Top 20 Leagues?

[Eye of Ra]

What would your top 20 Leagues be? Not including juniors, college, second leagues (ahl etc).

IMO:

1. NHL
2. KHL
3. NLA
4. Liiga
5. SHL
6. DEL
7. Czech EL
8. Ebel
9. EIHL
10. Metal Ligaen
11. Get-ligaen
12. Alps Hockey League
13. Tipsport Liga
14. Polska Hokej Liga
15. Ligue Magnus
16. Belarusian Extraleague A
17. Kazakhstan League
18. Erste Liga
19. Asia League Ice Hockey
20. BeNe League

Click to read more...

 

[kudla]

I can assure you that Tipsport Liga is not worse than EIHL, Metal Ligaen, Get-ligaen and Alps Hockey League lol

 

[Milansdad]

Hahaha. Tipsport liga weaker than those 3? Good one. Epecially now that Bratislava is back. I would place it at least on EBEL's level. And I am not even Slovakian.

Also, Poland's league that much over the Hungarian one? That is funny.

 

[Namejs]

Why would you not include 2nd or 3rd divisions?

NHL
KHL
SHL
AHL
NLA
Liiga
Czech Extraliga
DEL
Allsvenskan
ECHL
VHL
NCAA
EBEL
NLB
Slovakian Extraliga
DEL2
EIHL
France
Get-Ligaen
Mestis

Would be my top 20.

Top 30 continued and now turning more semi-pro with each league:
Belarus
Metal Ligaen
Czech2
Kazakhstan
Slovakia2
USports
Division 1
Latvia
AlpsHL
Somewhere around this point the best major junior leagues are of comparable strength
Poland
Erste Liga
France2
And now things are turning way amateur

 

[Lambo]

What would your top 20 Leagues be? Not including juniors, college, second leagues (ahl etc).

IMO:

1. NHL
2. KHL
3. NLA
4. Liiga
5. SHL
6. DEL
7. Czech EL
8. Ebel
9. EIHL
10. Metal Ligaen
11. Get-ligaen
12. Alps Hockey League
13. Tipsport Liga
14. Polska Hokej Liga
15. Ligue Magnus
16. Belarusian Extraleague A
17. Kazakhstan League
18. Erste Liga
19. Asia League Ice Hockey
20. BeNe League

Liiga>SHL? You re surprising me.

 

[Lambo]

Top 20? Difficult! Top 10 is easier for me .

1.NHL
2.KHL
3.SHL
4.Liiga
5. NLA
6.Extraliga(CZE)
7.DEL
8.EBEL
9.Extraliga(SVK)
10.Get Ligaen
11.Belarussian League
12.Metal Ligaen
13.Lique Magnus
14.EIHL
15.Alps Hockey League
16.OHL(Latvia)
17.Kazakhstan Hockey Championship
18.Polska Hockej Liga
19.Erste Liga
20.UHL(UKR)

 

[BlizzardSloth]

1. NHL
2. KHL (At least their top teams)
3. SHL
4. NLA
5. Liiga
6. Extraliga (CZE)
7. DEL
8. EBEL
9. Extraliga (SVK)
10. EIHL
11. Extraleague (BLR)
12. GET Ligaen
13. Ligue Magnus
14. Metal Ligaen
15. Alps Hockey League

3-5 I think are really close. Also I don't think the gap to the KHL is that big from those leagues.

 

[Namejs]

The Alps hokey league sucks, guys.

It's way overrated by every poster here. Players not making it in Czech2, being mediocre SuperElit junior guys, SPHL players, Swedish 3rd division guys are racking up more than a point per game there.

The league is pure shite. Latvian semi-pros have fared better there than in the Latvian league.

 

[kabidjan18]

NHL
KHL
SHL
AHL
NLA
Liiga
Czech Extraliga
DEL
Allsvenskan
EBEL
ECHL
VHL
NCAA
BLR Extraleague
NLB
DEL2
EIHL
Ligue Magnus
Get-Ligaen
Metal-Ligaen

Namejs is significantly overstating how bad the Alps League is, but it's not a top 20 league.

