What happened to league scoring in '52/53 and '53/54?

[daver]

League scoring took an especially unusual dip in those two years after scoring levels seemed to have returned some consistency in '48/49. It was 2.60 in '51/'52 then was 2.40 for the next two years before rising in the late '50s. .

Was there anything unusual that would have lead to this drop?

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[JackSlater]

Looking at it, the decrease in scoring seems mostly due Chicago. Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and New York allowed pretty much the same number of goals against in 1952 and 1953 - net difference of -18 goals among those five teams combined. It's not nothing, but it's also not a drastic change. Chicago alone however cut down its goals against by 66 from 1952 to 1953.

Chicago traded goaltenders, sending Lumley to Toronto and receiving Rollins from Toronto, so that could be a factor though Lumley didn't get lit up in Toronto like he did in Chicago. People have claimed that Rollins was so good under siege in Chicago in 1953 that it won him a sympathy Hart in 1954, since Howe was too good in 1953 to not get the trophy. Rollins did finish second in Hart voting in 1953. Probably a bigger factor is Chicago replacing Goodfellow as coach with Abel as player coach. Goodfellow would never coach again while Abel would go on to have a fairly successful coaching career. In a league with only six teams just one team tightening things up significantly can cause a sizable swing in scoring.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yeah, the league more or less got to modern form, the talent pool was finally re-filled from the War and all, goaltender became a full-fledged specialized position, more widespread use of checking/defensive lines, etc.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Looking at it, the decrease in scoring seems mostly due Chicago. Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, and New York allowed pretty much the same number of goals against in 1952 and 1953 - net difference of -18 goals among those five teams combined. It's not nothing, but it's also not a drastic change. Chicago alone however cut down its goals against by 66 from 1952 to 1953.

Chicago traded goaltenders, sending Lumley to Toronto and receiving Rollins from Toronto, so that could be a factor though Lumley didn't get lit up in Toronto like he did in Chicago. People have claimed that Rollins was so good under siege in Toronto in 1953 that it won him a sympathy Hart in 1954, since Howe was too good in 1953 to not get the trophy. Rollins did finish second in Hart voting in 1953. Probably a bigger factor is Chicago replacing Goodfellow as coach with Abel as player coach. Goodfellow would never coach again while Abel would go on to have a fairly successful coaching career. In a league with only six teams just one team tightening things up significantly can cause a sizable swing in scoring.

A deeper dive on Abel’s coaching stint in Chicago could be worthwhile. His first season the team wasn’t good, but they were greatly improved and the offensive and defensive numbers made an intriguing shift (including at the individual level where goal distribution changed quite a bit). The Adams didn’t exist yet, but The Hockey News gave him their award for coach of the year. Then in season 2 they plummet back to the basement and he’s gone from the organization.

I’d be interested to know what happened there — what changes he made to get such outstanding immediate results, and why it didn’t last past one season, and why he left the organization.

More broadly, Chicago’s improved defense does go a long way to explaining 1953, but what about
1954? The Hawks went back to being bad defensively, duplicating their results from 1952. Detroit and Boston also held even across this time period. But Montreal, Toronto and New York all made significant improvements when comparing ‘52 to ‘54 (-23, -26, and -37 respectively). What gives with that?

Could it be as simple as the goaltending shift from McNeil/Rayner/Rollins to Plante/Bower/Lumley? Seems superficial but that’s a significant difference in star power for those three teams.

 

[MadLuke]

League is small enough that looking per team, per goaltender season can make sense here.

Plante/Bower/Lumley?

Did not play that many games, only 3 in 1953, maybe in 1954, only 17 games but his 1.59 gaa was significantly lower than McNeil.

you have Harvey that could have entered his prime and in 1954 you have Beliveau starting to play has well, the teams could have been getting better in general gearing toward the dynastie.

Some possible other change around that time
1951-1952: Goaltender goal crease got bigger
1952-1953: Roster size change (15 on the road, 16 at home), from 17 + goaltender
1953-1954: roster now 16 + goaltenders
1954-1955: roster now 18 + goaltenders


Maybe smaller roster size those 2 season, played a role ?

But in 1953 if 5 teams allowed virtually the same amount of goals, looking at what happen for Chicago would probably be the way to go.

 

[WarriorofTime]

But in 1953 if 5 teams allowed virtually the same amount of goals, looking at what happen for Chicago would probably be the way to go.

