1993...Most Talented NHL Roster Ever?

[Scandale du Jour]

And who won the cup that year ? VS the goat on top of it ?

Say it

That is exactly why I think 1993 sucked. The ending is atrocious

 

[JPT]

Gretzky did

Gretzky never scored 38 goals in a game doing it though

 

[TheStatican]

If you like the collection of names from 93 that's your thing. When you single out a player from 93 (eg ; Lemieux, Gretzky) you can say he was the best for his time, or maybe ever. But to say the overall level of talent was better back then, that I don't agree. Players learn from past generations and the overall level of skill keeps improving. Players skate way better than they used to and it's not just because of better equipment.

You've misunderstood the argument. He's not claiming that players were better back then, but rather that the overall level of high-end talent on the average team was higher than it is today, or at any other time in history. This makes sense because the talent was concentrated across 21 teams, rather than 32 today(the 3 expansion teams were only given scraps). And before the 1990s Soviet and Russian players didn’t participate in the NHL.

Also, you're over exaggerating the improvement in player performance from then to now. Humans haven’t physically evolved into a completely different species since then. At the upper echelon most benchmarks have only seen very marginal improvements over the past several decades and a lot of those improvements can be attributed to better equipment. For instance, the 100m sprint record has only decreased by 2.7% in 30 years! which is a rather small margin. Yes training methods have improved dramatically which has made the average player in the league much better - but no matter how much training you give the average player they'll never become a McDavid, Mackinnion, Kucherov etc.

 

[Xspyrit]

The talent pool is now a lot smaller though as hockey has become a lot more exclusive.

Weird, I came to say the opposite. There has never been as much talent as there is now. A big factor is that in 88-89, 75% of players were Canadiens (and 15% USA) and now international talent has really invaded the NHL and the Americans have been developing a lot more hockey players. It's still not a Top-4 sports for the US but they play it a lot more than before.

It's true that early 90's had incredible talents though

 

[JianYang]

Might be surprising to hear this from a Pens fan considering the way that season ended for my team, but I still think it was the greatest season of all time, at least from an excitment perspective.

Here's my long-ass write up of the year;

Revisiting the greatest point and goal scoring races in NHL history; The 1992-93 season.

With a new season on the horizon and considering we are coming up to the 30th anniversary of the 1992-93 season I figured now might be a good time to revisit what I firmly believe to be was the greatest goal and point scoring race in NHL history. Last year's scoring race was undoubtedly one of...

forums.hfboards.com

I don't think that's an uncommon opinion.

 

[Amorgus]

It's funny how even now there are glitches that almost always result in goals. I swear in NHL 24 if I'm able to skate horizontally through the slot and rip a shot across my body top shelf it'll go in 95% of the time.

I try that and I get nothing. I suck so bad at 24 but mainly just play Threes with my nephew who's the showboater.

 

[JPT]

I try that and I get nothing. I suck so bad at 24 but mainly just play Threes with my nephew who's the showboater.

If you're close to the crease and on your forehand it's usually better to aim low, far side, but higher up in the slot I usually am able to get a healthy amount of goals going cross body, top corner. I'm not too familiar with threes, though. I know its mechanics are a bit different in terms of pace and exaggerating hitting power, etc.

 

[PaulD]

And the Habs won the Cup !!!

Parade was fantastic !

 

[ValeriKamensky]

Forsberg and Khabibulin both were out of NHL at this time. But yeah, 1992/93 was the historical season

 

[Albatros]

Weird, I came to say the opposite. There has never been as much talent as there is now. A big factor is that in 88-89, 75% of players were Canadiens (and 15% USA) and now international talent has really invaded the NHL and the Americans have been developing a lot more hockey players. It's still not a Top-4 sports for the US but they play it a lot more than before.

It's true that early 90's had incredible talents though

In the United States there definitely has been some significant growth, but mostly in areas where hockey wasn't popular before, as well as in women's hockey. Nowadays the Pacific, Rocky Mountain, and Southeastern districts of USA Hockey are among the very largest when it comes to the number of registered players, whereas in the 1990s they were among the very smallest.

In Sweden on the other hand there were some 1600 hockey clubs in the 1970s when the '93 generation of future pros started playing, today there are only 400 left. Some clubs have grown larger while others vanished, but it's still a huge drop and many junior tournaments are half the size they were in the not so distant past. The number of registered male players grew until the early 2000s and has been in decline since, but the official numbers do not include the near-extinction of unregistered hockey. Similar stories in most other major hockey-playing countries.

Nowadays you have 10-year-olds with individual skating coaches, but those are hardly ever the most talented 10-year-olds, rather the ones with the wealthiest and most eager parents. They may do well in the juniors, but do not have what it takes to be among the best in the world one day.

 

[Rorschach]

Gretzky never scored 38 goals in a game doing it though

IN A ROW?!

 

[PaulD]

True. Say what you want about fighting but no doubt that the enforcers were strong antagonists/protagonists back then who really connected with the fans.

A guy like Bob probert coming to town used to be a big deal in itself.

and scored 29 goals one season I believe

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

The talent pool is now a lot smaller though as hockey has become a lot more exclusive.

this a valid point I must say.

 

[Maitz]

In 1993 there was the right amount of teams, I hate having expansions teams

 

[Scintillating10]

Is the time of around 1993 the most elite talent in a single NHL roster in the history of the NHL?


1) Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux playing and still highly effective
Gretzky with his Conn Smythe worthy 1993 playoffs and Lemieux with a ridiculous GP 60, G 69, A 91, P 160, +/- +55

1a) So many teams with two #1 caliber centers on the same team...Lemieux/Francis, Yzerman/Federov, Sakic/Forsberg, Modano/Nieuwendyk, etc.


2) Goaltenders, all three GOATs in or heading into their primes: Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek

2a) Many other memorable goalies like Ed Belfour, Nikolai Khabibulin, Olaf Kolzig, Curtis Joseph, Mike Richter, Felix Potvin plus 80s holdovers


3) So much young, elite offensive talent coming into the league such as Eric Lindros, Jaromir Jagr, Pavel Bure, Teemu Selanne, Peter Forsberg, Sergei Federov, Brett Hull, Mats Sundin, Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, etc.


4) Defensemen, oh boy, the insane amount of HOF and franchise defensemen in the NHL, especially the Americans (Leetch, Chelios, Hatcher bros, Gary Suter), Canadians (Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer, Al MacInnis, Gary Roberts, Chris Pronger, Ray Bourque, Paul Coffey, Rob Blake, etc.) and Vladimir Kostantinov, Sergei Zubov and some nobody named Nicklas Lidstrom


And I'm just going to mention the 5 Central Red Army elite veterans...Igor Larionov, Sergei Makarov, Vladisav Fetisov, Alexei Kasatonov, and Vladimir Krutov although he was on his last legs


I'm sure I've left out several HOFer players...
Maybe the one player who wasn't in the NHL yet but would be there soon was Paul Kariya...

Early '70s be mine. Orr and Beliveau, Howe, Hull, Mahovlich, Cournoyer, Esposito. Bobby Clarke was good player too. Best on defense for sure. Besides Orr, Potvin, Park, Robinson. Montreal 's Big Three in general. Salming was good also. In net probably Dryden best. Tony O, Parent, Sawchuk was good goalie. Use to crouch right down quick reflexes

 

[TheOrganist]

1993-1995 were also the last years of many of the classic arenas before many of them started falling. You had an incredible arsenal of talent playing in old, historic venues where the fans were on top of you which created awesome theatre…ya, great era of hockey.