News Article: Canadian draft, no, not about beer.

[Drivesaitl]

You're focusing on recency bias. Again, these winning players were developed 5-10 years ago. It's not relevant to today's draft if you actually are scouting the players.

Canada won the World Juniors in 2018 and months later way more Euros than Canadians were drafted by the NHL. Try to explain it. Its not recency bias its seemingly bias in general.

Success of Juniors players doesn't even seem to translate into NHL picks.

Would love to see more international play and interlocking play. See what would happen in respective Junior club play on NA ice.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Did you miss the part where Yakupov played juniors here aswell?

You'd never know it from watching. heh. Yak got lost. But one of many Euro players that did coming over here. Too much adaptation. As mentioned another reason why it makes sense to pick domestic players that are already more familiar, career long, with the NA game, in which the NHL is played.

We've gone too far in the Euro direction imo. I wonder if we're settling in for some Canadians can't possibly be good enough thinking, even in hockey, and thinking euro picks are just sexier. Maybe they even sell more tickets in some markets than all those ordinary Canadian players (that win a whole lot)

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Canada won the World Juniors in 2018 and months later way more Euros than Canadians were drafted by the NHL. Try to explain it. Its not recency bias its seemingly bias in general.

Success of Juniors players doesn't even seem to translate into NHL picks.

Would love to see more international play and interlocking play. See what would happen in respective Junior club play on NA ice.

So what a group of 20 players do should dictate how the draft goes?

 

[Tobias Kahun]

You'd never know it from watching. heh. Yak got lost. But one of many Euro players that did coming over here. Too much adaptation. As mentioned another reason why it makes sense to pick domestic players that are already more familiar, career long, with the NA game, in which the NHL is played.

We've gone too far in the Euro direction imo.

Ovechkin.

Imagine if he was Canadian, he would have 1000 goals already cause he would try harder

 

[Spawn]

Seems like maybe a bit of selective bias going on.

Sure the Blues won the cup this year with a largely Canadian roster. The Caps won the cup last year being led by Europeans first, Americans 2nd, and Canadians playing support roles.

 

[Aerrol]

Canada has way more Junior clubs than any other nation. More high level Junior play than any other nation. Way more very good Junior players than any other nation. In last 5 juniors Canada has won gold twice, have better podium results than any nation, have owned the World Juniors at times and in unprecedented fashion, and have of course won it much more than any other nation. But Finland wins a couple and they are a hockey superpower?

IIHF World U20 Championship - Wikipedia

Where are all these results that suggest Canada is getting trounced in hockey. Canada could put 10 teams in World Juniors play. 3 would be elite. No other country could do that.

Trounced? No, but definitely not keeping up in terms of improvement. You yourself stated it - previously Canadians outright dominated rather easily, especially the mid 2000s. Since then, most other countries have drastically revamped their development programs. We have not. Let's look at years Canada medalled from that list:

93: Gold
94: Gold
95: Gold
96: Gold
97: Gold
98: None
99: Silver
2000: Bronze
2001: Bronze
2002 Silver
2003: Silver
2004: Silver
2005: Gold
2006: Gold
2007: Gold
2008: Gold
2009: Gold
2010: Silver
2011: Silver
2012: Bronze
2013: None
2014: None
2015: Gold
2016: None
2017: Silver
2018: Gold
2019: None

Look at the increased frequency that Canada is no longer medalling now. Yes, we still have the raw numbers of junior hockey players that, statistically, we often are still putting out the best talent on the ice. But the Canadian teams are frequently getting out-coached at the World Jr's, and the rest of the world is definitely catching up to us in terms of being able to field elite teams simply because they're actually investing in development.

 

[Spawn]

Canada won the World Juniors in 2018 and months later way more Euros than Canadians were drafted by the NHL. Try to explain it. Its not recency bias its seemingly bias in general.

Success of Juniors players doesn't even seem to translate into NHL picks.

Would love to see more international play and interlocking play. See what would happen in respective Junior club play on NA ice.

It actually is pretty easy to explain it. The vast majority of players on Canada's World Juniors teams have already been drafted. A group of 19 year olds who have all already been drafted aren't going to have an impact on the upcoming draft of 17 and 18 year olds.

Over the last 10 years, after having owned the tournament for 1/2 a decade, Canada has only won twice. That's 3rd behind both Finland and the States.

