Old NHL vs. New NHL

[Eazy_b97 1]

With the "fight debate" going on right now it kind've sparked a thought in my mind. Is the NHL or shall I say hockey players in general today, more talented than back then? I would definately say so. I think it just wasn't as instrumental in their lives as it is today. Players now train all year, and are in better condition. Every era has its stars, and I don't want to turn this into a Gretz vs. Orr vs. Howe type debate, but I just think todays players focus more on the ingame talents more so than before. Just thought I'd throw this out there, see what others think. I think alot of being a good hockey player back in the day was just pure strength. Mind you I am fairly young, but I've seen a fair bit of older games and from what I've seen this is kind've the idea I have formed.

[mik3 1]

There's probably more natural talent nowadays because kids grow up playing every sport you can think of, so they have a lot of skills as they grow up. But back in the day it was just a different type of person that played hockey. You think some 150lb white suburban kid who thinks he's from the ghetto would last a period playing against some canadian farm kids who believe hockey is their only way out of their boring life?

[Chadd 916]

The talent gap between the stars and the pluggers is smaller than ever before.

[mik3 1]

Very true, even the worst teams in the league have good third liners.

[ponty 0]

Keep in mind back in the "old days" the influx of overseas talent was minimal. Sure you had Salming, and the Stansny brothers but there were few others. The players were smaller but for reasons discussed many a time the game was much better than today.

You also had better 1/2 or 1/2/3 combo's on the forward lines like:

Peter, Anton, & Marion Stansny

Rick Middleton and Barry Pederson

Gretzky and Kurri ... heck Gretzky and anyone.

Denis Savard and Al Secord

Poulin, Propp, and Kerr

[Adam91 0]

its pretty hard to tell becasue the New NHL or the most recent NHL is doing the best they can to stop players from using their goalscoring/playmaking/creative skills by clutching and grabing and clogging up space. Where as in the old NHL those skills were promoted and games were exciting and scores were 6-5, 8-7 not 3-1 or 2-0

[MDE3 0]

Aside from the dedicated year round training that some (not all) NHL players observe today, the biggest difference in today's game is the systematic play, particularily on defence. The "old" NHL tended to depend a lot on instinctive play for the great players, which when it clicked was incredible to watch.

The systematic play grew out of the years of international competition where often the North American players were hard pressed to keep up with the better conditioned/trained skaters from the Russian and Czech teams etc., so they developed ways of slowing them down, and depended on our North American referrees to allow this whever possible...setting the stage for much of what we see now.

Also although most players from the "old school" NHL did not observe quite the same year round training regimen, those players who came from "the farm" or their father's logging operations, and went back home to work their in the off season, often got better strength training than anything available in a gym. Nobody has yet to equal the velocity of a Bobby Hull, no matter how much technolgy is involved. The great wrist shots of the old NHL were common....again more a legacy of hard work(in the "real world") in the off season than anything else. The proportion of great snipers back then(mid seventies and before) was probably 10 times higher compared to now(meaning relative to all the other players in the league). Guys with tremendously hard and accurate wrist shots were pretty common.....with hands and forearms developed from the raw hard work seen in the off seasons, and growing up working in a man's world from age 10.

The "old" NHL was much more a "blue collar" sport, than today's game, because hockey was a sport of the working class. The game today is fed not so much from the working class kids looking for a way out of their remote home town, but of kids from middle/upper class families, who are now the only ones who can afford for their kids to play, and get the ice time and equipment they feel that they need to develop properly. Not that this same mentality no longer exists in the more remote parts of Canada and the US, but the percentage of players coming up "the hard way" is much smaller now.

[hip check 0]

Systems, better personal training, and more time devoted to the game all are factors in making todays players - in general* - better than those of years gone by. Sure, there will be stand-out players nobody can touch from each generation, but overall players are becoming more skilled. As the dollars involved in the sport increase, so will the skill levels of all the players.

Would Mike Bossy score all his goals in today's game? Could Bure out-skate Rocket Richard in similar gear? Is Roy really better than Sawchuck was, or Tretiak for that matter? How hard would Bobby Hull's shot be with today's sticks? Fun comparisons, but impossible to tell.