Montreal scored 40 fewer goals and surrendered 16 fewer goals.

Chicago scored 11 more goals and surrendered 66 fewer goals.

Their effects are pretty much the same.

 

[overpass]

The drop in 1952-53 is easily explained by Chicago becoming respectable. In addition to Abel's coaching, they picked up veteran defenceman Gus Mortson, part of the Toronto dynasty but still only age 28, in the Lumley/Rollins trade. He was probably a big improvement on their revolving door on the second pairing from the previous season.

I'm not convinced that Rollins was the reason for Chicago improving. Lumley was supposed to be the better goaltender, and Toronto traded for him because they had soured on Rollins and were looking to upgrade. Which is why they had to include Mortson and other players.

1953-54 isn't as obvious. Tommy Ivan observed near the middle of the season that every team in the league was improved except for his Wings and Chicago. That could be the reason.

The Sport Sandwich column from the March 12, 1954 Lewiston Journal wrote that hockey fans were complaining that scoring was down, but didn't give a reason. Per the columnist, the league had the matter under consideration. Referee-in-chief Carl Voss had discarded the idea of enlarging the goal (which the columnist advocated), but was seeking solutions to boost scoring to American Hockey League levels at seven goals per game.

 

[MadLuke]

Montreal scored 40 fewer goals and surrendered 16 fewer goals.

Chicago scored 11 more goals and surrendered 66 fewer goals.

Montreal goals against Chicago
52: 56
53: 34

A lot of the 40 fewer goals are against those Hawks (22, 18 against the other 5 teams), if this is a pattern among the league they scored less against the Hawks, that could explain a lot.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Montreal goals against Chicago
52: 56
53: 34

A lot of the 40 fewer goals are against those Hawks (22, 18 against the other 5 teams), if this is a pattern among the league they scored less against the Hawks, that could explain a lot.

Yes we could look at all 15 pairings in the six team nhl to see the difference in total goals among each year to year.

 

[MadLuke]

Yes we could look at all 15 pairings in the six team nhl to see the difference in total goals among each year to year.

Rangers seem the same 20 of their "lost goals" came from their Hawks game. But I mean if everyone Goal against is similar to before but the Hawks had a big move, that not a big surprise.

to make a resume goals against each year:

	1953​	1952​
Detroit Red Wings*	133	133	0	0%​
Montreal Canadiens*	148	164	16	11%​
Chicago Black Hawks*	175	241	66	38%​
Boston Bruins*	172	176	4	2%​
Toronto Maple Leafs	167	157	-10	-6%​
New York Rangers	211	219	8	4%​
	1006​	1090​	84	8%​

To the question why there was 84 less goals in 1953 vs 1952, the Hawks allowing 66 less of them being a better explanation than a league wide or offense getting worse seem possible.

18 others goals, that seem margin of error/virtually the same enough.

this show how hard adjusting is, here the HR and other method will consider 1952 and 1953 different scoring environment and it was, except for the poor Hawks player, they did not play 14 games against them in 1952.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Rangers seem the same 20 of their "lost goals" came from their Hawks game. But I mean if everyone Goal against is similar to before but the Hawks had a big move, that not a big surprise.

to make a resume goals against each year:

	1953​	1952​
Detroit Red Wings*	133	133	0	0%​
Montreal Canadiens*	148	164	16	11%​
Chicago Black Hawks*	175	241	66	38%​
Boston Bruins*	172	176	4	2%​
Toronto Maple Leafs	167	157	-10	-6%​
New York Rangers	211	219	8	4%​
	1006​	1090​	84	8%​

To the question why there was 84 less goals in 1953 vs 1952, the Hawks allowing 66 less of them being a better explanation than a league wide or offense getting worse seem possible.

18 others goals, that seem margin of error/virtually the same enough.

True but we should also look to GF as other side of the same coin.

Detroit +7, Montreal -40, New York -40, Toronto -12, Boston -10, Chicago +11.

We could also ask why Montreal and New York are more dramatic fallers whereas Toronto and Boston are less dramatic.

 

[overpass]

Montreal's centre play dropped off a cliff in 52-53. Their top two centres were Elmer Lach and Billy Reay, aged 35 and 34. Lach still scored 41 points because he was the #1 C on Richard's line and on the power play, but he was clearly in decline.

