Quote: Originally Posted By yogsloth on 4/21/2010
I don't think I'm comfortable with the notion of adding WHA players. I'm not old enough to have any kind of nostalgia for what was essentially a crummy minor league with a handful of stars. If we took Mike Richards and Martin St. Louis and dropped them into the ECHL, they'd score 70 goals too... but that doesn't mean we need 20 seasons from the Ferraro twins in the database. I think it would be complete gibberish.
But then again, so are the golden seasons of Malone, Dye, et al.
Funny how this thread turned into something completely different, though. I too would love to see team influence lessened and PIMs thrown out of the DEF equation entirely.
Not quite accurate.
Try this; take all the foreign talent out of the NHL, and put them behind an Iron Curtain.
Underpay the hell out of the current NHL players and tie them to contracts that have the appearance of being able to be renewed by the team at any time.
Now, start a league that proves in court that those contracts are illegal, and starts tossing around lots of money...that they don't have.
What you would get is a few stars (most on the downslope), lots of journeymen, lots of fresh junior talent looking for the immediate payday that the NHL won't give them (a lot of which became legit stars), and the odd good player that squeezed through that Iron Curtain.
That, my friend, was the WHA. And that's why the appeal continues to this day, because they shoved it up the NHL's wahoo at a time when they were at their snottiest (except maybe now).