Estimating the size of the NHL's talent pool (1950-2023)

[wetcoast]

It's somewhat similar to the Maritimes in Canada (where I grew up). The Maritime Provinces are the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI. There is no question that this is what the Maritimes consists of. Yet, a lot of people in Canada, from Quebec to BC (and probably elsewhere in the world) seem to think that Newfoundland is also part of the Maritimes. (Newfoundland and Labrador is actually the name of the province, but most Canadians have no idea what the historical connection is between the island of Newfoundland, and Labrador). Even a small number of Maritimers think Newfoundland is part of the Maritimes, but not many. I assume all Newfoundlanders know the distinction.

Or when people out east say the west and/or prairie provinces as BC stands alone quite apart form the other 3.

 

[Johnny Engine]

It's somewhat similar to the Maritimes in Canada (where I grew up). The Maritime Provinces are the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI. There is no question that this is what the Maritimes consists of. Yet, a lot of people in Canada, from Quebec to BC (and probably elsewhere in the world) seem to think that Newfoundland is also part of the Maritimes. (Newfoundland and Labrador is actually the name of the province, but most Canadians have no idea what the historical connection is between the island of Newfoundland, and Labrador). Even a small number of Maritimers think Newfoundland is part of the Maritimes, but not many. I assume all Newfoundlanders (and Labradorians) know the distinction.

^^^ this guy gets it.

Of course, the shortest answer for "what's the distinction" is that Newfoundland and the Maritimes weren't even part of the same country 75 years ago, but it might also be helpful for everyone's sense of geography to point out that if I left my home in St. John's right now and the Ferry schedules were in my favour, it might be January 2nd, 2024 by the time I got to Halifax.

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

Based on this approach, my conclusion is the NHL was at its highest quality (on a per roster spot basis) during the late Original Six era. It reached its nadir during the 1970's and Dead Puck Era. The current NHL talent pool (as of 2023) is rapidly approaching the quality of the Original Six era.

Haven't crunched the numbers, but the late 06 thing sound spot-on, intuitively - if only because the game tends to evolve in general, meaning that 06 likely wasn't better after the War, which is the best comparison imo.

I think Dryden had said that the expansion was the main thing why early 70s hockey got so violent. Was it worse than bygone eras? I don't know. But I saw the 70s and agree that it and the DPE are about as bad as I can remember.

The talent is better than ever, and quite a bit better when the gratuitous fighting ended (how long ago). Third and fourth liners are so skilled now its crazy.

Your characterization of hockey in Canada in 1900 is not true. Either you don't have any knowledge of this, or you're not being honest.

There was hockey being played, and it was already an important part of Canadian culture....but it looked very different. Infrastructure and transportation were huge issues. There were few indoor rinks. Hockey was mostly an urban sport, and Canada was a lot more rural then. Most rural boys were almost completely cut off from any opportunity to play hockey, and many urban boys were too.... People definitely played hockey, but often it was very informal and maybe just a couple times per year.

Hi there. This is a bit surprising, for two reasons. One, we have one of the founding fathers of Montreal hockey, Henry Joseph, saying that he and his friends use to play every day after they began playing. My impression is that Halifax was basically the same.

The second reason I find this odd is that I'm from British Columbia, which I thought was the only place in Canada that didn't have snow and ice in winters as a rule. People have no idea how much that sucks when you are a hockey person, btw.

The people you describe lived in Ottawa and Toronto....it was a necessity to live close to a rink....if you didn't, no hockey for you.

I never actually got to learn skating until I was in my 20s and got to TO, where there was frozen water everywhere. I went down to Ryerson on the first storm and skated for three hours on the first night. You couldn't get me away from when I had time, for those last two months. Ice was basically everywhere. I've read that people used to skate from Halifax to Dartmouth on weekends - across the harbour.

I was reading Arthur Farrell's book the other day, and he goes on about lots of people playing stick ball during his time, prior to 1899, in the Montreal to Quebec City region. With whatever they could. He differentiates all of those games from Montreal's 'scientific' hockey.

