Article content continued

Here are the raw numbers (skaters only) for the decade surrounding the lockout. Worth noting that the first season of 1999-2000 saw the number of departures sharply curtailed by the last expansion from 28 to 30 teams. A few extra jobs out there allowing some guys on their last legs to hang around one additional season. After that the number of teams, and available jobs, has remained constant.

Egads, those lockout year numbers dolook bad. Let’s have a look graphically, to show that striking peak visually, right across the board in all three categories. To avoid clutter I’ll just plot the numbers in the major category:

There it is, over 200 skaters played their final NHL game in 2003-04, by far the worst year ever for that. Just like Iron Mike and all the others have been saying.

Looking at that disaster, one tiny point from the lower legend niggled away at my inner consciousness. Isn’t something missing?

Yeah, a whole year, that’s what.

Let’s have a second look at that same data, but with a slight adjustment to reflect the reality that was Gary Bettman’s NHL in 2004-05:



In effect, that group that finished up in 2004, whether by choice or otherwise, actually reflected a “double class”. Of course it was larger than usual; it’s two years worth of players!

Let’s take the same data and group it into two-year clusters. An entirely different picture emerges:

Lo and behold, it now seems as though the period 2003-05 saw fewer players leave the NHL than any other such two-year interval! How can this be?