Why Was Joe Mullen In The Minors At 24?

[KillerMillerTime]

They had 107 points that year, 10 guys with 45+ points, and a pile of similar sniping RWs to Joe Mullen. They didn't need to be giving looks to rookies and at that point he probably wouldn't have delivered much of anything different from Currie/Chapman.

Hartland Monahan was a veteran 4th liner/PK guy. For what they needed, he probably made more sense.

I'm not sure why you're so upset by this. Good teams tend to have guys that get stuck in the minors that might have played earlier on bad teams. Sounds like Currie out-performed Mullen in the CHL the year prior and then beat him out for a job in camp.

And on top of that, they DID call Mullen up twice in October/November of 1981 and he didn't score in 5 games. It was only in his 3rd callup in January 1982 that he started scoring, and at that point they obviously stuck with him.

Every level he played at he was an elite goal scorer. There is absolutely no justification for going back in 1980-81 never mind 81-82. It was bad talent evaluation. At the end of 1978-79 I wanted Boston and opto sign him and play him I thought he was that good then.

 

[MS]

Every level he played at he was an elite goal scorer. There is absolutely no justification for going back in 1980-81 never mind 81-82. It was bad talent evaluation. At the end of 1978-79 I wanted Boston and opto sign him and play him I thought he was that good then.

He was 4th on his CHL team in scoring in 1979-80 and 5th in points/game. He hadn't done anything at that point to force himself onto the NHL roster.

Tony Currie was also an elite scorer at every level and scored 1.42 points/game in 79-80 to Mullen's 0.96. He outperformed Mullen and won a job over him and proceeded to pop in 104 points in 114 games in 79-80/80-81.

Mullen THEN had a breakout minor-league season but by that point the Blues were having a dominant season and had absolute tons of scoring depth. It's tough luck for Mullen and you can say with the benefit of hindsight that on a weaker team he probably sticks in the NHL a year earlier, but I don't know that St. Louis did anything particularly wrong or stupid there.

 

[KillerMillerTime]

He was 4th on his CHL team in scoring in 1979-80 and 5th in points/game. He hadn't done anything at that point to force himself onto the NHL roster.

Tony Currie was also an elite scorer at every level and scored 1.42 points/game in 79-80 to Mullen's 0.96. He outperformed Mullen and won a job over him and proceeded to pop in 104 points in 114 games in 79-80/80-81.

Mullen THEN had a breakout minor-league season but by that point the Blues were having a dominant season and had absolute tons of scoring depth. It's tough luck for Mullen and you can say with the benefit of hindsight that on a weaker team he probably sticks in the NHL a year earlier, but I don't know that St. Louis did anything particularly wrong or stupid there.

I saw him play his entire career at BC and he played with Tom Songin at BC. Mullen
by the end of1978-79 was a much better player than Songin, who played 17 games
in 1978-79 and 17 in 1979-80 for a very good Boston team . You can contort all the numbers you want, but the reality was and history obviously bore out that Mullen was denied an earlier opportunity thru bad talent evaluation.

You realize we are talking about a team that didn't show up at the 1983 draft right?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yes, it was likely bad talent evaluation with a tinge of "don't trust American/college players" - is there anything more to it than that at this point?

 

[The Panther]

IMO that is more of an indictment of the lack of advanced defensive systems
and lack of coaching abilities than lack of talent. The start of the 1979-80 season
was the first since 1972-73 there was no WHA, so you had an influx of some really talented players including the US's Mark Howe and Robbie Ftorek and Sweden's
Hedberg and Ulf Nillson.

If you shrunk the 80's era NHL to O6, the 80's era players were clearly better than the best O6 era.

Just the talent from Sweden and the US in the 1980's pushes that era ahead of
O6 era. There were really hardly any Swedes in the O6 era so no Swedish players
such as Lindberg, Salming, Personn, Jonson, Hedberg, Nillson or US players
such as Langway, Howe, Larson, O'Connell, Ftorek, Christian, Broten, Mullen and Carpenter that existed in the O6 era.

Yeah expansion diluted the overall level but anywhere near as low as WW2 level or worse than the WHA era NHL.

I agree with this. It seems beyond obvious (to me) that the "talent pool"-relative-to-League-size in NHL hockey circa 1979 to 1982 was as high as it had ever been (with the possible exception of the mid-1960s, just before the much-overdue expansion).

1) N. American pro-hockey went from 32 teams in 1975 to 21 in 1979-80.
2) Europeans and Americans were entering the NHL and taking up many roster spots.