Moreover, he says this about Canada's relationship to hockey that year:

In the passage below Farrell says that 'scientific' hockey began in Toronto in 1887, when a lawyer named Paton brought sticks to TO. This is critical in my opinion: as this birth of hockey follows the same pattern in Montreal. The arrival of hockey sticks completed the process on both occasions.

I presume this to mean the sticks were either Mi'kmaq sticks or ones that copied their flat thin blades. The 'completion' I envision, therefore, has to do with such sticks being coupled with the world famous Acme skates, and that this combination allowed for scientific play primarily because stick ball can't really evolve until the flat thin blade arrives. I further presume that Paton's friends were similarly well-heeled - pun intended - and that as a clique they attracted much attention in Toronto for playing "hockey," with what turned out to be the 19th century's dominant sticks and skates.

So, maybe I'm missing big here but I would think that over this time, a decade, there would be a bunch of others playing hockey or stick ball around town in Toronto. Then again, maybe there were no ponds or whatever around TO then. If there were, however, how the various 'hockey' games unfolded depended much on what kinds of tools one had, and the differences would have been significant, depending on the technologies.

 

[The Panther]

It's somewhat similar to the Maritimes in Canada (where I grew up). The Maritime Provinces are the three provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI. There is no question that this is what the Maritimes consists of. Yet, a lot of people in Canada, from Quebec to BC (and probably elsewhere in the world) seem to think that Newfoundland is also part of the Maritimes. (Newfoundland and Labrador is actually the name of the province, but most Canadians have no idea what the historical connection is between the island of Newfoundland, and Labrador). Even a small number of Maritimers think Newfoundland is part of the Maritimes, but not many. I assume all Newfoundlanders (and Labradorians) know the distinction.

I grew up in Alberta.

"Newfoundland".... Isn't that near France? ; )

(Add to the above: It was interesting to see Alberta farm-kids' sense of greater Cdn. geography when I was growing up. When I was 21, I went on a gov't bursary program to study French in Montreal, which I mentioned to my sister's farm-girl friend who was at our house. Later that afternoon, she said to someone, "Did you know The Panther is going to France?" I was, like, "You know Montreal is in Quebec, which is in your country, Canada, right?" She didn't.)

 

[Johnny Engine]

"Newfoundland".... Isn't that near France? ; )

With good ferry luck, I could drive to St. Pierre in time for supper, a good 6-8 hours ahead of the aforementioned Halifax road trip that started at 9:30 last night.

So yes, closer to France than the Maritimes.

 

[jigglysquishy]

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-209-x/91-209-x2003000-eng.pdf

I was able to find this StatCan publication on race and age. Table 1 on page 84 contains the Canadian born under age 1 by race. I haven't found comparable data for the 2006 or 2011 censuses.

In 1996, 14.2% of Canadians born were not white/Indigenous. In 2001, that number climbed to 16.8%.

We can compare that to the 2019 draft, corresponding to 2001 births.

In the 2019 draft, there were 70 Canadians drafted. 3 would have been counted as a visible minority in StatCan Table 1 (Suzuki, Spence, Mutala). Or 4.3%. So 83.2% of Canadians born in 2001 were white, but 95.7% of NHL draftees from Canadian were white.

This shows us what we already know: young white Canadian males are more likely to play competitive hockey than young non-white Canadian males. But it also means we are overestimating the Canadian eligible male population.

The 263,775 white births in 2001 represent 95.7% of incoming NHLers or 131,888. So I believe the most appropriate number would be to use 137,814, which adjusts the Canadian-born population to account for racial differences in incoming NHLers. While we would normally use 158,555 (total male births in 2001), I think it is more accurate to adjust for the clear racial difference.

The year-to-year factor of incoming NHLers would be different. The difference between 3 or 4 or 5 will really jump the ratios. But we can establish a clear trend line, especially if we can find additional StatCan work for births by race.

If you run the math backwards, it means the talent pool in the late 2010s is overestimated by about 1,000,000.