 

[Namejs]

NHL
KHL
SHL
AHL
NLA
Liiga
Czech Extraliga
DEL
Allsvenskan
EBEL
ECHL
VHL
NCAA
BLR Extraleague
NLB
DEL2
EIHL
Ligue Magnus
Get-Ligaen
Metal-Ligaen

Namejs is significantly overstating how bad the Alps League is, but it's not a top 20 league.

I mean no disrespect, but it's a really bad league.

The Latvian league sucks too. Your only chance there if you're a younger player is to be scouted by Dinamo Riga and a few players every year do get some tryouts, but that's about it.

It's not good for player development unless you're a junior player, preferrably U18. After that you have to move on, if you want to ever be a pro player.

There are plenty of Swedes in AlpsHL and almost all of them played in Sweden3 before, and were slightly less productive back at home.

Note that this has nothing to do with the quality of facilities or financial incentives, salary or the like. I'm only talking about skill here.

 

[Garl]

What would your top 20 Leagues be? Not including juniors, college, second leagues (ahl etc).

IMO:

1. NHL
2. KHL
3. NLA
4. Liiga
5. SHL
6. DEL
7. Czech EL
8. Ebel
9. EIHL
10. Metal Ligaen
11. Get-ligaen
12. Alps Hockey League
13. Tipsport Liga
14. Polska Hokej Liga
15. Ligue Magnus
16. Belarusian Extraleague A
17. Kazakhstan League
18. Erste Liga
19. Asia League Ice Hockey
20. BeNe League

Based on what kind of mushrooms is SHL lower than Liiga?

 

[Garl]

Overall
1.NHL-this one is obvious
2.KHL-overrated league, but a little bit ahead of other euroleagues. Some russians make it sound as if KHL is closer to NHL than to SHL or NLA but it is rubbish. League is seriously hindered by the import limit and unhealthy ambitions of Sechin and Rotenbergs clan.
3.SHL-Not as good as before, but still top in Europe
4.NLA-Limited by quality of swiss players
5.AHL-pretty close to KHL/SHL/NLA actually
6.Liiga-Sorry finns
7.DEL-Improving, very showing that guys like J.Berglund, White, Lalonde, Macek, Ellis are now doing quite well in KHL
8.Czech Extraliga-Still a good tournament
9.EBEL
10.Allsevnskan

 

[kabidjan18]

I mean no disrespect, but it's a really bad league.

The Latvian league sucks too. Your only chance there if you're a younger player is to be scouted by Dinamo Riga and a few players every year do get some tryouts, but that's about it.

It's not good for player development unless you're a junior player, preferrably U18. After that you have to move on, if you want to ever be a pro player.

There are plenty of Swedes in AlpsHL and almost all of them played in Sweden3 before, and were slightly less productive back at home.

Note that this has nothing to do with the quality of facilities or financial incentives, salary or the like. I'm only talking about skill here.

When we're talking about 20, 21 year olds like Soder or Tjernstrom or Neubauer, there are a lot of things to consider. First of all, they're improving every year individually. The amount a player changes from 20-22 is tremendous. Saying "that kid played junior last year", of course he did because he was a junior. Now he's playing senior. And he's growing as players do when they move from junior to senior. Secondly, points often have much more to do with usage than performance. Especially on farmteams (so you can tell this if it's Red Bull Juniors, or Silver Capitals, or KAC 2, Steel Wings Linz), they pay very poorly for imports and play them 25 minutes a game and in every extra man opportunity. So they naturally score quite a bit, but that hardly reflects skill as it does the dearth of skill surrounding them. And then there are guys like Lundstrom who last played in Sweden some 8 years ago when he was just finished being a junior. Comparing him then and now doesn't even make sense. And there are players who went in between the Allsvenskan league where they weren't particularly good and Division 1 where they were relatively excellent and you can certainly call them "Division 1 guys", but that's leaving out part of the picture. They really are whatever you wish to call them, given the needs of the situation. Finally, there are always guys who do abnormally well in different circumstances, and this could be due to a number of reasons. But you can play this game with any league. Why is Mikko Lehtonen doing so much better in the KHL than in the SHL or Liiga? At the end of the day, it's just not something to extrapolate from, there just always will be anomalies. Finally, Division 1 is not even a particularly bad league. It's where most of the top scoring SuperElit kids go. The SuperElit is roughly the level of the NAHL, so given the age progression, Division 1 teams are very comparable to a lot of NCAA teams (in case this background information is needed, the NAHL is a huge NCAA feeder), namely those teams which do not draw top recruits.