So, the "messiness" of c.1980 NHL hockey has nothing whatsoever to do with talent or dilution of talent. I think it has a lot to do with YOUTH. The NHL went into a "youth fetish" era around 1979-1985, for a few reasons:
-- 1979 draft took 18-year-olds for the first time (so, 18 and 19-year olds were available for the first time via draft)
-- post-WHA competition, NHL wanted to snap up teenage talent quickly before rival leagues could interfere (again)
-- 1950s'-born players tended to age poorly (beer; smoking; lack of conditioning; lack of million-dollar contracts to motivate them), so suddenly the influx of 18-year-old talent c.1980 looked more appealing, and more roster spots came available due to previous generation retiring / flaming out early
-- 1980 U.S. Olympic kids defeat the USSR


I think some on here tend to remember the mid-1970s' hockey as better than it actually was. Yes, if you watch Montreal vs. Buffalo or Philly vs. Boston, it's going to look like better, more structured, more organized hockey than a 9-8 Hartford vs. Toronto game in 1981 or whatever (with John Garrett in net, lol!). But are we remembering all the mid-1970s games of:
-- Kansas City vs. California
-- Minnesota vs. Detroit
-- Atlanta vs. Washington (a .131 team that allowed 446 goals)
?

 

[Staniowski]

I'm not sure...but it was probably mostly because he wasn't very big and wasn't very fast, and therefore he probably wasn't considered a significant prospect.

Of course he might've been given an earlier chance in another organization.

Mullen had great hockey sense, and he was as tough and determined as anybody, and was a good goal-scorer.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

I agree with this. It seems beyond obvious (to me) that the "talent pool"-relative-to-League-size in NHL hockey circa 1979 to 1982 was as high as it had ever been (with the possible exception of the mid-1960s, just before the much-overdue expansion).

1) N. American pro-hockey went from 32 teams in 1975 to 21 in 1979-80.
2) Europeans and Americans were entering the NHL and taking up many roster spots.

So, the "messiness" of c.1980 NHL hockey has nothing whatsoever to do with talent or dilution of talent. I think it has a lot to do with YOUTH. The NHL went into a "youth fetish" era around 1979-1985, for a few reasons:
-- 1979 draft took 18-year-olds for the first time (so, 18 and 19-year olds were available for the first time via draft)
-- post-WHA competition, NHL wanted to snap up teenage talent quickly before rival leagues could interfere (again)
-- 1950s'-born players tended to age poorly (beer; smoking; lack of conditioning; lack of million-dollar contracts to motivate them), so suddenly the influx of 18-year-old talent c.1980 looked more appealing, and more roster spots came available due to previous generation retiring / flaming out early
-- 1980 U.S. Olympic kids defeat the USSR


I think some on here tend to remember the mid-1970s' hockey as better than it actually was. Yes, if you watch Montreal vs. Buffalo or Philly vs. Boston, it's going to look like better, more structured, more organized hockey than a 9-8 Hartford vs. Toronto game in 1981 or whatever (with John Garrett in net, lol!). But are we remembering all the mid-1970s games of:
-- Kansas City vs. California
-- Minnesota vs. Detroit
-- Atlanta vs. Washington (a .131 team that allowed 446 goals)
?

Looking back, the period of 79-82 has always struck me as the most anomalous micro-era of NHL hockey I've lived through in five decades as a fan. I've mentioned this in several threads before, but we really always need to think of the merger as a contraction, given the fact that major league hockey in North America saw the net loss of over 200 jobs in the span of two years, which also disrupted the minor pro system with job loss on down through the ranks. With the emergence of NHL-ready teenagers right out of junior and European players, several guys who had spots as NHL regulars were done in the NHL by their mid-20s in this period. Quality professional talent assessment during this period was likely challenging on an individual level, as the style of game and needs of teams were rapidly changing. A lot of guys playing in the NHL the first couple of years post-merger secured their spots due to seniority/reputation based on their pre-merger play in a more watered-down league, but were usually exposed and gone within a couple of years.

Mullen came into the pro hockey world within this context. We may also note that the size of the active game roster was 17, and didn't change to 18 until 82-83. I've always contended that the change in roster size precipitated the switch to a short shift game, as it gave coaches more options in terms of rolling lines. I can't recall if Berenson had a specific preference in terms of dressing 11-6 or 12-5, but it's possible that there was potentially one less regular forward spot for Mullen. During the 17-man era, coaches couldn't roll lines 4-3, they had to go 3-2, 3-3 or 4-2 plus spares. Depending on how Berenson ran his lines, like today, it may have been viewed as a top 6 or bust situation for an offensive player like Mullen. The Blues were also unusually deep on the right side over those two years with Babych, MacLean, Currie, Chapman, Nill & Crombeen, with guys like Pettersson & Dunlop who could play the right side if needed.

Remember also that the Blues franchise was unstable and cash-strapped, so there were less resources for proper talent evaluation.