Cherrypicking Adam Zlnka is hilarious. Zlnka was injured in his draft year and only played 10 games all season (had 4 points). Coyotes took a gamble on him, don't know why, they are a weird organization. But let's compare Zlnka to Davis Borozinkis who had 16pts in 54 games in his draft year. Not really draft worthy numbers. Comparing their numbers in post draft seasons is completely irrelevant as to their draft selections or non-selections.You asked for it.
Slovakia has more players, more rinks, a better domestic league and a deeper prospect pool with more elite (NHL-tier) talent. That is the difference.
The issue here is that in the Slovak eyes, that difference is huge or at least big, while in reality it's not. This doesn't bother me, but what bothers me is that in a roundabout way it affects the chances of Latvian prospects making it in the NHL.
Slovakia had its golden age a while back, and this has somehow made everyone in Slovakia consider themselves to still be a leading hockey nation. That same golden age has created an image of Slovaks being an elite hockey nation in North America, which introduces one type of bias into NHL draft selections. Your branding is better.
If you had a Romanian player in, say, WHL with the same number of points, age, physical characteristics, skating, etc., as a Slovakian prospect, he would not be selected, while the Slovak kid might get drafted in the last couple of rounds of the NHL draft.
Half of the Slovak team was drafted, but if you look into the actual rate of production of, say, their drafted forwards, it's not as rosy as it sounds.
Why was Adam Zlnka drafted?
Davis Borozinskis has the exact same player profile and rate of production in USHL, but he never even made the NHL draft rankings, yet they're pretty much the same calibre dudes.
Why was Niks Fenenko never drafted?
Every year there's 1 or 2 players like that who simply get snubbed at the NHL draft. Even here on hfboards I see Latvian prospects being named as coming from an exotic hockey market. There's top prospects, 15, 16 year olds who are not getting the attention they deserve because of this systemic bias.
The reason for this systemic bias is that the Slovak teams are deeper and capable of standing their own and scoring more goals at the U18 WJC and the U20 WJC. From time to time they even go on a deeper play-off run and then it's all hands on deck. Let's draft them all! Their stats look better and it creates the impression of them being better players than they are. The hype is real.
Which is why playing at the WJC vs. Canada and losing 0-10 is a bit of a double edged sword for Latvia, because humans have bounded rationality, and unfortunately NHL GMs and scouts are human too, and are quick to label the entire team as hot garbage.
Adam Gajan is going to be great they say. Yet Deivs Rolovs has better stats at NAHL than Gajan did last year. Rolovs has never even been mentioned as a draft prospect. And what do I hear from the TSN commentators when our 4th line and bottom pairing Ds make dumb plays in front of him? In a way he's hostage to being a part of this team, as his numbers at the WJC are bound to be worse than a comparable goalie's on a better team. I hope Rolovs gets to play in NCAA next season. It would be interesting to compare his and Gajan's stats over there.
People don't seem to realize that smaller hockey nations have a smaller talent pool to select from and the difference between their top line and their 4th line is much bigger than on Team Canada. Our 4th liners will likely never play pro hockey. How is this related to how good our goalie or the top line winger is?
And this same line of erroneous reasoning is pretty much the only reason why Slafkovsky got drafted as the literal 1st pick. He scored a lot of goals for the national team against France and Kazakhstan, while being mediocre at the Finnish league. Their stats get padded and they get overhyped due to point production in a very small sample size. There is this Finnish player named Aatu Jämsen. Same leagues, same point production as Slafkovsky, smaller frame. He never even made the Finnish WJC squad and barely got drafted. If he was born in Bratislava, I would bet my house on him getting drafted several rounds higher.
It's not the Slovak fault that NHL draft selections are biased and imperfect, but my point is that it's not always a very precise way of measuring talent or a way of proving that someone's better than an undrafted kid.
There's too much weight being put on the WJC and U18s. There's a better, fact- and data-based approach in comparing players across all sort of leagues, including NAHL and the Latvian league.
I don't have the excel file on this device, but it's a simple concept. You just plot player point production with both Latvian league and NAHL experience and you adjust it for age and player usage, if possible. NAHL and the Latvian league were very similar about 2 years ago when I did the analysis, with Latvian league coming slightly on top.
