NHL Entry draft age is too low

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Reilly311

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I already commented on this in another post so i'll keep it short.

If players couldn't play in the NHL until they were 21, we'd see better hockey.
 

Legionnaire

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Jul 10, 2002
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Reilly311 said:
I already commented on this in another post so i'll keep it short.

If players couldn't play in the NHL until they were 21, we'd see better hockey.

So you would replace Kovalchuk with whom exactly?
 

rebedom

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Nov 27, 2003
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It used to be you had to be 21 to be eligible for the NHL draft and when the age of majority was dropped to 18 all sports were forced to comply. Someone over a few decades ago sued one of the sports leagues, similar to this past year when a college football player sued the NFL to get in. It may even have been a hockey player who forced the NHL to draft players who were at the age of majority which was and is 18. The same age you are allowed to vote or go to war, ... huh, what is it good for, absolutely nothing, say it again, huh, War ... what is it good for?
 

rebedom

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Nov 27, 2003
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Reilly311 said:
I already commented on this in another post so i'll keep it short.

If players couldn't play in the NHL until they were 21, we'd see better hockey.

The majority of players do not make it into the NHL until they are 21 or older. It is only the elite players, if the best player on your team is also your youngest 18, it should not matter, let him play. The only concern I would have is to make sure that he is strong enough to take the pounding by men. At 18 some of these kids today are huge, strong and tough enough to play in the NHL, Rick Nash (Columbus) and Kovalchuk are good examples so is Ovechkin.
 

ar_emihcrd

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I don't see why people are complaining about this...

a) There are routinely at least 5 guys at the age of 18 who are ready to play in the NHL per draft year.

b) Just because they are drafted does not mean they cannot keep developing.

c) If a guy is a late bloomer and is good enough he'll still make the big show - just maybe as a Free Agent.

d) Are we supposed to wait that much longer for the likes of Crosby, Ovechkin to step in?

There is nothing wrong with the current draft age criteria. Hockey is not like basketball - guys develop earlier.
 

Chief

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Jun 19, 2003
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Raising the NHL's draft age would be the best thing for the league because it would create more interest in the players selected and the teams selecting them. Imagine what it would be like if the players drafted in the 1st round were all expected to have an impact on their new teams in the upcoming season.

That's what happens with the NFL's draft and it's no coincidence that the NFL's draft is probably the most watched and most closely followed in American sports (keep in mind I'm writing this from a US perspective). Baseball and hockey's drafts are non-events to most fans - even most fans of those sports - because players get drafted and it takes years for most of them to develop.

One idea I kind of like that would have some of the same effects of raising the draft age, while actually allowing the more talented 18 year olds to get drafted, would be to require that all 18 year old draftees remain on a team's major league roster until they reach the age of 20 or 21. If a team wants to demote such a player then they would have to put him through waivers and risk the likelihood that he'd be claimed by a weaker team.

Under such a system, there would be the obvious interest generated when a team drafted an 18 year old because fans would see that player in their favorite team's uniform starting next season. Players drafted over the age of 18 would also mean more to fans because there's a greater likelihood that they would have more immediate impacts on the fortunes of teams drafting them.

However, that's not the only benefit to such a system. Stronger teams in the league would probably not draft that many 18 year olds because they wouldn't want that many inexperienced players stuck on their big league roster for the next 2 or 3 seasons, while they would be trying to make playoff runs. If a stronger team did keep an 18 year old on their roster, it would mean that a player who would otherwise be on their roster would be available to another team, which would help spread the wealth regarding some more-proven players throughout the league.

Such a system would obviously provide weaker teams with older draft picks who were closer to being NHL-ready and could help the NHL team sooner rather than later but, just as importantly, such a system would also leave rebuilding teams with the ability to draft more 18 year olds and they could stock their roster with a greater number of higher quality 18 year old picks. Under such a system a team that went into rebuilding mode could really turn things around in 3 years.

Of course, you would have to limit the amount of 18 year olds allowed per team so you didn't have a junior team out there on the ice against NHL competition and I'm sure there's other pitfalls I haven't thought of but I think such a system could go a long way to creating more interest in the draft and helping the weaker teams get more competitive, faster.
 
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