The game of hockey is much like the surface on which it is played. Zambonis scrub the ice every 20 minutes (more frequently during outdoor games) to ostensibly restore it to a baseline state. But within minutes the ebb and flow of the game has carved a unique set of circ*mstances for the ensuing period of play.
Seen through our eyes, the game of hockey looks rather static. The pace of change is slow. But as we zoom out to study the sport over time we can see that the ebb and flow of factors have carved the game into definable epochs, each one different and most a golden age in its own right.
Below is a timeline of the history of the NHL. The blue line shows the average number of goals per game. The red line shows the number of teams. And the white and grey bars divide the timeline into observable eras: The edges of eras are always difficult to identify with precision, but I have identified six NHL epochs (note that I refer to seasons by their concluding year).
The Formative Years (1918-1930)
The NHL was formedout the rubble of the National Hockey Association with a league comprised of the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators and Toronto Arenas (now the Maple Leafs). It was not the beginning of elite professional hockey in North America, but it was the beginning of the rapid consolidation of talent into one premier league.
It was a period of intense development. Expansion grew the league to 10 teams by 1927. Two competing, Western-based leagues failed and the talent came East.There was rapid development of rules and strategy throughout the 1920s.
The principal evidence of frenetic change is that scoring plummeted from an average of nearly 10 to less than 3 goals per game over this era. Rule-making efforts to maintain offence could not keep pace with the development of the skills and strategy of goal prevention.
The 1920s were, in a sense, much like today. The league was struggling with the rise of goal prevention. During the 1929 season, Montreal goaltender George Hainsworth set an NHL record that still stands with a goals-against average of 0.98 (and recorded 22 shutouts).
Context matters in any study of history. In the NHL's inaugural season, Joe Malone scored 44 goals in just 20 games. Unadjusted for context this is the most impressive single-season scoring feat in NHL history. But the context to consider is that scoring has never been as high and players averaged about 40 minutes per game of ice time (Malone surely got more).
This was a golden age of change. These were turbulent times, pioneering times. Reputations of frontiersmen are usually larger than life. This was the era of Malone, Hainsworth, Georges Vezina, Howie Morenz, Aurel Joliat, Frank Nighbor, Newsy Lalonde, Sprague Cleghorn and Cy Denneny.
The Adolescent Years (1931-1939) If you were able to teleport back to watch a 1920s game, you might not recognize it. The game was defined by the notion of legal and illegal passes. Defensive strategies evolved quickly and, by the end of the decade, generating offence had become too difficult.
In the face of this stifling defensive bias, the league took drastic action for the 1930 season and eliminated virtually all restrictions on passing. Offence doubled but the perception was that the game was at risk of becoming a farce. For the 1931 season a dramatic overall of the rules turned the game substantially into its modern form.
Another major development occurred around the same time. Hockey transitioned from a game played by six players and some substitutes to a team game involving forward lines, defensive pairs and changes "on the fly". Roster sizes expanded and, by 1932, average ice time had declined to less than 23 minutes per game.
Even though three franchises were lost to the depression, this was a golden age of the development of the game. The game settled into its current form and rhythm. Notwithstanding the modernization of the rules, this was an era characterized by low scoring (generally under 5 goals per game). Although this was a time of the "Kid Line" of Charlie Conacher, Busher Jackson and Joe Primeau, the biggest heroes of the era were defencemen such as Eddie Shore, Hap Day, King Clancy and Red Horner.
The War and Reconstruction Years (1940-1949) This was a very important period in NHL history for it taught us something - when the talent pool is drained, scoring goes up.
World War II commenced in 1939 and, in short order, a large number of hockey players joined the armed forces. The NHL continued play with a much more diluted talent pool.
Play became sloppier and more wide-open as the war progressed. Goaltending suffered the most. Scoring rose rapidly from less than 5 to over 8 goals per game in 1944. Then, after the war, we saw a swift return to more historic levels of scoring as the talent level returned to pre-war levels.