 

[Hynh]

There's multiple factors at work. First, useless players like Steve MacIntyre have been driven out of the league. Those players were overwhelmingly Canadian and unreasonably buoyed the Canadian numbers for years. This extends to the draft. The Oilers drafted Cameron Abney in 2009. Does not drafting his 2019 equivalent show a decline in Canadian hockey? I don't think so and if it does, it shows a decline that existed before Abney was drafted.

The second is that, all other things equal, you're better off drafting a player that's in Europe or going the NCAA route due the rules in the CBA. You get their rights for 4 or more years compared to just 2 for CHLers. If you're drafting a kid late and hoping he develops, the more time you can see him before committing an ELC to him the better. This year the Oilers drafted Tomas Mazura. He's not scheduled to go to his college team until 2020-21 so the Oilers can make a decision after his 21 year old season, the season before he can "Schultz" them.

Finally I think the CHL is too big and too profit driven. The Oil Kings are the perfect example. Despite being successful at the gate and in playoffs they haven't produced any notable NHL talent. The CHL-NHL agreement restricts when players can go to the AHL, allegedly to preserve the level of competition but somehow 22 teams doesn't affect the level of competition.

 

[MessierII]

Detroit was the exception, along with Colorado, rather than the rule.

Greatest org in the league? I don't subscribe to that. They had perennially some of the deepest pockets and were consistently one of the top spending clubs. The dozen or so years precap were largely the story of have vs have not franchises. Whoever those teams didn't pick they could just buy later.

They still made the playoffs 10 straight years in the cap era and won the cup. Detroit until a few years ago was hands down the model organization in the nhl. I don’t see how that can be argued.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

They still made the playoffs 10 straight years in the cap era and won the cup. Detroit until a few years ago was hands down the model organization in the nhl. I don’t see how that can be argued.

The Rangers were a force to be reckoned with for all those years without the cap.

Oh wait no they werent.

 

[Jumptheshark]

some factors need to be put out there

1) Up till about 1980--many teams did not have scouts in Europe. A few years ago I took in a lower level game in the Czech republic and talked to a guy who has been involved in Czech hockey when it was Czechoslovakian hockey. There were scouts from from a half a dozen nhl teams and universities. He said that in the 80's he could not beg scouts to go to games at the top level in the country. Hockey has always been popular in Europe--it just took 40 years for NHL teams to get over their bias towards Europeans or thinking like Don Cherry
2) Most Scandinavian counties do not gift players a spot in international competitions. The have to earn them.
3) Hockey has changed. We are no longer looking for the Dave WIlliams, Semenko's or Schultz--teams need players who can play in all situations and that means looking in different places.
4) I will line up Swedish and Finish fans against any Canadian fan to see who loves hockey more
5) Since Gretz hit the the US market it has started more kids playing hockey and I think Austin Matthews or his father said--that one thing has been key to why players like Matthews started playing hockey.

 

[Perfect_Drug]

I think a huge issue is simply that the QMJHL sucks.

We get the occasional gem here or there, but it's kinda spiralled into a pretty terrible development league.

I think the number of OHL and WHL graduates in the NHL are over 150ish each, but QMJHL is down to about half that.

 

[Fmrnuckfan95]

For some reason the kids in northern states have really taken to hockey, honestly couldn't tell you why. They've always liked it but they've never been able to develop players like they have recently.

 

[rboomercat90]

But it could be stated that learning to win, the tenacity required, the battle, the ability to scrum, out compete become developed skills within the Canadian system and are displayed at all levels of hockey, and international hockey.

Teaching kids competition, and honing that is potentially valuabe as well and never moreso than for "higher professional output"

The reality is until Niklas Lidstrom came along the general argument was Euro players had some mad skillz but that Canadian players were just as skilled and knew how to win.

Interestingly Tampa, and I'll get a dig in here, is perennially the most Euro styled club in the league and they always are found lacking, when push comes to shove, quite literally.

In Edmonton, its been decades since we've seen much success from Euro players, we've drafted several of them, with the Exception of Draisaitl, who is Canadian styled in game and approach as it gets, we don't get a lot out of them.

Did the trend towards political correctness that began at least twenty years ago hurt development of young athletes, including hockey players? You can’t coach kids the same way now that you did in the past where “hurting feelings” built character and taught kids how to win and more importantly, want to win. Now participation is good enough. Do you become the best you can be without being pushed?

