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

Drivesaitl

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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.

What my thread screams is that its always difficult to go against the grain of accepted thought, but which is not a foreign mode for a sceptic.

First, to consider that bias may operate in NHL scouting circles one has to believe in the possibility that it does.

2-3 years ago at the draft and combine NHL teams, scouting, were asking kids whether they played Fortnite. As an evaluative question. As if they were asking youth whether they had ever tried cocaine..Scouts, Managers that a generation ago had been tossing down Whiskey with Chasers were evaluating the relative harm of Fortnite. You're rarely see a more confirmed case of generational bias. yet this was confired by several sources at the combine, and it was laughable bias.

Do I need to mention the bias in the Boston boardroom discussing whats wrong with Seguin and that he doesn't fit with Boston strong culture?

Should I mention that I've followed hockey forever and that several NHL GM's turned their nose at Gretzky and several on record saying that he wouldn't even survive in the big bad NHL? That was collective NHL hockey wisdom then.

For the last number of years people have been saying that speed and skill trumps size and physicality. Indeed this was accepted as a basic truth of some sort. Despite LA KINGS, Washington Caps, STL Blues all winning on size and physicality and being impossible to contain through multiple recent championships.


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.

Sorry, but I read that and have to stop myself and think about that this is the team board for the team that drafted a saviour, Connor McDavid, often talked about as one of the best young players ever, who happens to be Canadian.

NHL hockey has transitioned from Sidney Crosby being the best player in the league to Connor Mcdavid and I'm hearing in present tense the bolded.

Seriously? We're comparing the non Canadians in your list with how good McDavid, MacKinnon are? Lets see what they put up first. Laine as recently as this season even was lost in space for an extended duration in Winnipeg. Other highly touted Finns like Pulju who were thought to be equally generational, and part of a new wave of Finnish stars, is crashing and bombing out of the league.
 

Drivesaitl

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This always makes me laugh

Pro Hockey Prospects Told To Stop Talking About ‘Fortnite’

"Hockey reporter Renaud Lavoie recently told Sportsnet 590 he ran into an unnamed NHL general manager who also brought up the game.
“That GM told me it’s an issue,” Lavoie said. “Before, the athletes were going to bars. Now, they’re staying in hotel rooms or at home and playing video games for hours.”

The bolded being especially ridiculous. Wait, which is worse?
 

Spawn

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There's definitely bias in the NHL. It would be naive to suggest there isn't. I don't see how that bias has been demonstrated by the OP in this specific case and I think a relative lack of success for Canada at the U20 and U18 tournaments in recent years suggests it's less so a bias and more so that Canada is in a bit of a lull right now in the quantity of top end talent that we're producing.
 

Drivesaitl

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Just because I find this kind of thing funny a look at what is currently involved in the NHL combine.

NHL Scouting Combine primer: What will players go through in 2019? - Sportsnet.ca

"Although the fitness testing aspect of the combine is usually what garners most of the headlines, teams sitting down and meeting with prospective draftees face-to-face is considered the most vital part of the week."

The difficulty with NHL teams and managers feeling the sit down with players is the most vital part of the week?

That research has concluded for decades that the usual job interview meeting is essentially worthless. Meaningless. Yet NHL dinosaur thinking considers it vital.

Yale Researcher to Bosses: Science Proves Job Interviews Are Useless

I could list 100 Scientific studies that cite the same, that interviews are useless. A basically random mode of selection loaded with every bias known in human interaction. The worst is that interviews exist not to pick the best candidates. They don't do that. They exist as comfort (often false) for the firm doing the hiring.

But for the rest. Chin pull ups. Lets see, this is in the 1942 handbook of general health testing. hmmm. What a modern testing paradigm.

Standing long jump, Bench press. haha.

Is there any athlete out there that can't bench press 50% of their body weight? Not that it should be considered bible anyway but.

As for the other tests wheres the research of their efficacy.

In the end is it quite possible that much of what goes on at the combine, including asking about fortnite, is pretty selective?


ps just for fun. Grip strength could measure some other addiction... heh, just jk around.
 