One significant rule change occurred during this era - the introduction of the recently maligned centre red line. This change was designed to improve the flow of the game for, concurrent with the new paint on the ice, players were finally permitted to pass the puck out of the defensive zone. It helped both offence (the transition game) and the defence (clearing the zone) and scoring was not materially affected.
This was hardly a golden time. Careers were interrupted or shortened and the quality of play was clearly inferior.
The Original Six Years (1950-1967) In 1942 the Brooklyn Americans quit the NHL and set the stage for what many consider to be the "golden era" of hockey. The "original six" era is not an accurate label, of course, but is in common use especially by those who cannot recall an NHL without the Pittsburgh Penguins.
I mark the beginning of the original six era several years later, once goal scoring had returned to "normal". By any measure it was a period of high stability for the NHL. This was well reflected in scoring. Although there was a generally increasing trend in the openness of the game from 1953 (4.8 goals per game) through 1962 (6.0 goals per game), the evolution of the game was well paced.
Stability was a good thing in Montreal, Detroit and Toronto. These three teams missed the playoffs justfive times over this period and, starting in 1942, won 25 of 26 Stanley Cups. Stability was more like a jail sentence in Chicago, Boston and New York, where a top two finish was awfully rare (six times).
This was a good time to be a good goaltender. Notwithstanding a season that had lengthened to 70 games and changes to the rules that required them, backups were rarely used. With moderate levels of scoring and only six big jobs it was easy to become famous. This was the time of Jacques Plante, Glen Hall, Terry Sawchuk, Gump Worsley and Johnny Bower.
The helmet had yet to emerge as a fashion statement and, with only six employers, if you had talent you could really stand out. This was the epoch of Gordie Howe, Maurice and Henri Richard, Jean Beliveau, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Doug Harvey, Bernie Geoffrion, Frank Mahovalich, Red Kelly, Alex Delvechio, George Armstrong, Dave Keon, Jean Ratelle, Harry Howell, Pierre Pilote, Marcel Pronovost and Tim Horton (who, contrary to popular belief, did not invent the doughnut).
The Expansion Years (1968-1986) Suddenly there were12 and the NHL was never the same again. This was an era of rapid expansion with the NHL adding teams in multiple waves. In part this was to stave off competition. The World Hockey Association further extended the scope of elite professional hockey for the 1973 season with 12 teams of its own and, in short order, there were 28 "major" professional hockey teams.
Although the WHA never reached parity with the NHL its dilutive effect was still pronounced. What we learned during the war and reconstruction years played out again - as talent gets diluted scoring rises. This was an era of relentless inflation in scoring with average goals per game rising from 5.6 in 1968 to 8.0 in 1982.
But change was not limited to expansion. Important things were happening on the ice. In a way it was the formative years, part deux.
First there was Bobby Orr. He is the only defenceman to ever lead the NHL in scoring and his total reinvention of the defence position changed the game forever.
Concurrently there was Phil Esposito who shattered goal scoring standards with an unprecedented 76 goals in 1971. His reinvention? Go to the net … and stay there. He brought the inside game to hockey.
At the other end of the food chain was his brother, Tony Esposito. His reinvention was quieter - the butterfly style of goaltending. He was ahead of his time (as we will see in a moment).
Then there was the European invasion. Ulf Nilsson and Anders Hedberg paved the way in the WHA and Borje Salming opened the door in the NHL. The influx of Europeans offset the dilution of talent to some degree. But they brought a different game with them. Theirs was a fast paced and open game. And this further expanded scoring.
And finally there was Wayne Gretzky. With the absorption of four WHA teams for the 1980 season the Great One landed in the NHL. The terms of surrender were not kind to these four teams. They could retain only two skaters and two goaltenders. But this did not stop the Edmonton Oilers from becoming an elite team very quickly.
In 1982, Gretzky re-wrote the record books with 92 goals and 120 assists. In 1983, the Oilers reached the Stanley Cup finals. And in 1984 they claimed the first of four championships in five years.
