Doesn’t make it right. They are profiting off those players while limiting their development.
Sure they’re profiting but if those elite 18-19 yr olds that are good enough for AHL but not NHL left Jrs, it would likely result in a Jr hockey business model that isn’t feasible. At best, it would make the caliber of Major Jrs way lower, thus hurting the development of all prospects that play in those leagues as they wouldn’t be pushed nearly as hard. At worst, it would lessen the product so much that enough fans would stop coming, making the costs infeasible, tanking the leagues entirely.
I don’t like it but the rule is in place for a reason and the NHL is good with it for a reason - it’s ultimately the biggest development path to the NHL and the NHL doesn’t want to jeopardize that or weaken it.
I do believe a slight modification could be done that may still leave enough top tier Jr players in Major Jrs as to not weaken the leagues too much while also allowing a few teenagers to play in the AHL. It’d have to be very restrictive IMO to even hope to get the CHL to agree to it. Here’s what I’d suggest:
I would think it would have to be limited to 1st rd picks, there would have to be a sizable pre-arranged compensation going from NHL team to CHL team (probably based on a scale based on where in the 1st rd the player was taken) and there can only be a max of 1 player taken from each CHL team and a max of 1 player an NHL team takes per season (if 2 teams want to put 2 recent teenaged draftees from the same CHL team in the AHL, priority would first be given to the player drafted the previous season (ie. the 19 yr old gets to go to the AHL instead of the 18 yr old) and then if the 2 (or more) players are in the same draft, priority goes to whichever one was drafted first). That would really limit it but it’d have to be really limited for the CHL to even remotely get on board with it.