 

[Drivesaitl]

It actually is pretty easy to explain it. The vast majority of players on Canada's World Juniors teams have already been drafted. A group of 19 year olds who have all already been drafted aren't going to have an impact on the upcoming draft of 17 and 18 year olds.

Over the last 10 years, after having owned the tournament for 1/2 a decade, Canada has only won twice. That's 3rd behind both Finland and the States.

Holy specious selection of time frame batman. Canada has Won World Juniors twice in last 5 yrs. They've won it 7 times in the last 15 years. You've handpicked the one arbitrary segment that looks like anything but Canadian dominance. Again 7 championships in 15yrs. In all that time though the NHL is scurrying to Europe to find players that are losing to Canadian players during that time frame. Completely oddly the shift to drafting Euros more started around the time that Canada was winning 5 World Juniors in a row. Pretty unexplainable.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Did the trend towards political correctness that began at least twenty years ago hurt development of young athletes, including hockey players? You can’t coach kids the same way now that you did in the past where “hurting feelings” built character and taught kids how to win and more importantly, want to win. Now participation is good enough. Do you become the best you can be without being pushed?

One of the most interesting thoughts put forth in replies to this thread, thanks for that. there would be limits on how much you could push players these days and Canadian players seemingly benefit from some hard coaching approaches.

 

[Spawn]

Holy specious selection of time frame batman. Canada has Won World Juniors twice in last 5 yrs. They've won it 7 times in the last 15 years. You've handpicked the one arbitrary segment that looks like anything but Canadian dominance. Again 7 championships in 15yrs. In all that time though the NHL is scurrying to Europe to find players that are losing to Canadian players during that time frame. Completely oddly the shift to drafting Euros more started around the time that Canada was winning 5 World Juniors in a row. Pretty unexplainable.

Well what's the question at hand here?

I'm answering why we're seeing more Europeans and fewer Canadians being selected in the draft in recent years. I wasn't trying to be selective, I was illustrating that the quantity and caliber of Canadian born and developed players has seen a dip in recent years.

 

[Drivesaitl]

There's multiple factors at work. First, useless players like Steve MacIntyre have been driven out of the league. Those players were overwhelmingly Canadian and unreasonably buoyed the Canadian numbers for years. This extends to the draft. The Oilers drafted Cameron Abney in 2009. Does not drafting his 2019 equivalent show a decline in Canadian hockey? I don't think so and if it does, it shows a decline that existed before Abney was drafted.

The second is that, all other things equal, you're better off drafting a player that's in Europe or going the NCAA route due the rules in the CBA. You get their rights for 4 or more years compared to just 2 for CHLers. If you're drafting a kid late and hoping he develops, the more time you can see him before committing an ELC to him the better. This year the Oilers drafted Tomas Mazura. He's not scheduled to go to his college team until 2020-21 so the Oilers can make a decision after his 21 year old season, the season before he can "Schultz" them.

Finally I think the CHL is too big and too profit driven. The Oil Kings are the perfect example. Despite being successful at the gate and in playoffs they haven't produced any notable NHL talent. The CHL-NHL agreement restricts when players can go to the AHL, allegedly to preserve the level of competition but somehow 22 teams doesn't affect the level of competition.

Excellent point. I'm not into the contractual aspects of hockey and so not aware of this. That would seem to be a loophole, and that is not consistent to all players. Theres no way there should be a difference. Patently unfair to the Canadian development mode that is primarily Juniors route, non post secondary, if this is indeed the case. I hadn't considered this, Canadian players at a disadvantage due to the CBA. Wow.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Seems like maybe a bit of selective bias going on.

Sure the Blues won the cup this year with a largely Canadian roster. The Caps won the cup last year being led by Europeans first, Americans 2nd, and Canadians playing support roles.

What a ridiculous reply. Astoundingly silly. As many as 23 Canadian players were playing for the teams in the SC final in 2018. The Caps had 8 and the Knights had 15. So how was I being selective? I also cited the Canadian led Kings wins. I could cite lots more.

btw Holtby and Wilson were two of the biggest stories for the Caps all playoffs. So much for Canadians playing all support roles. lmfao. Caps don't get out of any of the rounds without the two.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Well what's the question at hand here?