Fixed to Ruin

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One observation i have made is that in all the eurpean countries their development system works like a pyramid. The higher the level of play the less number of teams are available and consequently the high end players pool together and play against each other in the the junior leagues of their respective countries.

Canada's system is shaped like a hour glass. You move to the highest level in your minor hockey Association. Then when you hit 16 or 17 a number of opportunities for players to play come into the picture. For example, if you are an elite 18 yr old canadian hockey player. This is the list of league you could potentially be playing in.

1) NHL
2) CHL ( WHL, OHL, QMJHL)
3) CIS ( rare that an 18 yr old plays here but it is possible)
4) NCAA
5) Jr. A ( BCHL, AJHL, OJHL, ect)
6) USHL
7) Midget AAA

In Canada we spread around our elite players all over several leagues like butter on toast. While the americans have one team for all their elite talent and europeans play in small but highly competitive leagues.

Canada gives the most opportunities for playing the game of hockey at an elite level than every other nation. The real question Hockey Canada needs to ask itself is "Does spreading the talent around so many leagues create more elite players? I'm not sure that's true in 2019.


I know this would never happen but always felt that Canada should have a national semi-pro/developmental league for ages 18-21. The players in this league would be mostly drafted NHL prospects who aren't in the NHL. Players would play Jr A until they are 18. Then if they don't make their respective NHL clubs they would play against their peers in this new hypotetical league rather than going back to junior and scoring 150 pts in 60 games or going in the AHL ( at 19 or 20) and losing ice time to the Ryan Hamilton's of the world who are waiting for their NHL callups.
 

Drivesaitl

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There's definitely bias in the NHL. It would be naive to suggest there isn't. I don't see how that bias has been demonstrated by the OP in this specific case and I think a relative lack of success for Canada at the U20 and U18 tournaments in recent years suggests it's less so a bias and more so that Canada is in a bit of a lull right now in the quantity of top end talent that we're producing.

i actually appreciate this post, as its my goal in the moment to get people thinking that bias does at least exist in the world of NHL scouting.

As for the bolded what if I demonstrate that even when Canada is winning these unders tournaments that it doesn't result in increased Canadians selected at draft. That it results in proportionally less?

I'll post the data, and want to, but I want to at least know if people are open to reviewing it when I do.
 

Vanqu1sh

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I could see the socialist society being advantageous in various regards to developing players over our capitalist one.
 

Drivesaitl

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More combine bias, my lord, this stuff is laughable.

10 NHL Draft Combine Takeaways: Jack Hughes is a true pro - Sportsnet.ca

Sieder wins the award for the most gregarious, outspoken, because apparently, to NHL execs, extroversion is essential..despite some of the greatest Athletes in the world being, um, introverts.

"Broberg was immaculately dressed, carried himself head held high and had an impressive handshake grip. While those things may seem mundane, first impressions are a thing, and he made an unforgettable first impression. "

Seriously, people assess handshake as if it means anything in 2019? "Immaculately dressed" head held high?

These are comments a mother would make in 1942..

I know its Burke but this is typical of the kind of blowhards that the hockey world seemingly listens to.
 
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Sugi21

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The game is obviously growing outside of Canada and Europeean crountries getting stronger but here at the grassroots level in Canada hockey is a very very expensive sport! Unfortunately a lot of families here dont make enough coin to justify spending thousands a year on hockey it’s just not feasible. I know there are lots of programs out there to help families cover sports fees and equipment but that’s it. Hockey involves a lot of gas, food and lodging especially as they get older. If Canada made hockey more accessible for families to place their kids in hockey I’m sure there would be a turnaround but that will take years to see. I put my kids in soccer because it’s easier on the wallet lol
 

Perfect_Drug

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One observation i have made is that in all the eurpean countries their development system works like a pyramid. The higher the level of play the less number of teams are available and consequently the high end players pool together and play against each other in the the junior leagues of their respective countries.

Canada's system is shaped like a hour glass. You move to the highest level in your minor hockey Association. Then when you hit 16 or 17 a number of opportunities for players to play come into the picture. For example, if you are an elite 18 yr old canadian hockey player. This is the list of league you could potentially be playing in.

