What are your thoughts about Richard's 1944/45 season?

[JackSlater]

My real beef is use of the term OBVIOUS, which essentially shuts down any reasonable arguments presented that go against the consensus, when REASONABLE is more appropriate:

If the general consensus is:

- higher scoring = obviously weaker league, I disagree. Look no further than the last thirty years of the league where scoring has gone up and down significantly.

- missing WW11 players = obviously higher scoring league, I disagree. The league may have been heading there anyways as scoring took jumps up in 40/41 and an even bigger one in 41/42. League scoring has yo-yoed throughout the history of the league and reached a level above the 44/45 level eleven times. Common sense would dictate that a "cross the board" exodus of forwards, d-men and goalies doesn't necessarily = higher scoring. It seems reasonable that the chaos that playing with the introduction new players and different linemates that occured with the exodus can explain the increase in scoring. We often see that at the beginning of each season but it doesn't mean the league is weaker.

- that Richard obviously doesn't score 50 in a hypothetical full roster league, I disagree. One can make a reasonable argument that he could have gotten even more than 50 in 44/45. Playing on such a powerhouse team may have held him back. He scored an even higher % of his team's goals in 46/47 and 50/51 (not including the five missed games).

- that obviously any of the missing players gets closer to Richard than Cain did. I disagree. We have half of one season by one player out of five or six other opportunities backing up the premise that other elite goalscorers would have obviously also shown a significant jump in their relative production

- that league imbalance was obviously a factor in Richard reaching 50 as the Habs were a powerhouse that year, I disagree. He reached a level of dominance close to his 44/45 level in two other seasons where the Habs were 2nd (46/47) and 4th (50/51) in GFs and notably were a below .500 team in 50/51.

I think the arguments for all of those are reasonable thus I agree with what appears to be the consensus that Richard's raw goal total of 50 and the % gap over the 2nd place scorer were inflated but not to an extent where one questions his ability to be that dominant or that his 44/45 season is essentially removed from the "greatest goalscoring" seasons discussion.

Those things are obvious. WW2 is the obvious biggest, but not only, factor in the scoring going up in the early 1940s and then back down once the best players returned and settled. It's obvious that Richard doesn't score as many goals if he is playing on the same line against better goaltenders every game and against better forwards and defencemen every game. It's obvious that someone would get closer to Richard than Boston's 33 year old third line winger if all of the best players were there and the players were all shooting on the same calibre of goaltender every game. It's obvious that Montreal being the only team with an intact first line and its starting goaltender is an advantage for Richard relative to the non-Montreal forwards in the league. Your inability to see the obvious doesn't make it less obvious.

That it wasn't over a full season vs. Bentley's full season in 1944 where he did not show a jump in production relative to the league which should reasonably bring into question of the obviousness of the impact of WW2.

The same applies to Apps in 1942/43, one barely half season of dominance, one that is hardly unique in any season (see Conacher in 39/40) vs. four full seasons of no dominance by the other elite goalscorers that year moves the "obvious" impact of WW2 on that season into outright doubt, let alone reasonably believable.

And there doesn't sound like there is a consensus on 42/43 as being "war weakened". @MXD wanted to downplay the lack of evidence shown in that season by stating that was not as affected by the war despite it clearly falling into the "war weakened" category than not by the number of missing players you presented. So which is it? What is the consensus? If higher league scoring levels = impacted by WWII, then the jump from 3.21 in 41/42 to 3.61 in 42/43, which almost matches the level in 44/45 (3.68), makes it reasonable to believe it similarly "war weakened" like 44/45.

This is nonsense. You asked for a very specific group of players and then received examples of such players, even though your request is of little relevance. There is no debate that the NHL, which lost at least 48 players due to WW2 by 1943, was a weakened league, and a significantly weakened league at that. Even accounting for Brooklyn ceasing operations it's still a third of the league gone. Use your brain and look at the players who were missing, both the number of players and their quality.

 

[daver]

Those things are obvious. WW2 is the obvious biggest, but not only, factor in the scoring going up in the early 1940s and then back down once the best players returned and settled. It's obvious that Richard doesn't score as many goals if he is playing on the same line against better goaltenders every game and against better forwards and defencemen every game. It's obvious that someone would get closer to Richard than Boston's 33 year old third line winger if all of the best players were there and the players were all shooting on the same calibre of goaltender every game. It's obvious that Montreal being the only team with an intact first line and its starting goaltender is an advantage for Richard relative to the non-Montreal forwards in the league. Your inability to see the obvious doesn't make it less obvious.

If those things are obvious, then so is Richard's ability to outscore any player who happened to be playing in the 44/45 season by the % he beat Cain, and, if scoring had reached that level with or without the exodus of players, Richard puts up 50.