Italy's performance is probably what highlighted the AlpsHL and why it's being included on these lists. Many top Italian players play in the Alps league. Many Slovenian national team players do as well. The AlpsHL is Italy and Slovenia's top league, so a lot of their systems run through that league. Austria is strongly diluting it with incessant farmteams and broke clubs who basically are just older farmteams. Steel Wings Linz, which is essentially an EBYSL club, lost every game by like 8 goals this season and Silver Caps were hardly better. I have no reason to be offended as such. It is worth noting. Not a single Austrian team made the playoffs out of the regular season. But if you say the Slovenian and Italian clubs are poor because look the Austrians are artificially inflating everyone else's scoring totals, I don't quite think that's fair to them.

 

[SoundAndFury]

I mean Namejs ranked NCAA, where most players don't become pro at all, over EBEL where an average import is former AHLer so I guess we all have ideas of our own.

 

[Namejs]

When we're talking about 20, 21 year olds like Soder or Tjernstrom or Neubauer, there are a lot of things to consider. First of all, they're improving every year individually. The amount a player changes from 20-22 is tremendous. Saying "that kid played junior last year", of course he did because he was a junior. Now he's playing senior. And he's growing as players do when they move from junior to senior. Secondly, points often have much more to do with usage than performance. Especially on farmteams (so you can tell this if it's Red Bull Juniors, or Silver Capitals, or KAC 2, Steel Wings Linz), they pay very poorly for imports and play them 25 minutes a game and in every extra man opportunity. So they naturally score quite a bit, but that hardly reflects skill as it does the dearth of skill surrounding them. And then there are guys like Lundstrom who last played in Sweden some 8 years ago when he was just finished being a junior. Comparing him then and now doesn't even make sense. And there are players who went in between the Allsvenskan league where they weren't particularly good and Division 1 where they were relatively excellent and you can certainly call them "Division 1 guys", but that's leaving out part of the picture. They really are whatever you wish to call them, given the needs of the situation. Finally, there are always guys who do abnormally well in different circumstances, and this could be due to a number of reasons. But you can play this game with any league. Why is Mikko Lehtonen doing so much better in the KHL than in the SHL or Liiga? At the end of the day, it's just not something to extrapolate from, there just always will be anomalies. Finally, Division 1 is not even a particularly bad league. It's where most of the top scoring SuperElit kids go. The SuperElit is roughly the level of the NAHL, so given the age progression, Division 1 teams are very comparable to a lot of NCAA teams (in case this background information is needed, the NAHL is a huge NCAA feeder), namely those teams which do not draw top recruits.

Italy's performance is probably what highlighted the AlpsHL and why it's being included on these lists. Many top Italian players play in the Alps league. Many Slovenian national team players do as well. The AlpsHL is Italy and Slovenia's top league, so a lot of their systems run through that league. Austria is strongly diluting it with incessant farmteams and broke clubs who basically are just older farmteams. Steel Wings Linz, which is essentially an EBYSL club, lost every game by like 8 goals this season and Silver Caps were hardly better. I have no reason to be offended as such. It is worth noting. Not a single Austrian team made the playoffs out of the regular season. But if you say the Slovenian and Italian clubs are poor because look the Austrians are artificially inflating everyone else's scoring totals, I don't quite think that's fair to them.

I browsed through all the top 100 Swedes over a span of a few seasons. I wasn't cherry picking to prove a point. In fact, even before looking through the data, I considered AlpsHL to be of somewhat higher quality than it is.

We can also look at some of the leading teams or middling ones like Fassa. Look at Chiodo, Mizzi. The guy played in OJHL a year ago. Chiodo was less productive in OHL than in AlpsHL. We can go on and compare every single import player of all the teams up until the leading teams.

Your point about the top tier teams being better is valid, but that would apply to virtually every other league as well.

