The St. Louis Blues of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s get a lot of flack for the setup of the league. Despite making the Stanley Cup Final three years in a row, there are detractors everywhere.
Those types like to point out that the Blues were playing in a purely expansion division. While this is true, you still have to think the league only had 12 teams.
While the game has expanded exponentially in subsequent years, you were still dealing with the cream of the crop. Think about having 12 teams of the best in the game today as opposed to 31.