It's not that I deny the agents factor at the CHL Import Draft but it looks like if Estonia had more agents with "personal relationship" they'd have 8 players drafted this year cause if you ask me their players quality seems to ebb and flow and maybe increasing slightly. What a shame for Estonia
I get your point, but it's a shallow correlation at best. If you ask most fans these days from Russia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Sweden, most don't want their kids to be taken in the draft and most of the best kids don't get taken in the draft. Some get taken in the draft as a rights-claim process and never show up, and teams know they won't report, but CHL picks aren't that valuable haha. And most of the kids who are taken in the draft are either average or not very good. Prior to drafting, a coach may have spoken with the kid over the phone, and maybe saw some video clips, but there's not a scouting process. And, as a result, the range of skill-sets of kids drafted range from elite talents to kids who have no business being in the NAHL. Agents will self-regulate on some level because if an agent gives a GM too many duds, the relationship becomes strained. But honestly, the bar for not being considered a dud by a GM is extremely low. Teams routinely bring back imports with like 10-20 points. Because not that much is expected of imports. Role-players are ok. If you can get a star, that's great, that's awesome. But teams are perfectly fine with role-players.
Many kids can be role-players in the CHL. Get like 10, 15, 20 points. That's not a high bar. For a country like Estonia that's a high bar. But for all the kids from all the countries who can be drafted in the CHL draft, that's an incredibly low bar. That's why it's far more important who will show up than who will do well. Because many kids would do well. Tim Stutzle would do well. Alex Holtz would do well, Lucas Raymond, Anton Lundell, none of these kids would do poorly. If you go down the list, even a kid like Calle Spaberg Olsen would probably do well enough, probably no less than 15 points. So teams need to know who will report, and the way you know that is agents.
The CHL is extremely important for many countries that don't have strong domestic professional hockey infrastructures, and a good example of this is probably Latvia. Latvia has recently been trying to diversify its export destinations, you see some Latvians now in Switzerland or Sweden, but the most prominent route for Latvians has traditionally been the CHL because it is very difficult for Latvia to develop players in its domestic leagues. And, again this isn't an absolute statement because Latvia is diversifying its export destinations to some extent, but traditionally it is the case that if no Latvians get taken in the CHL draft it's a big problem. But if a country like Germany has no CHL draftees is that problematic? Not really.