 

[Midnight Judges]

There is an "ick" factor associated with refusing to count today's children of immigrants while counting larger waves of white immigrants from the past without the same scrutiny. No doubt Don Cherry would approve.

Canada's population today is no more immigrant-heavy that it was when the beloved 1950s generation was born (which this forum somehow thinks put out 2 to 3 times more high end talent than the Ovechkin/Crosby generation despite having 1/3 or 1/4 the talent pool).

150 years of immigration in Canada

Not that any of this remotely supports the desire to claim Canada (virtually) alone with a population of 11 million people in the 1930s during the great depression and having been impacted by WWII was still putting out talent equal or greater than all the countries that contribute today. A difference of 1 million today is not all that significant. Back in 1950 it would have been almost half the pool.

 

[overpass]

There is an "ick" factor associated with refusing to count today's children of immigrants while counting larger waves of white immigrants from the past without the same scrutiny. No doubt Don Cherry would approve.

Canada's population today is no more immigrant-heavy that it was when the beloved 1950s generation was born (which this forum somehow thinks put out 2 to 3 times more high end talent than the Ovechkin/Crosby generation despite having 1/3 or 1/4 the talent pool).

150 years of immigration in Canada

Not that any of this remotely supports the desire to claim Canada (virtually) alone with a population of 11 million people in the 1930s during the great depression and having been impacted by WWII was still putting out talent equal or greater than all the countries that contribute today. A difference of 1 million today is not all that significant. Back in 1950 it would have been almost half the pool.

White immigrants to Canada also made the NHL at lower rates than their Canadian-born counterparts.

Let's look at the 1961 Canadian census and the 1960-61 NHL season.

Per the 1961 census,
15,393,984 (84.4%) of Canadians were born in Canada, and
2,844,263 (15.6%) were born outside of Canada.

Drilling down to hockey-aged males, there were
2,150,523 men between the ages of 20-34 in Canada.
1,845,443 (85.8%) were born in Canada, and
305,080 (14.2%) were born outside of Canada.

In the 1960-61 NHL season, there were 150 players between the ages of 20-34 (which I will define as born in or between the years 1927 and 1941) who were Canadian*.
146 (97.3%) of them were born in Canada, and
4 (2.7%) were born outside of Canada.

So I would conclude that in the past, as in the present, the increase in the population of Canada due to immigration did not create a proportional increase in the NHL talent pool. Out of almost 3 million foreign-born Canadians in 1961, only 4 of them played in the NHL in that season. The NHL talent pool was supplied almost entirely by Canadian-born players.

*NHL players Jack McCartan and Art Chisholm, who were American born and raised, are excluded. Charlie Burns and Wayne Hicks, American-born immigrants to Canada before they made the NHL, are included, as well as Jack Evans (UK-born) and Stan Mikita (Slovakia).

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[WarriorofTime]

Has anyone looked into the number of serious junior and AAA/equivalent (feeders into junior hockey) teams? That’s your real talent pool and heavily geographically based. Not every white Canadian or whatever.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Admittedly, I am very turned off by racialism, nativism, nationalism, and many other isms.

I admit there may be some reasonable truths buried in those distinctions, but I am not convinced they are noteworthy.

 

[MadLuke]

Has anyone looked into the number of serious junior and AAA/equivalent (feeders into junior hockey) teams? That’s your real talent pool and heavily geographically based. Not every white Canadian or whatever.

Would we have it, could be a good proxy one for recent time, but I am not sure how much good data there is in past time, those can become more or less highly selective depending on the talent pool that have access to the level below them and less purely talent based on who get in and how good the net is (everyone athletic tried to play hockey a lot or not, did other sports attracted to very top end athlete, more or less, Canada just won the world championship in Basketball)

Maurice Richard played on rivers, backyard ice and other unorganized ways until he was 14, the less serious it is for the longest (or at least possible to get in from unorganized hockey the oldest possible just because of your born talents and drives and not superior training skills or worst coached strategies) would tend to have the largest talent pool.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Would we have it, could be a good proxy one for recent time, but I am not sure how much good data there is in past time, those can become more or less highly selective depending on the talent pool that have access to the level below them and less purely talent based on who get in and how good the net is (everyone athletic tried to play hockey a lot or not)

Maurice Richard played on rivers, backyard ice and other unorganized until he was 14, the less serious it is for the longest (or at least possible to get in just because of talents) would tend to have the largest talent pool.