In 53-54 Jean Beliveau joined the team and was a huge upgrade on Reay. Longtime #3 C Ken Mosdell replaced Lach on the first line with Richard, and Richard didn't miss a beat.

 

[tarheelhockey]

At this early stage of the discussion, I’m sliding my chips toward two squares on the craps table:

1) General increase in quality of players and coaching in a post-War environment

2) The above having the effect of distributing talent more efficiently, the improvement of Chicago being one outcome.

I will use goalie data below, but consider it a stand-in for roster quality in general.

Here are starting goalies in 1952 vs 1954, with ages noted:

31 Jim Henry -> 33 Jim Henry
31 Chuck Rayner -> Out of NHL
Out of NHL -> 31 Johnny Bower
25 Harry Lumley - 27 Harry Lumley
25 Gerry McNeil -> 27 Gerry McNeil
25 Al Rollins -> 27 Al Rollins
22 Terry Sawchuk -> 24 Terry Sawchuk
[25 Emile Francis -> 25 Jacques Plante] backups

The 1954 cohort is a little older and a little better. Other than Henry, the goalies who stayed in the NHL during this period were just hitting their athletic prime. The two goalies who didn’t make it through the entire period were both replaced by HOF’ers.

Also, this period is strikingly stable with 5 goalies remaining the same across three seasons and the sixth being a long time veteran of the minors who happened to be a HOF’er. Compare to the turnover in the years leading up to this period, from 1949 to 1951:

34 Turk Broda -> [36 Turk Broda] backup
33 Bill Durnan -> Out of NHL
33 Frank Brimsek > Out of NHL
28 Jim Henry -> Out of NHL
28 Chuck Rayner -> 30 Chuck Rayner
[24 Jack Gelineau] backup -> 26 Jack Gelineau
22 Harry Lumley -> 24 Harry Lumley
Out of NHL -> 24 Gerry McNeil
Out of NHL -> 24 Al Rollins
Out of NHL -> 21 Terry Sawchuk

Even by today’s standards, that’s a messy and chaotic environment. One guy out of six who had a starters crease in 1949 still had it two years later? Yikes.

Again this is only goalie data, but I think it’s a reasonable hypothesis that we would find similar trends at all positions. A generation of young talent that hadn’t been so dramatically impacted by war, a stable environment, improvements in the resources available to the organizations and players. You couldn’t squeeze all of the league’s stars onto the same elevator any more.

That means more close games, which means tighter checking for 60 minutes, which means goalies aren’t doing the jitterbug by the end of the game, which means less pucks in nets.

 

[Staniowski]

League scoring took an especially unusual dip in those two years after scoring levels seemed to have returned some consistency in '48/49. It was 2.60 in '51/'52 then was 2.40 for the next two years before rising in the late '50s. .

Was there anything unusual that would have lead to this drop?

Yes, I've studied this subject quite a bit and there is a clear explanation. But you should look at a broader period, not only those two seasons.

The first thing to keep in mind, is that scoring can decrease for multiple reasons. It doesn't necessarily mean the league is stronger or weaker. Remember that scoring is the difference between offense and defense, always a result of interplay between the two. So, scoring can decrease, in general, because of better defense or weaker offense.

In those seasons, the main reason scoring is lower is the latter - weaker offense (weaker scoring forwards). It's kind of a transition period from the M. Richard, Abel, Bentley, Lach, Schmidt generation (which was pretty decent, not great) to the Beliveau, Geoffrion, Moore, Bathgate, Delvecchio generation (which was stronger and deeper, and includes Howe as well).

Between Rocket and Beliveau (who are a decade apart in age), the scoring forwards are exceptionally weak, in comparison. And these are the guys who are at their bests around those 2 seasons. In that 10-year period, there's Howe and Lindsay (who's not that great), and that's about it. Also Kennedy and Olmstead (the best of the rest), but they weren't great scorers. No depth of talent.

Guys like Schmidt, Abel, Bentley, Lach were on there last legs; and It was just before Beliveau, Moore, Bathgate, Delvecchio.

There weren't goals being scored mainly because there were few good offensive forwards in their primes.

This is the same general reason why Howe was so dominant in scoring during his four consecutive scoring titles - very weak competition.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Here are the rule changes, wonder if any of these are reasons?

NHL Historical Rule Changes, 1910-2024

There have been quite a few rule changes over the years. Look back at the National Hockey League’s extensive history of changes to the rule book:

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