The Official NHL Thread - NHL Season underway!

[COKTOE]

HomokHarcos said:

COKTOE said:

Well, it's a fairly loosely defined term to be sure. One that I cannot peg off the top of my head without using the google machine. For the NHL, I'd say around the time the league expanded to 21 teams, or a few years prior to that. Soooo, mid to late 70's? Certainly, making the playoffs when the league was a 6 team operation, should be treated differently than when it was at 21, 24, ect. 

A higher percentage of teams made the playoffs during the 21 team era (76%) than during the Original Six era (66%)

Because of the much smaller number of teams, it's much more likely that any one of them would make the playoffs in consecutive years then than it would have been in the 21 team era, regardless of the %. It's more more impressive feat in the "modern era". Especially if one begins to factor in the players obtaining more power and freedom through things like free agency, which facilitated more player movement, and made franchise stability more difficult to maintain.

Last edited by COKTOE - on 29 March 2018