1) NHL
2) CHL ( WHL, OHL, QMJHL)
3) CIS ( rare that an 18 yr old plays here but it is possible)
4) NCAA
5) Jr. A ( BCHL, AJHL, OJHL, ect)
6) USHL
7) Midget AAA

In Canada we spread around our elite players all over several leagues like butter on toast. While the americans have one team for all their elite talent and europeans play in small but highly competitive leagues.

Canada gives the most opportunities for playing the game of hockey at an elite level than every other nation. The real question Hockey Canada needs to ask itself is "Does spreading the talent around so many leagues create more elite players? I'm not sure that's true in 2019.


I know this would never happen but always felt that Canada should have a national semi-pro/developmental league for ages 18-21. The players in this league would be mostly drafted NHL prospects who aren't in the NHL. Players would play Jr A until they are 18. Then if they don't make their respective NHL clubs they would play against their peers in this new hypotetical league rather than going back to junior and scoring 150 pts in 60 games or going in the AHL ( at 19 or 20) and losing ice time to the Ryan Hamilton's of the world who are waiting for their NHL callups.
This is an excellent post.
 
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Drivesaitl

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Well lets start looking at NHL drafts relative to concurrent World hockey Junior success as people think that's some indicator of who and why more Euros, and Less Canadians are being picked and that its illustrative of the Euro hockey world just getting better than Canada.

1982. The start of an unprecedented run of one country success at World Juniors. That year 156 Canadians drafted, just 35 Euros.


Canada goes on to dominate World Juniors for decades, yet in 1992, a decade later, after 5 Canada triumphs at world Championships; 137 Canadians are picked and 88 Europeans. Even considering glasnost, and more open borders it doesn't explain all the increase in Euro players or why. Canada dominating world Juniors, more Euros, less Canadians get drafted. hmmm.

Lets jump to 1997. On the World stage 5 Canadian wins in a row at the Juniors. Canada OWNING world juniors hockey, absolutely owning it. The most common thought at the time was that the Juniors were starting to get boring because Canada was always winning the thing. The result, again LESS Canadians picked at the 1997 NHL draft Astoundingly only 129. Canadian selections continuing to decrease despite Canadian players owning Junior hockey. Its said by several pundits of the time that Canada could send 3 teams to Juniors and own the podium. Canada is that good.

2002. A dryspell hiccup. Canadas run at World Juniors on hold. hockey world cries that Canadian hockey is unskilled, dead, despite Canada being the most dominant country at world Juniors for the past two decades. Only this time NHL scouting apparently has it that World Juniors results means something indicative. Canadian picks plummet to 109 while Euro picks explode to 123.

Then Canada rebounds, claims the World Juniors stage once again and wins another 5 in a row, something no other nation ever does. Yet 104 Canadians are picked in the NHL draft. A decrease in Canadian content after owning World Juniors, again.

FF to today, and in 2019 the number of Canadians picked plummets to lowest figures, 70 Canadians picked, while 91 Euros are picked.

if looking through the decades the memo seems to be that when Canada owns world Juniors it matters little, still less Canadians picked in current or subsequent drafts. Yet when Europe has some results these result in continual increases in numbers of players picked.
 
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Perfect_Drug

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Should also mention the Malcolm Gladwell article on birth month affecting NHL players drastically skews Canadian systems far more than other leagues.

More or less: Canadian hockey age cutoff is January 1st.

So a kid in peewee born January 1st will have 364 days of growth over a kid born Dec 31st. And they will maintain that substantial advantage until junior.

More icetime, better linemates, better coaching, better leagues, etc.

That advantage is so substantial, that 40% of Canadian born NHL players are born Jan - March. And under 15% are born Oct-Dec.

The way we throttle our players like this is incredibly disadvantageous to giving most participants a proper chance to develop.

Here's a more eloquently written article:

Birthday bias: Understanding relative age effect in youth hockey
 

Drivesaitl

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One observation i have made is that in all the eurpean countries their development system works like a pyramid. The higher the level of play the less number of teams are available and consequently the high end players pool together and play against each other in the the junior leagues of their respective countries.

Canada's system is shaped like a hour glass. You move to the highest level in your minor hockey Association. Then when you hit 16 or 17 a number of opportunities for players to play come into the picture. For example, if you are an elite 18 yr old canadian hockey player. This is the list of league you could potentially be playing in.

