Here's the quote directly from the study:
...
So, the 62.5% refers to guy that are not on the level of Hossa or Ohlund. That means that 37.5% are. That can't be right.
I dunno... that's 233 players? 233 star-quality European NHLers on NHL teams or in NHL systems between 2000 and 2006... that's basically 7-8 per NHL team. It sounds too high, but I guess you'd have to see the official list of grades to be sure. Right now, my team could reel off 7 or 8 names this season: Koivu, Markov, Kovalev, Samsonov, Huet, Aebischer, Bonk, Niinimaa... but you'd really have to wonder how the last 5 on that list were rated that highly. It gets kind of confusing because past Page 1, they subsequently break down the 621 players and say that only 117 were graded 3+ and above, which is certainly a much easier number to immediately imagine.
Generally speaking, I don't think it would be productive to nitpick one or two rankings, as J17vs.P proves above. I've done draft studies using exactly this same subjective 1-5 scaling myself, and you really have to give up on the nitpicking as long as the overall trends can be supported. And unless we see the full data on that, we'll never really know, but...
This study is highly questionable. They make conclusions that NHL teams don't need to bring over so many players, because a lot of them don't stick. ...
I think there's a legitimate question here about a) the motive, and b) the conclusions of this study. (I love the idea of the study regardless of those factors, however!)
Motive:
What is the driving purpose behind the study? Is it premised on wanting to keep Europeans at home longer and trying to find statistical support for that argument? Or is it premised on trying to find the optimal methods of developing hockey players, period? (Or both, or neither, or also on other factors?). Or is it a "truly neutral" scientific study, based only on a desire to find out as much about the situation as possible, independent from what the results show? It's a little bit hard to discern which is the case, because the presentation at times suggests a preconceived pro-European motive, while it may nevertheless be that the author had no such motive, and the data (of which we only see summaries) truly leads to the inescapable conclusions that the report arrives at.
Conclusions:
Generally speaking, I think most NHL fans would support the idea of reducing the split from 70/30 to 80/20. And it definitely looks like the data would conclusively support the arguments against not signing/drafting as many Europeans and/or allowing them to develop at home as opposed to playing in the minors or the CHL. But I think it needs to be presented better, with better graphics, if you really wanted to use it as a sales pitch to NHL GMs and their staffs. I think there would be an increasingly sympathetic support base for these ideas in NHL circles, if you could tip some of them over the old school edge long enough for it to take hold. It looks like Detroit and Dallas, for example, would be ready to lead a progressive charge there with regards to letting European countries retain and develop their players longer at home.
And with the new 2-year retention rights on European draftees, I think it does become imperative to actively try to kickstart such a progression throughout the NHL as much as possible, because the danger of teams taking the easy way out and just signing and bringing their European draftees over to the minors here certainly exists. There's quite a balancing act to consider, particularly in the new CBA era when we don't yet know all the ramifications of the interrelated effects of the 2-year rights, the 7 round draft, the quota limitations and payments in the transfer agreement, the potential for new trends arising in terms of cap-conscious teams "filling out rosters" with veteran Europeans willing to come over as free agents, etc.
And while the author eventually tries to make a point about the value of countries preserving their own styles with regards to the interest level of international tournaments... I think that kind of goes against the grain of where this issue should be going. Instead, I'd say hockey styles are converging globally moreso than ever before... and that it would therefore be easier than ever before to take advantage of that by encouraging international partnerships between the NHL and European teams.
There's a lot of information and thought, both subjective and objective, that has gone into this report. And whether or not it initially arose with ulterior motives, I think it could be readily honed into a convincing argument for making better use of European leagues for the development of NHL players, while also being mutually beneficial to the European leagues in terms of player retention. The idea has a lot going for it. Work in some financial angles, weed out a few mixed messages, add better graphics, and I'd be sold on it as a GM.