You aren't factoring in how development camps impact prospects. If prospects were only able to get drafted at 20 then they would not have the opportunity to have NHL development staff do a thorough evaluation of them and then offer them expertise in skill and physical development that they would not be able to afford otherwise. Case in point would be Drake Batherson. He was passed over in his first year of eligibility and then drafted at 19. He got the benefit of the Sens development staff and they happened to employ Chris Kelly at the time who used his connection with Brad Marchand to get Batherson the opportunity to spend the summer practicing and training with Marchand, Crosby and Mackinnon. That played a significant role in his development and lead to him being a more capable player and a prospect with a greater likelihood of being a top line player.
I don’t think I’m not factoring it in, development camps are certainly a benefit to players. That said, they aren’t necessary for a successful development nor are there guarantors of successful development.
Lots of NCAA players become successful players without taking the chance of affecting their eligibility by attending a camp.
Similarly, lots of players attend several camps without making the NHL. For every Batherson, how many Fransoo’s or Culek’s are there?
If anything, Batherson is an example that sometimes it’s better to wait until later, and more advanced physical/mental maturity to decide whether to draft a player.
I like development camps and don’t really have a problem with the current Draft format, heck I’ve been following sens dev camps for 20 years, I just notice after years of watching lots of sports that there are certainly other ways to do things.
There’s also nothing in the idea of drafting players at 20 that makes development camps impossible. NFL teams hold rookie camps exclusively for recent draft picks, UDFA’s and try out players.
I haven't followed this whole discussion but what is your central argument around why the NHL should only draft players at 20? Is it just to increase the probability that NHL draft picks become NHL players? If that is the case there are plenty of ways to do that without changes to age eligibility. Development staff play a big role with that and the quantity and quality of scouts as well as the types of methodologies they use to evaluate players. If the league changed draft eligibility to 20 it would likely result in smaller staff for development teams and for scouts. Additionally, both scouts and development teams would likely get paid less because there would be less of an opportunity to prove their worth.
Yes, the idea is higher hit rate. I agree there are other ways but this is one thing (among others) that could be done at a league level rather that at an individual team level.
I’m sure that if you pitched smaller staffs Melnyk would be on board lol.
In addition it would likely have a major impact to junior and feeder leagues. Junior leagues would end up with teams full of 20 year olds with only a few younger than that. This could change what age they draft from feeder leagues and/or it could impact how long prospects play in feeder leagues before they make the jump to major junior. This could even eliminate the possibility that some prospects make it to major junior. So this kind of approach could really hurt project picks who may have high upside but need the right kind of development to become capable or high end NHL players.
How much impact would it have really. I don’t have stats on how many players leave major junior before they turn 20. It would be interesting to know.
Major junior teams would certainly have to adjust how they develop their prospects and manage their rosters but ultimately I’m sure they would be excited to keep star players longer and have longer windows for championships, on top of additional gate revenue and larger TV audiences.
I’m sure this approach would hurt some projects but help others.
It could also result in the draft being much less exciting as there would likely be fewer star caliber project picks available in the later rounds.
Here I disagree, I think the draft would be far more exciting because the likelihood of drafting a guy who can step in right away is significantly higher. Rather than having only a handful of teams drafting an NHL ready player, you might have almost the entire first round of NHL ready talent.
We’re quite the specialized group here on HFBoards but I think the average fan and the networks would like prospects who can step in right away a lot more.