The Latvian league has changed with several Estonian and Lithuanian teams coming in and we have probably over a dozen new NAHL players, so the numbers might have sightly changed since then, but I am very sure of NAHL and the Latvian league being roughly comparable/at least on par.
Fact check: Slaf had 24 shots on goal at the Olympics.It seems like you aren't actually reading my posts, nor getting the very basic point I'm trying to get across.
It makes it completely pointless to respond and further elaborate on the same points made, if you're misrepresenting most of what I wrote.
It is obvious you have a major homer bias and you're not able to get through that cognitive bias and form fact-based opinions.
Slafkovsky collected
2 pts vs Kazakhstan
2 pts vs France
2 pts vs Italy
2 pts vs Denmark
1 pts vs Switzerland
All of this while playing on the top line/PP.
Once again, scoring 2 points against Italy or France with Tatar on your line against opposition that mainly plays in ICEHL or the French league is worth less than scoring 2 points in a French league game on an actual French team.
This is literally the basic point I was referring to earlier. A small sample size that creates an illusion of a player being better than he is if you only look at the numbers.
Slafkovsky scored 7 goals on about 18 shots. I'm not sure if you know anything at all about hockey analytics, but to somehow assume that scoring on 2 in 5 shots is feasible long-term, well, let's just say it's not based on how things work in what I call reality.
If a basketball player makes 12 out of 18 3 pointers, this literally is not a meaningful data point due to limited sample size. What we can most definitely deduce though, is that we must reduce his production rate based on the actual feasible scoring efficiency of an elite forward, the ceiling of which is about 15% give or take.
You go on to say thay, hey, he scored 7 goals at the World Champs and was given the MVP award, but these are just accolades. They don't constitute a valid data point.
As I said, he padded his stats due to a) usage b) linemates 3) weak oppo 4) luck.
I remember writing about this during the tournament and telling the Slovak posters all of this and saying that Slafkovsky is being massively overrated.
How is he doing in the NHL now?
And nothing here has been debunked, you're just having trouble with reading comprehension.
Honestly, I will come off as a Slovak-hater, but even just looking at the point production of their players in CHL, it seems to me that their prospects get overrated on a regular basis. See for example Team Latvia, we have kids that never got drafted and are playing at the same level, while half of the Slovaks are drafted. Honestly, it's a mystery to me. I'm not hating on anyone, but it is something that I've noticed.
Not sure where namejs is getting that "Slovak bias" from. He is well-known for his argueing for the sake of argueing behavior and skewing data in his favor, as was mentioned regarding the Rolovs - Gajan discussion.So can you name names of the Latvian players who play at the same level as the drafted players from Slovakia? I'll even concede Adam Zlnka as a good example from you. Do you have any more examples?
Look, if your point was that Slovak kids have a slight advantage over Latvian kids when it comes to NHL draft chances, I would say ok, there may be something there because the scouts are much more likely going to watch the Slovak league than the Latvian league. But when it comes to players who are playing overseas, I don't believe there is any nationality bias.
I might be coming off as being caustic due to my manner of discussing things.Fact check: Slaf had 24 shots on goal at the Olympics.
Regardless, I never said his shooting percentage was sustainable. You are sidetracking here. Slaf's numbers are not that important to your overall point. Neither is his current play in the NHL. If Slaf was overrated as a prospect, it wasn't because of his nationality.
Your argument is this: Slovak players are overrated by scouts because they still view Slovakia as some sort of a hockey power since the success of our golden generation.
What have you provided to support this argument? Absolutely nothing of value.
You also posted this gem in another thread:
So can you name names of the Latvian players who play at the same level as the drafted players from Slovakia? I'll even concede Adam Zlnka as a good example from you. Do you have any more examples?
Look, if your point was that Slovak kids have a slight advantage over Latvian kids when it comes to NHL draft chances, I would say ok, there may be something there because the scouts are much more likely going to watch the Slovak league than the Latvian league. But when it comes to players who are playing overseas, I don't believe there is any nationality bias.
But you went even further than that. You are saying that this bias is working in favor of Slovakia even when compared to other nations. You mentioned a Finnish player here whom you compared to Slafkovsky and said that if he was born in Bratislava he would get drafted higher. You can't expect me to just take this abuse. You cannot prove your assertion.
Btw, I have nothing against Latvian hockey. Just to stay on the topic of this thread, it's nice that they made the quarterfinals. They are a likeable team with great fans.