Yes, estimating what constitutes “serious” hockey (paths that could plausibly lead to a pro hockey career) is the big struggle across era.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Has anyone looked into the number of serious junior and AAA/equivalent (feeders into junior hockey) teams? That’s your real talent pool and heavily geographically based. Not every white Canadian or whatever.

Doesn't seem that way. There's no actual evaluation being done. Even the problem statement masquerading as a thesis holds no real water...

The tough part about it is, the bemoaning of this magical, undefined talent pool isn't meant to create anything. It's only meant to destroy. The data isn't there to rebuild anything afterwards. It's a flawed means to no end. ...and it's lazy. It's a real triple threat haha

 

[wetcoast]

Has anyone looked into the number of serious junior and AAA/equivalent (feeders into junior hockey) teams? That’s your real talent pool and heavily geographically based. Not every white Canadian or whatever.

Stop the brakes on that thought.

I'm a Canadian born white guy and seem to be included in the Canadian talent pool even if 99.99% of my actual hockey playing was ball hockey.

But seriously the number of elite formative programs is probably more important than raw numbers.

 

[decma]

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/91-209-x/91-209-x2003000-eng.pdf

I was able to find this StatCan publication on race and age. Table 1 on page 84 contains the Canadian born under age 1 by race. I haven't found comparable data for the 2006 or 2011 censuses.

In 1996, 14.2% of Canadians born were not white/Indigenous. In 2001, that number climbed to 16.8%.

We can compare that to the 2019 draft, corresponding to 2001 births.

In the 2019 draft, there were 70 Canadians drafted. 3 would have been counted as a visible minority in StatCan Table 1 (Suzuki, Spence, Mutala). Or 4.3%. So 83.2% of Canadians born in 2001 were white, but 95.7% of NHL draftees from Canadian were white.

I don't believe Suzuki's mother is a visible minority and Spence was not born in Canada. So, of the three, I believe only Mutala would have been included (as a kid born in Canada to a visible minorty mother) in the StatsCan table (among the 14.2%).

Of course the StatsCan table would include (among the 14.2%) kids of white fathers and visible minority mothers and such kids may have last names that lead one to think the kid is white.

How did you check the ethnicity of all the Canadians drafted?

 

[jigglysquishy]

How did you check the ethnicity of all the Canadians drafted?

Looked at pictures of all 70 kids and made judgement calls.

 

[wetcoast]

Doesn't seem that way. There's no actual evaluation being done. Even the problem statement masquerading as a thesis holds no real water...

The tough part about it is, the bemoaning of this magical, undefined talent pool isn't meant to create anything. It's only meant to destroy. The data isn't there to rebuild anything afterwards. It's a flawed means to no end. ...and it's lazy. It's a real triple threat haha

So what are we left with then?

Is the OP wrong in trying to at least give a rough guess as to the question as to the size of the talent pool or is it only those that question that there is no data for the past and the conclusions from that?

It's a a 2 way street here and those that don't question or try to give context to the NHL talent at any specific time should perhaps ask why?

 

[MadLuke]

So what are we left with then?

The impossible for some era, to more and more possible has years goes watching of a bunch of game of each eras and starting from what the end result look like talent wise (which could be hard to distinguish from training-coaching quality).

For a giant chunk of the nhl history that is probably just not an option, but for a lot of that chunk we tend to simply dismiss it a lot anyway.

 

[Michael Farkas]

So what are we left with then?

Is the OP wrong in trying to at least give a rough guess as to the question as to the size of the talent pool or is it only those that question that there is no data for the past and the conclusions from that?

It's a a 2 way street here and those that don't question or try to give context to the NHL talent at any specific time should perhaps ask why?

