Recently in the Sports What-Ifs thread there was somr discussion about the failed Seals franchise in the NHL and that got me motivated enough to begin this.
For the last little while I have been running a NHL simulation starting with the 1967-68 expansion season and hope to get up to the present day. Through this simulator I want to follow these four main what-ifs:
1) What if the six '67 expansion clubs (primarily the Seals) were run to their fullest potential? From a economic side this TL will appear to be extremely optimistic, as all the ownership groups will pan out and that I have both the Seals and Blues getting new arenas by the early '70s to handwave any problems off the ice.
2) What-if the NHL didn't have to compete with an active rival league (WHA)? The Wha had a number of affects on the NHL (both good and bad), but the one thing I want to look at is the impact on the rosters and the player pool as a whole. In 1974-75 for example there were only 18 NHL clubs but there were in fact 32 ¨big league¨ clubs in total and this not only impacted the established NHL teams but more importantly gutted the entire upper-tier minor leagues (AHL/WHL) of talent. I plan on having expansion to happen in the same years as they did in OTL (1972, 74 and 1979) albeit with different clubs joining in several cases, as well as having the threat of a proposed rival league that spurs this expansion phase.
3) What if the NHL Draft age remained at 20 and not lowered to 18 as it is now? Without the WHA not only is this possible but also it means that one Wayne Gretzky will be draft elegible in 1981 and the butterflies will have major ramifications on which, if any, teams dominate the 80's and early 90's.
4) What if the league remained at 21 teams, in addition to what if the NHL remained locked out of the eastern european talent pool? I have seen two opposing view points, primarily online, about the NHL's expansion in the 1990's. Some argue that the league over expanded and this diluted the talent pool, while I have seen others respond that thanks to injection of new talent from europe that it is/was sustainable. Now to find out.
This is also one reason why I have dubbed this project ¨Retro¨, but as well because from the individual player stats that I've accumulated and comparing the average goals per game it has remained similar to that of the mid-1960's. I will compare Bobby Orr's stats through 1970-71 as an example within the next few updates.
Lastly before I begin there are 4 retroactive butterflies to get out of the way:
1) August 13, 1949: Bobby Clarke is born without diabetes, and therefore will go first overall in 1969 NHL Amateur Draft. There were several clubs uncertain if he could even play in the NHL in OTL.
2) October 23, 1962: The Baltimore Civic Center officially opens with a capacity for hockey games of 13,650. In OTL it only could hold 11,286 then because they decided to put a stage at one end, and thus helped to quickly eliminate Baltimore from the running of the '67 expansion. In TTL Philadelphia is still selected but because of preference in ownership. Baltimore (as the Clippers will join the NHL from the AHL in either '72 or '74)
3) February, 1966: the NHL selected San Francisco-Oakland as one of the six expansion markets, along with Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Minneapolis-St. Paul and St. Louis. The NHL gave Mel Swig, the Seals' owner and prospective governor, permission to play out of the Cow Palace as long as neccesary upgrades were made and that plans for a new arena in San Francisco were being made.
4) December 29, 1967: The Ottawa Centenial Arena (Civic Center in OTL) opens for an Ottawa 67's OHA Jr. game versus the Montreal Junior Canadiens to a sell-out crowd of 11,867. In OTL the OCC can hold 9,862 because of its location under the north grandstand at Lansdowne Park. In TTL the northside of the football stadium has fewer seats and allowing for more room for the rink. Like Baltimore, Ottawa will get a team and sooner than in OTL
Now time to drop the puck with the results of the 1967-68 regular season.