The Oilers were the defining team of the end of this era. In 1984, Gretzky and friends potted a record 446 goals (an average of 5.6 per game). With that kind of offence they hardly worried about the defence (3.9 goals per game). Watching this team was like watching a game from 1918.
This was a bad time to be a goaltender (although a few, such as Ken Dryden, won enduring fame) with high goals against averages being the norm.
It was a great time to be a forward (or Paul Coffey or Ray Bourque). Fifty goal seasons became cheap and careers lengthened due to expansion, talent dilution and the lure of salary inflation. When you combine this with the steady increase in the number of games played you have a recipe for all time scoring leadership. Of the top 30 scorers of all time only six did not play much in the 1970s or 1980s (five are still active). And you have to dive down deep to number 31, Alex Delvechio, to find a player whose career largely preceded this period and who was not named Gordie Howe.
Was this a Golden Age of hockey? Expansion polluted the product and distorted the numbers. But the record books are never adjusted for this. History will report a high population of offensive stars from this period. It was an era of rapid change in the game and the Greatest One put up his greatest numbers during this time. Perhaps it was both the best of times and the worst of times.
The Goaltending Years (1987-2007) Expansion resumed in the 1990s with the NHL growing from 21 to 30 teams but the scoring trend broke. For the first time in the history of the NHL, expansion was associated with a contraction in the average number of goals per game.
This period of NHL history opened with scoring just short of 8 goals per game. Until the game was recently "fixed" by the league, goal scoring had fallen to nearly 5 goals per game. And this was in spite of the introduction of regular season overtime in 1984, a change that increased the average length of games by about a minute.
There are four clear reasons for this development.
The first observation is that the European invasion became the European assimilation. Hockey became increasingly global in the 1990s. The growth in Euro talent offset expansion. But also the North American style of physical, tight checking hockey became the accepted norm.
Secondly players were getting larger, without a loss of mobility. This made the rink feel smaller and clogged up offence.
It has always been true that defence is the most coachable part of the game. The third development was that NHL teams began to invest more heavily in coaching and in video tape (thank you Roger Neilson). Coaches got smarter and the trap was born in the 1990s.
But the largest impact of all on scoring in this era has been due to goaltending. Two words defined the change of this period - equipment and style. This period of NHL history has become the goaltending years.
This was the era of Patrick Roy. His NHL career officially commenced in 1985 (with a single game) but began in earnest the following season and stretched through to his retirement in 2003. Roy may not be responsible for redefining goaltending, but he was the poster boy for it.
The equipment got much larger. If you compare a photograph of today's goaltenders to those of the 1980s you can immediately see the difference. Roy certainly was a leader in this trend.
But, in a way, this was also the era of Tony Esposito who lad long since retired. He brought to the NHL the modern style of goaltending. Prior to him goaltenders stood tall. His style was the "butterfly" - quick to drop to the ice with post to post pads. The modern style of goaltending addresses well the hard facts - about 70 per cent of shots are down low.
Roy took this style and became the goaltending icon of a generation. In doing so he and his contemporaries established the goaltending era of the NHL and set in motion a relentless reduction in scoring.
For the 2006 season there were a large number of fixes designed to increase offence. The data says it worked but the truth is that changes to red lines, blue lines and trapezoids had very little effect. Scoring is up because penalties are up.
The other big change from 2006 is the salary cap (and salary minimum). The effect of this change on the ice has been greater balance. Balance brings tighter games. As coaches like defensive play in close games, that tends to reduce scoring. This trend is beginning to emerge.
The Golden Years of the NHL There is little doubt in my mind that today's outstanding teams would trounce most of the superlative teams from earlier eras. The technology is better. The training is better. The coaching is better. And the global talent pool is larger than ever.
But that is not a fair comparison of teams or of the sport.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What might be golden to me might look like brass to you. Each of hockey's eras has a claim to fame (save, I think, for the war years). There are always bright young stars emerging and aging veterans chasing some milestone. Something is always in flux.
Nearly all of hockey's years seem golden to me.
