Dennis Bonvie
Registered User
Hm, well, you're sort of overlooking the fact that Nilsson played 59 and 50 games in his first two seasons for the Rangers. He was pacing for 89 and 93 points those first two NHL seasons, respectively. The projected totals would have easily made him the Rangers' leading scorer in both years. It's a big drop from the 130-kind of point pace had the last couple years with the Jets, but we'd expect almost that much of a drop from a top-WHA team to a good-ish NHL one. Further, in 1978-79 he had the top shooting-percentage in the NHL. Not only that, but on a per-game basis he also had the best plus/minus on the Rangers in both seasons.
Here's the major injury he suffered on Feb.25th, 1979:
He was almost 29 when this happened, and then the next season he had another major injury (still scored 16 points in 14 playoff games in '81).
Point being, while Nilsson was a superb WHA performer, he was still an excellent NHL performer... when healthy and before age caught up to him.
Sure, there's the Robbie Ftoreks who go from 115 to 75-point players overnight upon entering the NHL, but, as noted above, there are also Rogers, Stoughton, and even young-Gretzky, all of whom improved their scoring their first few NHL seasons after the WHA. By the way, on those same late-70s' Jets, there was also Swede Kent Nilsson, who (twice) scored 107 points for Winnipeg, and then later scored 131 in the NHL.
As I said before, this is about Hull, Nilsson and Hedberg.
Their last season together they were still the best line in the league, even though Hull was 39. He only played 31 games total after that.
Hedberg had a very health career with the Rangers but was never the superstar he was in the WHA. Nor was Nilsson.
If they played together in their prime in the NHL, they most likely would have been a top line, but not the top line.
Gretzky improved in the NHL because he only played in the WHA as an 18 year old. Should have used Messier (also 18) as an example. He had 1 goal in 57 games in the WHA. Was better in the NHL.
Mike Rogers floated through the WHA. When he had something to prove he really picked it up. Stoughton was always a one dimensional floater. But he could shoot. Rogers (and Mark Howe) got a lot of assists setting him up.
Then there was Andre Lacroix. In 4 seasons in the NHL his best season was 58 points. Went to the WHA at age 27 and put up 6 straight 100 point seasons. Led the league twice.