I'm answering why we're seeing more Europeans and fewer Canadians being selected in the draft in recent years. I wasn't trying to be selective, I was illustrating that the quantity and caliber of Canadian born and developed players has seen a dip in recent years.

Without any proof of the bolded.

You didn't give any answers why decreased drafting of Canadians is occurring.

If your sum conclusion is circular reasoning that theres less Canadian quality on the basis of less Canadian players being picked its not really any contribution to the discussion is it?

 

[Spawn]

I’m saying there’s less Canadian talent as demonstrated by Canada not having been a dominant force at the U20 level in 10 years now.

I don’t have an answer for why that is the case, but it would make sense that weaker U20 teams would go hand in hand with fewer Canadians being drafted.

No need for the aggression

 

[Drivesaitl]

I’m saying there’s less Canadian talent as demonstrated by Canada not having been a dominant force at the U20 level in 10 years now.

I don’t have an answer for why that is the case, but it would make sense that weaker U20 teams would go hand in hand with fewer Canadians being drafted.

No need for the aggression

Fine, tomorrow I will demonstrate how the radical shift to increasing Euro picks, and decreasing Canadian draft picks coincided with a long period of Canadian absolute dominance of World Juniors. This is a large part of the point of the thread, that Canada dominates hockey, always has, and yet picks have been declining during the periods of dominance. Did you not catch my references to past drafts earlier in the thread?

Again there has been an extremely odd shift away from Canadian picked players that was gradual but started in the 80's. Quite clearly Canada has dominated on the World Junior front ever since 1982. Even in times where Canada multiple times won 5 Juniors titles in a row this was only resulting in a decreasing proportion of Canadian players being picked in those time frames. When I have time tomorrow I will make that all clear.

 

[Aerrol]

Fine, tomorrow I will demonstrate how the radical shift to increasing Euro picks, and decreasing Canadian draft picks coincided with a long period of Canadian absolute dominance of World Juniors. This is a large part of the point of the thread, that Canada dominates hockey, always has, and yet picks have been declining during the periods of dominance. Did you not catch my references to past drafts earlier in the thread?

Again there has been an extremely odd shift away from Canadian picked players that was gradual but started in the 80's. Quite clearly Canada has dominated on the World Junior front ever since 1982. Even in times where Canada multiple times won 5 Juniors titles in a row this was only resulting in a decreasing proportion of Canadian players being picked in those time frames. When I have time tomorrow I will make that all clear.

I look forward to the read but I doubt you'll prove your point any better than you have thus far. Everything you've said in this thread screams confirmation bias:

Canadian players drafted going down despite Canadian dominance therefore NHL teams are turning their noses up against Canadian players therefore Canada wins less World Juniors. When the reverse relation - Canadian drafted players going down as a proportion of the draft due to increased quality of development from other nations therefore Canada wins less World Juniors - not only is more logically consistent but is, at worst, equally supported by your own data so far.

 

[Aerrol]

Well what's the question at hand here?

I'm answering why we're seeing more Europeans and fewer Canadians being selected in the draft in recent years. I wasn't trying to be selective, I was illustrating that the quantity and caliber of Canadian born and developed players has seen a dip in recent years.

I think it'd be more accurate to say that the top end quality of Canadian talent has stopped improving, whereas other countries are finding ways to better develop their top percentile of junior players. We've stagnated more than regressed imo.

To put it in terms of the draft - in the past, a weak Canadian top end meant a weak top end overall in the draft. Now it means that players from other nations take those top picks instead. I've noticed there's been a lot less variance in draft quality the past 5ish years for this reason. Now, when we don't have a McDavid or MacKinnon clearly running for the top spot, we have historically impressive Hughes, Kakko, Dahlin, Laine, Matthews.

 

[Zaddy]

I don't think there's any conspiracy here. The fact is just that the CHL just hasn't produced that many elite talents in recent years. From 2016 and onwards there just hasn't been a guy that has warrented a 1st overall pick, and that's been the trend lately, especially with the OHL having much weaker draft classes than in years past. Meanwhile Europeans are finally not underrated and given due credit when it comes to draft stock, while USTNDP are also churning out some high-end prospects. Why the CHL system don't put out the amount of elite talents that it used to do I don't know, but it seems to be a fact at this point that other nations have caught up and perhaps even surpassed them.