hey @mikey
i keep hearing about how the young players in the league are taking jobs from the 30 and over crowd
it goes something like this...
"these kids are good right out of the gate and now these 31/32/33 yr old players aren't in the league anymore"
etc
but they never mention who these 30&over crowd are
i can't think of any. i know fehr is still in the league so are these commentators blowing smoke and if not who are some of these players?
figure you'd know
thanks
Obviously they're speaking in generalities, but the league is trending younger...I think a sign that the game is improving is having less older players able to hang on...
By way of example, I find that the league from around 1980 to 1984 or '85 or so was particularly weak...almost WWII level weak...
Fairly prominent early 80's guys crashed and burned pretty hard at around age 33 or 34 when the game took a turn for the better: King Richard, Don Lever, Peter McNab, Mike Milbury, Bobby Nystrom, Jim Schoenfeld, Bob Gainey, Lanny McDonald, Dave Lewis, Denis Potvin (relative to what he was doing), Tom Lysiak, Andre Savard, Blaine Stoughton, Blair MacDonald, Danny Gare, Doug Risebrough, Stef Persson, Mike Rogers, Mike Palmateer, Brian Engblom, Willi Plett, Wilf Paiement, Don Edwards, Pat Price, Dennis Maruk...
"Yes, but mikey, you can find examples in any era of players retiring early or breaking down early at any time...Mike Richards, etc. what's your point?"
Glad you asked mysterious stranger...my hypothesis is that 1980 to 1984 or 85 or 86 or so is a weaker time for hockey. Especially 1981 thru 1983. As such, that time extended the careers of players because it was easier to hang around. Where as, 1985, 86 or 87 somewhere in there, closed off the league from players hanging around (names noted above)...but what about on the whole?
Removing players with less than 100 career games to help to avoid Don Cherry's getting called up for a game here and there...
Year |Total |After 1980 |Pct that made it
1946 ...55 ..........9 ...........16.4%
1947 ...59 ..........13 ..........22.0%
1948 ...67 ..........20 ..........29.9%
1949 ...88 ..........33 ..........37.5%
1950 ...83 ..........33 ..........39.8%
1951 ...73 ..........30 ..........41.1%
Year | Total | After 1985 | Pct that made it
1952 ...97 ..........10 ..........10.3%
1953 ...87 ..........9 ..........10.3%
1954 ...104 ........19 ..........18.3%
1955 ...108 ........28 ..........25.9%
1956 ...99 ..........26 ..........26.3%
As you can see, it was terribly uncommon (comparatively) for the later birthdays (theoretically, access to slightly better training, advances, more rinks, etc.) to hang around through the mid-80's than it was for the 40's kids to hang on through the early 80's...
Plus, other such nonsense, like American high school kids that just waltzed into the league in the time that I'm saying is on the weaker side...Brian Lawton, Tom Barrasso, Phil Housley, Bobby Carpenter...all made some impact in the league (some more than others, naturally) fresh out of high school...U.S. high school...yet, just ten years before that, you could take every American in the NHL and put them on the same team and not have enough skaters...
So perhaps we're seeing a strengthening of the league, plus there's a salary cap that puts an emphasis on entry-level help...and maybe that's why Kevin Bieksa, Steve Mason, Kari Lehtonen, Josh Gorges, Matt Stajan, Jannik Hansen, Benoit Pouliot, Cody Franson, David Desharnais, etc. all don't have jobs in the league to the best of my knowledge...maybe there are other factors as well...
