's no wonder he can play into the age that he is now.

My understanding is he got into fitness late to. I remember a reporter once saying he did not look like an athlete with no shirt on.

 

[Demandedace]

The average goaltender is light years better today and that is, by far, the biggest difference

 

[HF007]

Dead puck stars are the best overall, played in the hardest era, today’s era probably ranks second

 

[deckercky]

Oh, a fun fact: in 2006 Draper was selected over Crosby for the Olympic Games.

I think everyone in Canada prefers to forget the horrible selections that led to horrible results in the 2006 Olympics.

 

[ziggyjoe212]

The goalies actually had too work back then, not just use geometrics.

Before the late 80's, goalies just stood there or flopped around. Compared to today they look like street hockey goalies.

 

[MessierII]

70’s was the most watered down decade.

The Bulk or nhl talent came from Canada and a small number from a few states.

The league doubled in size in a very short period of time.

The WHA was poaching talent.

 

[MessierII]

70’s was the most watered down decade.

The Bulk or nhl talent came from Canada and a small number from a few states.

The league doubled in size in a very short period of time.

The WHA was poaching talent.

 

[JD1]

I think if you watch 70s hockey versus 2020s hockey, how the game is played is so different that it's almost impossible to tell.

Is Brady a better GOAT than Gretzky? Idk. They are completely different sports. If you look at 70s hockey it's almost completely different.

A 70s player transported to today wouldn't survive a period because as soon as they started dipsy doodling in the neutral zone with the puck their coach would staple their ass to the bench.

There would be 70s players that could adapt to todays game and vice versa, but it would,be challenging

There were players that couldn't adapt from pre 2004 lockout to post and players tgat thrived post lockout that couldn't play pre lockout.

 

[wetcoast]

I take Detroit's 4th line from 2002 than current Detroit's 2nd line. Talk about plugs!

Sometimes the exception proves the rule though right?

You are talking about the current worst team in the NHL by far against a dynasty with no salary cap restrictions that had 9 HHOF players on it.