 

[daver]

This is nonsense. You asked for a very specific group of players and then received examples of such players, even though your request is of little relevance. There is no debate that the NHL, which lost at least 48 players due to WW2 by 1943, was a weakened league, and a significantly weakened league at that. Even accounting for Brooklyn ceasing operations it's still a third of the league gone. Use your brain and look at the players who were missing, both the number of players and their quality.

I didn't ask for them, I listed the numerous players who should have been putting up dominating seasons in the "war weakened" years but failed to. You provided two half seasons vs. six or seven full seasons. Another HOH poster doesn't even want to include 42/43 data since it doesn't seemingly fit the narrative. No reasonable poster looks at that data and claims "see, it is obvious the missing players would have done better than Cain".

 

[JackSlater]

If those things are obvious, then so is Richard's ability to outscore any player who happened to be playing in the 44/45 season by the % he beat Cain, and, if scoring had reached that level with or without the exodus of players, Richard puts up 50.

Those things are obvious. Restating your strange opinion that flies in the face of basic logic does not make it obvious. It's easy to see that better scorers than Cain almost certainly would have gotten closer to Richard than Cain did, especially if those players had their top linemates as Richard did and their top goaltender behind them as Richard did. It's also very clear that Richard would not score 50 goals when playing against better goaltenders every game and against better skaters every game.

I didn't ask for them, I listed the numerous players who should have been putting up dominating seasons in the "war weakened" years but failed to. You provided two half seasons vs. six or seven full seasons. Another HOH poster doesn't even want to include 42/43 data since it doesn't seemingly fit the narrative. No reasonable poster looks at that data and claims "see, it is obvious the missing players would have done better than Cain".

You've shown nothing of note to this point. Anyone, except for a select few it seems, can look at the players who were top scorers in those years, look at what they did before and after the 1943 through 1945 seasons, and see the obvious. Again, any reasonable person can figure out that there are a number of players who would be expected to outscore Cain's performance based on them being obviously better scorers than Cain.

 

[daver]

You've shown nothing of note to this point. Anyone, except for a select few it seems, can look at the players who were top scorers in those years, look at what they did before and after the 1943 through 1945 seasons, and see the obvious. Again, any reasonable person can figure out that there are a number of players who would be expected to outscore Cain's performance based on them being obviously better scorers than Cain.

Uhhh.... the select few was the five players who were Top Ten in 41/42 including a two-time goalscoring champ.

Name these number of players and explain why they didn't do any better than "expected" in 42/43 or why didn't Bentley do better than "expected" in 1943/44?

Again, you are promoting use of the term OBVIOUS - definition. easily perceived or understood; clear, self-evident, or apparent.

How is obvious when you cannot objectively show one full season by the "number of players" to back up what apparently is OBVIOUS.

 

[The Macho King]

Can we just lock this now?

 

[JackSlater]

Uhhh.... the select few was the five players who were Top Ten in 41/42 including a two-time goalscoring champ.

Name these number of players and explain why they didn't do any better than "expected" in 42/43 or why didn't Bentley do better than "expected" in 1943/44?

Again, you are promoting use of the term OBVIOUS - definition. easily perceived or understood; clear, self-evident, or apparent.

How is obvious when you cannot objectively show one full season by the "number of players" to back up what apparently is OBVIOUS.

... the select few is the people who can't grasp that it's more difficult to outperform better players than it is to outperform worse players. I don't know why you keep mentioning Doug Bentley when he outscored Cain both year and finished first both years, which is a result clearly influenced by WW2. He's also someone we would clearly expect to outscore Cain in 1945 given that he outscored him in 1943, 1944, 1946, and then every year thereafter.

It's obvious because it's obvious that a sizable group of better scorers can be expected to outperform one worse scorer. It's impossible to show one full season in 1945 where a missing player outscores Cain because those players were not in the NHL. It's impossible to show that every player who missed the NHL season in 1945 due to WW2 wouldn't have outscored both Cain and Richard. We can use a very basic level of critical reasoning to figure out the obvious however. 51 players outscored Cain and 56 players outpaced him in 1942, the last year before a significant number of players left the NHL. 21 players outscored Cain and 28 players outpaced Cain in 1943 when the NHL is significantly weakened. Suddenly the NHL is significantly weakened further and 32 year old Cain is only outscored by one player in each of the next two seasons and outpaced by three and then two players. Most of the league returns in 1946 and 17 players outscore Cain and 23 players outpace him. In 1947 more players return and those who have returned are generally more settled, and now 107 players outscore and outpace Cain... because Cain is now an AHLer.

The obvious assumption is that one of the many players better than Cain could outperform him had they been in the NHL in 1945. The alone reduces Richard's margin of victory, as would bringing back the other starting goaltenders. Even something as simple as bringing back Doug Bentley, Conacher, and Apps, plus the starting goaltenders, makes it seem extremely likely that Richard's goal lead would be reduced.