1) NHL
2) CHL ( WHL, OHL, QMJHL)
3) CIS ( rare that an 18 yr old plays here but it is possible)
4) NCAA
5) Jr. A ( BCHL, AJHL, OJHL, ect)
6) USHL
7) Midget AAA

In Canada we spread around our elite players all over several leagues like butter on toast. While the americans have one team for all their elite talent and europeans play in small but highly competitive leagues.

Canada gives the most opportunities for playing the game of hockey at an elite level than every other nation. The real question Hockey Canada needs to ask itself is "Does spreading the talent around so many leagues create more elite players? I'm not sure that's true in 2019.


I know this would never happen but always felt that Canada should have a national semi-pro/developmental league for ages 18-21. The players in this league would be mostly drafted NHL prospects who aren't in the NHL. Players would play Jr A until they are 18. Then if they don't make their respective NHL clubs they would play against their peers in this new hypotetical league rather than going back to junior and scoring 150 pts in 60 games or going in the AHL ( at 19 or 20) and losing ice time to the Ryan Hamilton's of the world who are waiting for their NHL callups.

I appreciate the effort, and thank you for making it, but I don't completely follow the point. For decades Euro Juniors have been coming to Canada to play in say Juniors here because it helps them elevate their game here, and through playing in quality leagues against strong competition. In Canada and US there are more good leagues. I don't subscribe that the talent in those leauges is that diluted compared to Euro leagues, there are more players feeding those systems as Canadian and US numbers of players is much much higher.

More leagues exist partly because of more talent (and money that can be earned from selling tickets to watch talent) Whether it be hockey, basketball, football. More leagues, more teams, is evidence of more exceptional players being available to feed those teams and leagues.
 

Drivesaitl

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Should also mention the Malcolm Gladwell article on birth month affecting NHL players drastically skews Canadian systems far more than other leagues.

More or less: Canadian hockey age cutoff is January 1st.

So a kid in peewee born January 1st will have 364 days of growth over a kid born Dec 31st. And they will maintain that substantial advantage until junior.

More icetime, better linemates, better coaching, better leagues, etc.

That advantage is so substantial, that 40% of Canadian born NHL players are born Jan - March. And under 15% are born Oct-Dec.

The way we throttle our players like this is incredibly disadvantageous to giving most participants a proper chance to develop.

Here's a more eloquently written article:

Birthday bias: Understanding relative age effect in youth hockey

I was going to cite the BD bias as well. Actually in 1983-1984 I was involved in research in one of the studies of it. I think some of the results were problematic back then, but ftr the same studies were taking place across different sports.

The BD bias has been argued for decades. Its very illustrative of confirmation bias and how a study could be guilty of preconcluding, before results are in, which is never good science.

Its worth noting, consistent with my thread, that the NHL also bought into some of the nonsense. Theres been studies stating that NHL drafting started to be very biased to BD bias fiction as well.

So not just a CHL problem. The misconception impacted NHL drafting as well.

ftr this is the research study I was involved in. Such a long time ago.. ( I didn't concur with the study or alleged conclusions)

(PDF) Hockey success and birthdate: The relative age effect

ps its funny recollection, and worth noting that a lof of the office at the time, and maybe even Gus Thompson (a fine broth of a Scot) were using the data compiling games played and production stats for hockey pools....haha, this was before the era where you could just look up such career records easily on the internet. We had a splendid database going on..
 
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Aerrol

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First, the easiest point to address:

Sorry, but I read that and have to stop myself and think about that this is the team board for the team that drafted a saviour, Connor McDavid, often talked about as one of the best young players ever, who happens to be Canadian.

NHL hockey has transitioned from Sidney Crosby being the best player in the league to Connor Mcdavid and I'm hearing in present tense the bolded.

Seriously? We're comparing the non Canadians in your list with how good McDavid, MacKinnon are? Lets see what they put up first. Laine as recently as this season even was lost in space for an extended duration in Winnipeg. Other highly touted Finns like Pulju who were thought to be equally generational, and part of a new wave of Finnish stars, is crashing and bombing out of the league.