We're left with the same thing that's always been there (and this isn't in response to the OP, this in response to the conversation immediately preceding it) - proper talent evaluation.

I'm not responding to the OP (just to say it again). But I'm not convinced that population has ever correlated with the best 5, 50, or 500 (whatever we're talking about - league leaders, high-end players, or the league at large) in the NHL. We're already deep, deep into the margins of the hockey population by talking about NHLers...the notion that global* population factors in notably seems like quite a leap.

What? 70% (?) of the league is North American? Something like that...so that's 450 guys out of 380 million. According to my calculator, that's 0% haha - so, with MJ's case about some of the top 100 players according to this board from a few years ago not having enough players whose careers weren't over at the time, it's like..."what are we talking about? Four guys? Six guys that you'd like to see that go the other way...ok, fine, probably in ten years, pal..." And that figure just doesn't register in terms of population.

Also, I don't qualify at all for your last paragraph. I constantly question the talent level here...I recently posted a table covering 80 years of my perceived NHL league quality last week, in fact. Further, I think I was one of the louder pushers on expanding the War years closer to 1950, as opposed to '45 or '46. I think I'm probably the loudest about how poor the early 80's were. I think I'm just about the only person that thinks there was a dip a couple years after the big sleep as many players were pushed into obsolescence and development tracks couldn't produce the necessary talent to fill in the gaps fast enough.

So, I don't think it's a matter of not questioning it...at all. But that doesn't mean I want some lazy (not saying that about the actual OP, again) methodology or nothing...

 

[BraveCanadian]

Not that any of this remotely supports the desire to claim Canada (virtually) alone with a population of 11 million people in the 1930s during the great depression and having been impacted by WWII was still putting out talent equal or greater than all the countries that contribute today. A difference of 1 million today is not all that significant. Back in 1950 it would have been almost half the pool.

This is being said by literally no one. Per team is an important qualifier here, but I know that it is devastating to the case for people using the super duper talent pool argument to completely dismiss most of hockey's history.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I'm not responding to the OP (just to say it again). But I'm not convinced that population has ever correlated with the best 5, 50, or 500 (whatever we're talking about - league leaders, high-end players, or the league at large) in the NHL. We're already deep, deep into the margins of the hockey population by talking about NHLers...the notion that global* population factors in notably seems like quite a leap.

This has also been brought up many times in the past in these discussions and it is an important consideration. Talent tends to cluster. The example always given is 1960s Britain and all the musical talent there within a short distance of one another.

More people playing doesn't automatically mean better players for sure, there is an environmental factor.

However, these discussions always devolve into the side that understands these things having to prove to the "newer is better" crowd - that never shows up with any evidence whatsoever but comes demanding it - that it is, in fact, possible to have completely outlier talents in all eras.. not just the past 10 years.

 

[Midnight Judges]

This is being said by literally no one.

Sounds too absurd to be true, eh?

Looked at pictures of all 70 kids and made judgement calls.

can't tell if joking.

 

[wetcoast]

We're left with the same thing that's always been there (and this isn't in response to the OP, this in response to the conversation immediately preceding it) - proper talent evaluation.

I'm not responding to the OP (just to say it again). But I'm not convinced that population has ever correlated with the best 5, 50, or 500 (whatever we're talking about - league leaders, high-end players, or the league at large) in the NHL. We're already deep, deep into the margins of the hockey population by talking about NHLers...the notion that global* population factors in notably seems like quite a leap.

What? 70% (?) of the league is North American? Something like that...so that's 450 guys out of 380 million. According to my calculator, that's 0% haha - so, with MJ's case about some of the top 100 players according to this board from a few years ago not having enough players whose careers weren't over at the time, it's like..."what are we talking about? Four guys? Six guys that you'd like to see that go the other way...ok, fine, probably in ten years, pal..." And that figure just doesn't register in terms of population.

