Any hockey fan worth their salt knows the term “Original Six.” Those words immediately bring to mind images from the NHL’s rich history–from a time when goalies had no masks, and giants like Eddie Shore and Toe Blake patrolled the ice. Most fans can also correctly identify the teams that make up the Original Six: The Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins and New York Rangers. Where things start to get fuzzy is when you start asking people why these teams are called the Original Six in the first place (SPOILER ALERT: It’s not because they were the first six teams in the NHL). But in order to understand how these teams became known as the Original Six, we need to jump in the Wayback Machine and look at how the NHL came to be.

The Birth of a League

The NHL was “born” in November of 1917, when four club owners from the National Hockey Association (NHA) formed a new league due to ongoing disputes with the fifth NHA owner (Eddie Livingstone, owner of the Toronto Blueshirts). Because the NHA constitution prohibited them from removing Livingstone from the league, they instead voted to remove themselves from the NHA. At the same time, they formed a new league and called it the National Hockey League. Livingstone was now the only remaining owner in the NHA, and in spite of Livingstone’s numerous lawsuits, the league soon suspended operations permanently.

The fledgling NHL had some problems right out of the gate as well. Without a team in Toronto, the NHL had no presence in one of Canada’s largest cities. At the same time, the Quebec Bulldogs decided that they could not participate in the league’s first two seasons due to financial difficulties. This left the new league with only three teams (the Montreal Canadiens, Montreal Wanderers, and Ottawa Senators). To address both issues, the league awarded a temporary franchise to the owners of Toronto’s Arena Gardens, which was the only professional-level arena in the area. The Toronto team had no official nickname, but still won the NHL’s first league championship (using many players from Livingstone’s Toronto Blueshirts). They also won the Stanley Cup by defeating the Vancouver Millionaires of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA).

The NHL’s first season started with four teams, but was quickly reduced to three when the Montreal Arena burned down only four games into the season, leaving the Montreal Wanderers without a place to play. The team had been having problems from the beginning, and without an arena they disbanded permanently. The next season Toronto’s “team to be named later” was granted a permanent franchise, becoming the Toronto Arenas. The Arenas are now listed as the 1918 Stanley Cup champs (their name was added to the Cup in 1947), but at the time they won, they still had no official nickname.

The four franchises (Montreal, Toronto, Quebec and Ottawa–with Quebec eventually moving to Hamilton) remained the only teams in the NHL until 1924, when two expansion teams joined (the Boston Bruins and the Montreal Maroons). The NHL was now at six teams, just not “the” Original Six. Over the next 18 years, teams would join and leave the league periodically–the NHL had as many as ten franchises during this era. But the Great Depression and World War II took their toll in more ways than one, and with the disbanding of the Brooklyn Americans in 1942, the NHL had shrunk back to six teams.

The Original Six Era

For the next 25 years, the six teams left standing at the beginning of the 1942 season were all the NHL had. It was these six teams that went on to become known as The Original Six. But that name only took hold after the NHL expanded in 1967, when they added six new teams and doubled in size. The term “Original Six” started appearing in newspaper articles in 1967, and was used to differentiate the six existing franchises from the six new expansion teams. The phrase gained popularity, and soon became a household name throughout the hockey world.

So there you have it–the birth of The Original Six, and how they got their name.

The thing about the No. 1 draft pick is, it's only one pick. While the shiny new toy at the top of the pile might be the most attractive, there are well over 200 other toys that make up the drafting process in a given year. In the case of the Oilers, the 2010 and 2011 draft classes not only meant getting the first pick, but also the 31st pick. And the 61st pick. And the 91st pick. And so on.

Edmonton's roster only has two players on it -- forward Tyler Pitlick (2010) and defenseman Jeff Petry (2006) -- that were selected by the Oilers after the first round (both players were taken in Round 2). There are six other players on the roster that were selected by Edmonton and they were all taken in the first round.

By comparison, the Boston Bruins have eight "home grown" players on their roster, the Chicago Blackhawks have 13 and the Detroit Red Wings have 15.