This is completely missing my point, but I re-read it and it didn't come across clearly so fair enough. Let me try again.

Spawn said: "I was illustrating that the quantity and caliber of Canadian born and developed players has seen a dip in recent years."

I disagreed, and stated that I felt that Canadian top end talent had stagnated, rather than 'dipped'. What I mean by this is that while the US, Sweden, and Finland have all seen their number of top end picks/prospects explode in the past 5-10 years, Canada's numbers have stayed flat. I did not mean to suggest that our very best are no longer evolving their skills to stay at the front of the pack. Rather, I was stating that we are not producing increased numbers of this top-end level talent. Our average number of top end talent appears to be flatlining. My hypothesis is that this is due to our failure to adapt and actually prioritize player development over simply throwing our prospects into a big pool and hoping they float.

The very peak players, the McDavids, Crosbys and MacKinnons, the Lemieuxs and Gretzkys, they have always been all about finding ways to improve. These types of talents will, as long as Canada maintains much higher numbers of junior hockey players, always pop up (I believe our youth numbers per capita are dropping too due to cost, but let's ignore that for now). What I'm referring to in terms of 'stagnation' is that for the past 15ish years or so, Canada seems to go through lulls between these top-top end talents, and the other years. When we don't luck into a year with a good number of talents, we don't have a lot of well-developing prospects that we've guided into better realizing their potential. This is the area Canada is falling far behind the other hockey nations in. They have programs to try and accelerate and support the guys who are maybes for truly realizing their potential, but now have been given guidance and support to try and get there. America, as well, has been starting to create better pools of competition for these players to compete in. Thus, the result is that now, when Canada has a poor draft year, it isn't a 'poor draft year' overall. Instead, we see picks from these other nations rising up to fill the gap.

To put in simpler terms: USA, Finland, and Sweden have all been increasing their top end youth talent percentage of their overall youth hockey numbers. We have not been. We continue to rely on having much more youth talent overall and are hoping that this continues to produce enough elite talent to keep us ahead of the pack. Personally, I like seeing talent from other countries anyways, but as a Canadian fan I think that once the Crosby era of the national team falls off, we won't be nearly as dominant for this reason. Our defence and goaltending in particular doesn't look nearly as strong as it currently is relative to the rest of the world.

Second, picking on Laine and Pulju as examples for how Finnish draft improvement is overrated is amusing at best to me. For every Pulju, you can also find Canadians like Nolan Patrick, Ryan Strome, Sam Bennett, Griffin Reinhart, Erik Gudbranson, Luke Schenn, Cam Barker, and of course most famously, Alexandre Daigle. One bust does not evaluate a country's overall development program. Especially when he's a project thrown into the meat-grinder of development failure known as the Edmonton Oilers. Laine, for all his warts, has put up 3 straight 30 goal seasons. Even if he levels into a lazy 30 goal scorer who sucks at everything else, that's hardly a bad draft pick. Alex Barkov is looking like the heir to Bergeron right now, Kakko just challenged for first overall, Mikko Rantanen has developed into a better offensive player (overall player?) than Landeskog, and Sebastian Aho is looking like a legit first line centre. Miro Heiskanen has turned into a youth star for the Dallas Stars already. This current crop of young Finnish players is far, far better than anything they've had in the NHL as far as I can remember.

Third, bias in NHL drafting and scouting OF COURSE exists. I would never argue otherwise. I just don't see any bias against Canadians. Rather, I see bias of chasing the last-big-thing trend in the NHL, as it's a copycat league. You seem to be asserting that if a team started drafting purely Canadian they'd do better than by the current mix of Canadians and Europeans. I don't see any such trend for Canadians to be ignored for other countries, not yet anyways. I think the quality of NHL players these countries are producing is a testament to that. If we start seeing more Canadians coming out of the late rounds of the draft and turning into legit NHLers, I think that is probably the best test that Canadians are being overlooked. In short, I don't see any NHL bias against Canadians. I just see Canada being disappointingly complacent with regards to player development as we've been on top for so long. I think it will take nothing short of a total disaster, either at the World Juniors level (i.e. 5 straight non-medal years) or at the draft (no Canadians in the top 10 multiple years in the row) before anything serious is done about it.
 

