De Ja Vu All Over Again?

Ok, take a gander at the following couple of paragraphs (and/or the entire article if you so desire) that I just saw on Philly.com's homepage:

A woeful season might be of comfort

By Frank Fitzpatrick

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

If this woeful season winds up as the Flyers' worst, it may be comforting for their fans, players and officials to look back at the team it will have supplanted in franchise infamy.

Though 1969-70 produced just 17 Philadelphia victories - in addition to 35 losses and an NHL-record 24 ties - it laid most of the groundwork for the remarkable hockey success that was just around the corner.

Now I'm no conspiracy theorist, nor am I one to toot my own proverbial horn, but now take a look at the opening of this post I wrote on January 12, 2007:

Even in Philly, Patience is a Virtue

Any Flyers fan will recognize these names:

Bobby Clark
Gary Dornhoefer
Bernie Parent

Indeed, they are three of the more recognizable names in Flyers' history, since they were great players.

That, and they helped bring the first Stanley Cup to Philadelphia in the 1973-74 season.

But what many people may not know (and I didn't know this until just now), is that these three players were on the second-to-worst team in the league just a few seasons before winning the Cup. In 1969-70, these players suffered through an ugly year as the team won just 17 out of 76 games, and tied with the now defunct, short-lived Oakland Seals in the NHL's Western Conference.

In 1973 they improved to the first place team, winning 50 out of 76 games.

Notice any similarities? What's up with that?