Also, I don't qualify at all for your last paragraph. I constantly question the talent level here...I recently posted a table covering 80 years of my perceived NHL league quality last week, in fact. Further, I think I was one of the louder pushers on expanding the War years closer to 1950, as opposed to '45 or '46. I think I'm probably the loudest about how poor the early 80's were. I think I'm just about the only person that thinks there was a dip a couple years after the big sleep as many players were pushed into obsolescence and development tracks couldn't produce the necessary talent to fill in the gaps fast enough.

So, I don't think it's a matter of not questioning it...at all. But that doesn't mean I want some lazy (not saying that about the actual OP, again) methodology or nothing...

I'm confused as your response was to this quote here.

The blanket statement made on the main boards and sometimes mentioned here that the HOH has to be a counter to that perspective is that those old-timers just couldn't keep and were garbage to sum it up.

Now there is an element of truth to it and a lot of that revolves around technology and other factors of athletic evolution like the 4 minute mile bit it's equally lazy to always give the benefit of the doubt to limited information and sometimes no video and contextual differences.

Has anyone looked into the number of serious junior and AAA/equivalent (feeders into junior hockey) teams? That’s your real talent pool and heavily geographically based. Not every white Canadian or whatever.

It's a legitimate question and we can easily answer some of that with the US National team for example or the Soviets going for basically no hockey to a world superpower in a very short time historically.

The blanket statement made on the main boards and sometimes mentioned here that the HOH has to be a counter to that perspective is that those old-timers just couldn't keep and were garbage to sum it up.

Now there is an element of truth to it and a lot of that revolves around technology and other factors of athletic evolution like the 4 minute mile bit it's equally lazy to always give the benefit of the doubt to limited information and sometimes no video and contextual differences.

Also it's extremely hard to do proper talent evaluation of many players and eras but yet we still come to group conclusions here with limited information and more information seems to hurt one end of the time spectrum and is sometimes lazily responded to in earlier eras. do it here.

Speaking of which there was one after out posts here.

This is being said by literally no one. Per team is an important qualifier here, but I know that it is devastating to the case for people using the super duper talent pool argument to completely dismiss most of hockey's history.

No one dismisses most of hockey history but yet that complaint comes up when serious questions are asked and an attempt to be fair to all eras gets lazily dismissed as well.

Another example of not asking the right questions is the treatment of Scotty Bowman's list of all time Canadian born players which if it didn't have his name attached to it would have been laughed out of this section in a New York Minute.

Sadly I think the talent poll discussion mostly comes down to people trying to defend their opinions instead of critically analyzing them but maybe that will change.

As to your last point of talent evolution that's fair and I was referring to a more general sentiment that happens on these boards or used to happen quite a bit before in the last 5 years.

I'll just leave it for now with this point.

For those that had Dickie Moore in their top 100 list of all time players, how many of them have Kucherov ahead of him now?

I'm not even a huge fan of Kuch but both will have 2 art Ross trophies , or Kuch will be very close second, both players weren't impressing Hart voters most of the time and both have somewhat similar playoff resumes.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Think a big problem you see with Original 6 era analysis in particular is there seems to be the implicit assumption (not always) that were 32 NHL teams worth of players out there along with 32 AHL teams worth of players, 28 ECHL teams worth of players, 23 KHL teams worth of players, 14 SHL teams worth of players, 15 SM-Liiga teams worth of players, etc. out there training, competing, staying ready and only 6 teams worth of players were getting filled into the NHL each season. And we know of course that is not how it works. If you weren't given a contract or an opportunity, you'd move on and stop playing. The money also wasn't insane enough that you'd have tons of incentive to stick around in the few minor leagues. This flows down to the Feeder Ranks as well. There aren't 18 QMJHL teams, 20 OHL teams, 22 WHL teams, 16 USHL teams, etc. etc. back then out there along with who knows how many teams that feed into the teams in those leagues. It takes time and systems in place to have the sort of infrastructure to produce the players for a wider NHL. Players that were in the 6 team NHL had the advantage and contracts to be able to maintain their spots.