Drivesaitl

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First, the easiest point to address:



This is completely missing my point, but I re-read it and it didn't come across clearly so fair enough. Let me try again.

Spawn said: "I was illustrating that the quantity and caliber of Canadian born and developed players has seen a dip in recent years."

I disagreed, and stated that I felt that Canadian top end talent had stagnated, rather than 'dipped'. What I mean by this is that while the US, Sweden, and Finland have all seen their number of top end picks/prospects explode in the past 5-10 years, Canada's numbers have stayed flat. I did not mean to suggest that our very best are no longer evolving their skills to stay at the front of the pack. Rather, I was stating that we are not producing increased numbers of this top-end level talent. Our average number of top end talent appears to be flatlining. My hypothesis is that this is due to our failure to adapt and actually prioritize player development over simply throwing our prospects into a big pool and hoping they float.

The very peak players, the McDavids, Crosbys and MacKinnons, the Lemieuxs and Gretzkys, they have always been all about finding ways to improve. These types of talents will, as long as Canada maintains much higher numbers of junior hockey players, always pop up (I believe our youth numbers per capita are dropping too due to cost, but let's ignore that for now). What I'm referring to in terms of 'stagnation' is that for the past 15ish years or so, Canada seems to go through lulls between these top-top end talents, and the other years. When we don't luck into a year with a good number of talents, we don't have a lot of well-developing prospects that we've guided into better realizing their potential. This is the area Canada is falling far behind the other hockey nations in. They have programs to try and accelerate and support the guys who are maybes for truly realizing their potential, but now have been given guidance and support to try and get there. America, as well, has been starting to create better pools of competition for these players to compete in. Thus, the result is that now, when Canada has a poor draft year, it isn't a 'poor draft year' overall. Instead, we see picks from these other nations rising up to fill the gap.

To put in simpler terms: USA, Finland, and Sweden have all been increasing their top end youth talent percentage of their overall youth hockey numbers. We have not been. We continue to rely on having much more youth talent overall and are hoping that this continues to produce enough elite talent to keep us ahead of the pack. Personally, I like seeing talent from other countries anyways, but as a Canadian fan I think that once the Crosby era of the national team falls off, we won't be nearly as dominant for this reason. Our defence and goaltending in particular doesn't look nearly as strong as it currently is relative to the rest of the world.

Second, picking on Laine and Pulju as examples for how Finnish draft improvement is overrated is amusing at best to me. For every Pulju, you can also find Canadians like Nolan Patrick, Ryan Strome, Sam Bennett, Griffin Reinhart, Erik Gudbranson, Luke Schenn, Cam Barker, and of course most famously, Alexandre Daigle. One bust does not evaluate a country's overall development program. Especially when he's a project thrown into the meat-grinder of development failure known as the Edmonton Oilers. Laine, for all his warts, has put up 3 straight 30 goal seasons. Even if he levels into a lazy 30 goal scorer who sucks at everything else, that's hardly a bad draft pick. Alex Barkov is looking like the heir to Bergeron right now, Kakko just challenged for first overall, Mikko Rantanen has developed into a better offensive player (overall player?) than Landeskog, and Sebastian Aho is looking like a legit first line centre. Miro Heiskanen has turned into a youth star for the Dallas Stars already. This current crop of young Finnish players is far, far better than anything they've had in the NHL as far as I can remember.

Third, bias in NHL drafting and scouting OF COURSE exists. I would never argue otherwise. I just don't see any bias against Canadians. Rather, I see bias of chasing the last-big-thing trend in the NHL, as it's a copycat league. You seem to be asserting that if a team started drafting purely Canadian they'd do better than by the current mix of Canadians and Europeans. I don't see any such trend for Canadians to be ignored for other countries, not yet anyways. I think the quality of NHL players these countries are producing is a testament to that. If we start seeing more Canadians coming out of the late rounds of the draft and turning into legit NHLers, I think that is probably the best test that Canadians are being overlooked. In short, I don't see any NHL bias against Canadians. I just see Canada being disappointingly complacent with regards to player development as we've been on top for so long. I think it will take nothing short of a total disaster, either at the World Juniors level (i.e. 5 straight non-medal years) or at the draft (no Canadians in the top 10 multiple years in the row) before anything serious is done about it.

