[Sylvanfan]

In the young guns era the league on average was pretty old largely due to demographics. There was a lot of players were mostly from the Baby boom era that ends in like 1966 still hanging around and a small group of Gen X'ers who frankly were not that good anyway coming up. Add in expansion changing things so that 16 of 30 teams made the playoffs instead of 16 of 21 type of thing and it was a hard league for young players.

Savvy vets could hook and hold and even the grouchy ass 36 year old could still man handle most 19 year olds and was allowed to do so.

So trying to go with a young team was tough because there was less focus on speed and skill, even if the 26 to 29 year old was still cheaper since UFA was after 31.