Maybe less of an issue if we are aware that we can be hyper-efficient in selecting the exact players to slot into the 6 team NHL at the exact outset of when that would come together. But this is not really how it plays out in reality and we have some good history-making to tell us that Americans and Swedes were being kept out of the NHL for too long for not being in the traditional sponsored team path, we know Soviets and Czechoslovakians were good enough to be in the NHL but weren't for too long, late round picks become superstars, kids that weren't heralded in minor hockey come out of nowhere to be big risers by their draft year. Many players that would make the 6-team super NHL today would have just quit playing because there wasn't enough infrastructure to keep going at earlier points in time.

 

[overpass]

Think a big problem you see with Original 6 era analysis in particular is there seems to be the implicit assumption (not always) that were 32 NHL teams worth of players out there along with 32 AHL teams worth of players, 28 ECHL teams worth of players, 23 KHL teams worth of players, 14 SHL teams worth of players, 15 SM-Liiga teams worth of players, etc. out there training, competing, staying ready and only 6 teams worth of players were getting filled into the NHL each season. And we know of course that is not how it works. If you weren't given a contract or an opportunity, you'd move on and stop playing. The money also wasn't insane enough that you'd have tons of incentive to stick around in the few minor leagues. This flows down to the Feeder Ranks as well. There aren't 18 QMJHL teams, 20 OHL teams, 22 WHL teams, 16 USHL teams, etc. etc. back then out there along with who knows how many teams that feed into the teams in those leagues. It takes time and systems in place to have the sort of infrastructure to produce the players for a wider NHL. Players that were in the 6 team NHL had the advantage and contracts to be able to maintain their spots.

Maybe less of an issue if we are aware that we can be hyper-efficient in selecting the exact players to slot into the 6 team NHL at the exact outset of when that would come together. But this is not really how it plays out in reality and we have some good history-making to tell us that Americans and Swedes were being kept out of the NHL for too long for not being in the traditional sponsored team path, we know Soviets and Czechoslovakians were good enough to be in the NHL but weren't for too long, late round picks become superstars, kids that weren't heralded in minor hockey come out of nowhere to be big risers by their draft year. Many players that would make the 6-team super NHL today would have just quit playing because there wasn't enough infrastructure to keep going at earlier points in time.

I'm not sure why anyone would expect 6 NHL teams to develop enough NHL talent for 30 teams. Maybe you're reading different analysis than I am. The point is that they developed and called up the best players to fill out their roster at the NHL level, for the most part. (Montreal probably developed enough talent to fill several NHL teams but they were an outlier in the resources they put into their sponsorship network).

Of course the development system wasn't 100% efficient in placing the best 120 players in the NHL. No system is. Many good players played long careers in the minor leagues who easily could have played in the NHL with more opportunity. Some just didn't fit into the roles that were available at the NHL level, like Guyle Fielder and Phil Maloney, but could have been NHL stars if they got first line ice time on an expansion team. Many others played long, competitive careers in senior amateur hockey and were compensated with good jobs and careers for businesses that supported the local team. Don't forget amateur hockey was a big part of Canada's competitive hockey infrastructure at the time. These players hadn't "quit playing " hockey by any means. If the NHL expanded back in the 1950s, senior hockey players would have been in the mix for the new roster spots.

I agree the NHL teams excluded players who weren't willing to play for their sponsored junior teams, which largely meant non-Canadians didn't get a chance. The teams were able to fill their rosters through their existing system so there was no need to go outside of it. This system is a good example of teams narrowing the focus of their scouting and development, so the talent pool was smaller in quantity but they got more quality out of it. In any case, earlier NHL expansion would have given teams more incentive to look at American and European players.

If you look at the history of expansion, a whole lot of AHL and WHL players from the 1960s showed they could play in the NHL when given the chance. It wasn't a hypothetical event, it actually happened. Then over-expansion happened, combined with the weaker player development from the now-independent junior leagues, and many people watching the NHL in the 1970s and 1980s knew the quality of play on a night to night basis was far from what it had been under the old system. There's a reason why nostalgia for the Original Six took off at this time. It wasn't unthinking resistance to anything new. People remembered a time when they had seen better quality hockey.