With all due respect, and because I appreciate your posting, presence here, and how you interact, please don't take this the wrong way.

The first part of your post to me reads as circular reasoning. That Canadian talent is decreasing as evidenced by NHL picks. I see nothing else here in the post that are you using to support a claim any of the bolded. This is your opinion, for which you offer no citation, and substantiation.

Next, I think it is errant to suggest that Canada which still produces lots of the best players, the McDavids, Mackinnons, is somehow in profound stagnation. I think the evidence isn't in yet to conclude that, and I think its fair to state that. I remember two past instances in which people collectively bemoaned the state of Canadian hockey and Canada then twice rails off 5 Juniors wins in a row subsequent to criticism. No other country does that, or is capable of that.

Lastly, I'm not picking on some Finns. I'm responding in that commentary to your citation in page 1 of this thread that "Finland has emerged into a hockey superpower" The article, that you cited gives this as primary evidence of Finnish renewal;
"Finland saw three of its young players — Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujärvi, and Olli Juolevi selected in the top five of the 2016 NHL Entry Draft"

So my simple response to that is that Pulju when last seen was a complete bust, Laine Struggled immensely for the last 4months of the season to find any form to the point of distraction on the team about whats wrong with him. Juolevi results are as yet unknown.

Of course one or two busts doesn't completely illustrate a Countries relative success in what they are producing. That's the point.

But the very pro Finnish article concluded that those top picks in the top 5 meant something significant about Finnish ranking in hockey. I respond by saying that those picks that year could very well be indication of what I' stating, that there is pro Euro bias going on. Remains to be seen whether those players are worthy of their being top 5 picks. The article isn't very objective imo. The conclusion there is evident. That Finland is a hockey super power. Unfortunately the article does not substantiate its title. Rather its bait and switch.

btw the saddest read in that article is this;

"The Finnish stars that didn't have a full command of the English language? They weren't ashamed of that. Not at all. They had an aura that said 'I speak Finnish and if the reporter doesn't it’s their problem.' Case in point is the interview with Jesse Puljujärvi when he asked teammates to help with the translation to English. He wasn't bothered, his teammate wasn't bothered, they thought it was fun!"

Which is textbook example for 'that quote didn't age very well"

Yes its foolish for Finnish players to not speak English and expect to play in todays system based NHL in which comprehension of coaches and team mates is an obvious prerequisite.
 
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Fixed to Ruin

Come wit it now!
Feb 28, 2007
23,494
24,999
Grande Prairie, AB
I appreciate the effort, and thank you for making it, but I don't completely follow the point. For decades Euro Juniors have been coming to Canada to play in say Juniors here because it helps them elevate their game here, and through playing in quality leagues against strong competition. In Canada and US there are more good leagues. I don't subscribe that the talent in those leauges is that diluted compared to Euro leagues, there are more players feeding those systems as Canadian and US numbers of players is much much higher.

More leagues exist partly because of more talent (and money that can be earned from selling tickets to watch talent) Whether it be hockey, basketball, football. More leagues, more teams, is evidence of more exceptional players being available to feed those teams and leagues.

Not many elite euro players come over to North America.

It's usually the less talented players that come over. Go look at the europeans drafted in the first round. Not many come from the CHL.
 

Aerrol

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Sep 18, 2014
6,555
3,208
With all due respect, and because I appreciate your posting, presence here, and how you interact, please don't take this the wrong way.

The first part of your post to me reads as circular reasoning. That Canadian talent is decreasing as evidenced by NHL picks. I see nothing else here in the post that are you using to support a claim any of the bolded. This is your opinion, for which you offer no citation, and substantiation.

Next, I think it is errant to suggest that Canada which still produces lots of the best players, the McDavids, Mackinnons, is somehow in profound stagnation. I think the evidence isn't in yet to conclude that, and I think its fair to state that. I remember two past instances in which people collectively bemoaned the state of Canadian hockey and Canada then twice rails off 5 Juniors wins in a row subsequent to criticism. No other country does that, or is capable of that.

