Posted by bigjack at All Time Dirtiest Actions Thread.
So true and the young posters here don't like me. They only know what they hear and read and think that because a guy is bigger and skates fast, that makes him a great hockey player. They also have no clue about how massive expansion has ruined the NHL. John Davidson, on his first trip back to NY two years ago, said on the air that there is not enough hockey skills today to fill more than two lines and that the 3rd and 4th lines do nothing but skate fast and all out and check and have no finishing skills! He said even the 2nd lines are weak in many cases and I laughed and thought "BRAVO" and it's only something that I have been saying for years.
To me, the last decent year was 1992 and then they began with all the massive expansion and coaches like Roger Neilson were smart and saw how a San Jose was getting destroyed and knew the only way to compete in Florida with the Panthers was to play tight, tight checking boring hockey with holding, clutching, grabbing and that was the key to staying competitive!
The other expansion teams saw that as they entered the league and did the same thing and presto boring unskilled crappy hockey!
Neilson was smart and was only doing what Scotty Bowman did with St Louis in the late 1960's and early 1970's. The Blues made it to 3 straight finals out of the West playing a trap and relying on Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante! They all talk about the trap or 3rd man high but Bowman was using that in Montreal as his defensive system all throughout the 1970's! The difference is that his teams were loaded with great skilled players and his 3rd lines consisted of guys like: Risenbrough, Lambert, Tremblay, Houle, Mondou etc. Montreal was so good that a guy like
Pierre Larouche was being benched by Bowman after being a 50 goal man in Pittsburgh!
Today a Derek Sanderson, Sheppard, Risenbrough, Kindrachuk, Bridgman, Stemkowski, Ullman, Lorentz to name a few were all 3rd line or 4th line centers and today would be 1st or 2nd line centers. Toronto was average in the early 1970's and yet had guys like: Keon, Sittler, Ullman, Harrison at center ice! Who has that kind of talent today and they were an average team!
The other thing is the goalie equipment today is ridiculous! Look at what Tony O wore or Dryden and compare that with what they wear today!
This isn't hard to see or comprehend at all if you know hockey but all I get is the guys are bigger and stronger and skate fast!
Big Deal!
Guys,
This is the kind of post I thought we could put here and talk about. It deals with a lot of things that we remember, from equipment to expansion. The
older players compared to the players of today.
It is not meant to duplicate another, just a place to post some of what we remember.
Thanks bigjack