Quote Originally Posted by Carolina_Packer View Post
What was Ice Hockey like back then, Woody?
It's like anything that's obvious today and a certain decline in quality.

What do you get when you add water to milk. You get dilution of milk.

Any dilution of anything equates to less quality.

The NHL was awesome back in the days of 'The Original Six' Teams with the demise of the Brooklyn Americans in 1942 and the 1942-67 Era:

The Montreal Canadiens;The Toronto Maple Leafs; The Detroit Red Wings: The Boston Bruins; The Chicago Black Hawks and The New York Rangers.

The Original Six Era ended with the 1967 Stanley Cup Finals between the two-time defending champion Montreal Canadiens, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Maple Leafs were known as the "over the hill gang" and the oldest team in the NHL The Leafs were led in goal by 37-year-old Terry Sawchuk and 42-year-old Johnny Bower. In six games, Toronto became the oldest team to win the Cup, defeating the highly favored Montreal Canadiens. The Maple Leafs have not appeared in the Stanley Cup finals since.[

With the addition of six more teams in 1967, the largest expansion in professional sports history; it's generally recognized that the quality of the NHL became diluted The addition of the California Seals (later renamed the Oakland Seals and then the California Golden Seals), Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues brought the NHL from 6 to 12 teams.

1970: The NHL expands to 14 teams by adding the Buffalo Sabres, and the the Vancouver Canucks.

1972: The New York Islanders, based in the Long Island town of Uniondale, N.Y., join the NHL as do the Atlanta Flames, though the team moves to Calgary in 1980. Thus the NHL has 16 Teams.

The NHL dilutes even more in the forthcoming years to 2016 as the NHL expands to 31 Teams and the addition of a franchise in Las Vegas that began play in the 2017-18 season, bringing the NHL to 31 teams. It is the first major professional sports team in Las Vegas.