Lastly, I'm not picking on some Finns. I'm responding in that commentary to your citation in page 1 of this thread that "Finland has emerged into a hockey superpower" The article, that you cited gives this as primary evidence of Finnish renewal;
"Finland saw three of its young players — Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujärvi, and Olli Juolevi selected in the top five of the 2016 NHL Entry Draft"

So my simple response to that is that Pulju when last seen was a complete bust, Laine Struggled immensely for the last 4months of the season to find any form to the point of distraction on the team about whats wrong with him. Juolevi results are as yet unknown.

Of course one or two busts doesn't completely illustrate a Countries relative success in what they are producing. That's the point.

But the very pro Finnish article concluded that those top picks in the top 5 meant something significant about Finnish ranking in hockey. I respond by saying that those picks that year could very well be indication of what I' stating, that there is pro Euro bias going on. Remains to be seen whether those players are worthy of their being top 5 picks. The article isn't very objective imo. The conclusion there is evident. That Finland is a hockey super power. Unfortunately the article does not substantiate its title. Rather its bait and switch.

btw the saddest read in that article is this;

"The Finnish stars that didn't have a full command of the English language? They weren't ashamed of that. Not at all. They had an aura that said 'I speak Finnish and if the reporter doesn't it’s their problem.' Case in point is the interview with Jesse Puljujärvi when he asked teammates to help with the translation to English. He wasn't bothered, his teammate wasn't bothered, they thought it was fun!"

Which is textbook example for 'that quote didn't age very well"

Yes its foolish for Finnish players to not speak English and expect to play in todays system based NHL in which comprehension of coaches and team mates is an obvious prerequisite.

Never responded to this, sorry.

First, re: Canadian Talent is decreasing. I never said that, I said it's not increasing as fast as other nations, and the evidence is World Juniors performance in addition to NHL picks. I don't think that's circular reasoning, it's correlation rather than solid causation - which I absolutely agree isn't rock-solid.

Agree about the previous predictions about the death of Canadian talent - I had the same thought when I first started to consider that we were falling behind in development. However, consider that, in the history of the World Juniors Tournament, the last time Canada failed to medal more than once in a decade was the 1980s. I think that's a pretty significant fall-back from the dominance of the 90s and 2000s. We have now failed to medal 4 times since 2010, almost 50% of the years this decade. That seems like pretty strong evidence to me.

Regarding the article - it was shared to discuss what the Finnish development program is doing, specifically, that Canada is failing to in terms of shepherding elite player development. I don't agree with the conclusions about the specific year as yes, you really don't see any trends other than looking over a larger sample size. To that end - I think Finland winning 3 Golds at the World Jrs this decade vs none in the 2000s and 1 in the 90s is pretty substantial improvement, as is the emergence of Finnish talent in the NHL like never before. As I've said, as far as I know, Finland has never produced this many top-end NHL level talent before. In terms of relatively solid bets to be NHL players/active NHL players born before in or before 1992 (age 27 and under), you have: Barkov, Mikael Granlund, Teravainen, Rantanen, Aho, Ristolainen, Laine, Donskoi, Maata, Kapanen, Kotkaniemi, Heiskanen, Jokiharju, Juuse Saros, Juuso Valimaki, and Tolvanen (and I'm sure I'm missing some others). I think it's pretty clear that Finland has really turned around their youth development program despite a much smaller population.
 

Tobias Kahun

Registered User
Oct 3, 2017
41,649
50,493
More combine bias, my lord, this stuff is laughable.

10 NHL Draft Combine Takeaways: Jack Hughes is a true pro - Sportsnet.ca

Sieder wins the award for the most gregarious, outspoken, because apparently, to NHL execs, extroversion is essential..despite some of the greatest Athletes in the world being, um, introverts.

"Broberg was immaculately dressed, carried himself head held high and had an impressive handshake grip. While those things may seem mundane, first impressions are a thing, and he made an unforgettable first impression. "

Seriously, people assess handshake as if it means anything in 2019? "Immaculately dressed" head held high?

These are comments a mother would make in 1942..

I know its Burke but this is typical of the kind of blowhards that the hockey world seemingly listens to.
Burke cant even do a tie up, how is he judging on if someone is well dressed.
 

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