A young mens or old mens league?

[Laineux]

Lately there has been a lot of talk that the league is dominated by young, sometimes even teenaged men. Does this claim really hold water?

First of all, let's look at Corsica's player rankings to see who are the most impactful players in the league currently.

1. McDavid (21)
2. Crosby (30)
3. Bergeron (32)
4. Marchand (30)
5. Ovechkin (32)
6. Kucherov (24)
7. Hall (26)
8. MacKinnon (22)
9. Malkin (31)
10. Tarasenko (26)

NHL Player Ratings, NHL Player Rankings

Half of the top 10 are 30 or over! The trend of young domination seems to be almost excusively limited to one outlier! Where are the young guns that are supposed to dominate this league?

The truth is that we didn't see any of them do squat in the Stanley Cup finals. It seems that 30 is still much closer to a players best age than 20. Do you think that this trend of young > old is much overblown?

Click to read more...

 

[DitchMarner]

How the hell is Jake Guentzel as high as he is? Crosby effect?

Letang makes a bigger impact than Erik Karlsson and is the second best d-man?

 

[Garbage Goal]

IIRC, a players peak is generally around 27 or 28 with goalies being slightly later. Primes generally being around 25 to 28 IIRC. With both numbers I’m, at most, a year or two off.

The oldest player you posted was 32 years old. All the other 30+ players you mentioned are either exactly 30 or 31. So, in other words, just two or three years after the general player peak/prime and smack dab in the middle of a players career, allowing variance for the fact that players start their NHL careers at different times and paces.

With the exception of Marchand, the list of 30+ players on there are the guy assumed to win the Selke almost every year and three generational talents. All three of which are some of the best players of all-time and one of which arguably the greatest goal scorer to ever play. In other words, outliers.

So, yes, it’s definitely a young mans league. I’m willing to bet that the longer you make the list the more players 18 to 29 show up. Anyone can arbitrarily stop or otherwise editorialize a list to where it best suits their argument.

Never mind that young players are the ones on affordable ELCs and RFA contracts as opposed to UFA deals.

 

[Sam Spade]

No idea honestly, but to win it all it clearly takes a mix.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

The top scorers will always be in the 20-32 range as that's peak/prime years but the average age has declined. old and slow stay at home defensemen, faceoff consultants and enforcers have been weeded out.

 

[Silky mitts]

This model loves the Bruins

 

[Bank Shot]

There is a pretty clear correlation between team age and winning in the NHL.

And it tilts towards older teams.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

How the hell is Jake Guentzel as high as he is? Crosby effect?

Letang makes a bigger impact than Erik Karlsson and is the second best d-man?

Jake Guentzel is a DAMN smart hockey player. The Crosby effect has only taken him so far. He played away from Sid for a good bit of the season. He did have an unsustainably high shooting%, but his success on the ice isn't a fluke. He's smart.

 

[Ryan Michaels]

That list is all over the place. But one thing that I found interesting from this year is that it felt like a young man's league in the regular season and flipped entirely in the playoffs.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

I think we are in a time of both, which makes the NHL full of possibilities and excitement.

The scoring champion was 21 last year. The runner up was 30. And a 20 yr old rookie scored 85 pts in his first season. Also saw a bounceback year from MAF at age 33.

Anything is possible in the NHL.

 

[Hatter of the Beach]

Room for both, but I don't think there's any question that the average player being drafted is noticeably better than the average young player coming into the league 10 years ago. Every era will have their Phenoms, but I don't recall there ever being so much good and talented youth in the league. Think it has a lot to do with improvements in fitness and nutrition.

There will always be good players, but I'd be much more hesitant to sign mediocre players north of 28 to any long term deal, when there is almost certainly better, younger, and cheaper players to be made available

 

[rent free]

i heard this was the first year in the nhl where the average age of the nhl was under 27 or something like that

i may have misheard it unfortunately

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

There is a pretty clear correlation between team age and winning in the NHL.

And it tilts towards older teams.

Yeah, I was going to say (though I have nothing to back this up with, just gut feeling) that regular season points/production may lean toward the younger guys, but the playoffs I believe still shows that the older guys have a level they can reach that you only get with experience.

Who were the best players this year in the regular season? Largely the younger guys. Who were the best in the playoffs? There's a lot of 30-somethings on that list.