The average level is bad. Major junior level bad. It's good for junior players, but it provides no opportunity for growth for older players. The only exception is to showcase yourself with 2 ppg and move on to EBEL, DEL2 or some other better league.

Which leagues are worse than AlpsHL? In my list it is 29th, I think. Which ones ranked higher are worse in terms of average skill level?

 

[Namejs]

I mean Namejs ranked NCAA, where most players don't become pro at all, over EBEL where an average import is former AHLer so I guess we all have ideas of our own.

Most NCAA players finish their education and can earn way more money in other fields than hockey. Going abroad to play in some backwater league for 1000€ a month takes a lot of dedication.

So that parameter of never becoming pros is not really valid here.

As for NCAA and EBEL, there are quite a few Americans based in EBEL, so you can go on and compare their point production directly without any AHL intermediary. EBEL and NCAA are quite similar. Just look it up.

 

[SoundAndFury]

Most NCAA players finish their education and can earn way more money in other fields than hockey. Going abroad to play in some backwater league for 1000€ a month takes a lot of dedication.

So that parameter of never becoming pros is not really valid here.

While it's certainly true to some it also doesn't mean all of them could make 1000e a month playing hockey.

How about I provide some guys based in Oberliga or Erste Liga?

Preston Shupe at eliteprospects.com
Kyle Gibbons at eliteprospects.com
Carl Hudson at eliteprospects.com
Scott Jacklin at eliteprospects.com
Jake Bolton at eliteprospects.com
Sean McGovern at eliteprospects.com

Not to mention teams like this: Univ. of Alaska-Anchorage at eliteprospects.com

Point is, the cream always gets to the top, naturally. But NCAA has 60 teams. Not all of them are good. Most of them have a core of 8-10 good players and ones below that, if they want to try playing pro, end up in French 2nd division, not EBEL. The last guy, Mr. Sean McGovern, is your average player (plus player 3rd and 4th year, not garbage) from and average college trying to play pro hockey.

Most of those other guys, as you can see, are fair bit above average in the NCAA.

Also, direct comparison, come on... You understand even most NHL players scored below 1PPG in the NCAA, right? Someone like Wheeler has better PPG in the NHL than NCAA.

 

[Eye of Ra]

Liiga>SHL? You re surprising me.

well look at eht, finland is better almost every year than sweden.

 

[Namejs]

While it's certainly true to some it also doesn't mean all of them could make 1000e a month playing hockey.

How about I provide some guys based in Oberliga or Erste Liga?

Preston Shupe at eliteprospects.com
Kyle Gibbons at eliteprospects.com
Carl Hudson at eliteprospects.com
Scott Jacklin at eliteprospects.com
Jake Bolton at eliteprospects.com
Sean McGovern at eliteprospects.com

Not to mention teams like this: Univ. of Alaska-Anchorage at eliteprospects.com

Point is, the cream always gets to the top, naturally. But NCAA has 60 teams. Not all of them are good. Most of them have a core of 8-10 good players and ones below that, if they want to try playing pro, end up in French 2nd division, not EBEL. The last guy, Mr. Sean McGovern, is your average player (plus player 3rd and 4th year, not garbage) from and average college trying to play pro hockey.

Most of those other guys, as you can see, are fair bit above average in the NCAA.

Also, direct comparison, come on... You understand even most NHL players scored below 1PPG in the NCAA, right? Someone like Wheeler has better PPG in the NHL than NCAA.

Surely, not all of them could play even minor pro hockey, but that wasn't my point was it?

The point is that the average level of NCAA I is very similar to EBEL. By mentioning the fact that there are plenty of ex-AHLers playing there, you somehow made a leap towards equating EBEL with AHL.

Well, I did the research. Out of 130 imports in EBEL this season, exactly a half of them have played in the AHL with their average production rate being 0.338.

So the cream of the crop of EBEL have played in AHL and have been quite mediocre there on average.

0.338 PPG in the AHL equals to about 0.15 PPG in terms of NHLe or NHL point equivalency.

We're talking about 65 leading players out of about 312. Or 21% of all EBEL players to round it up.

So let's take the top 21% players of NCAA and let's compare their average production rate and see what is their NHLe. There were 1488 players in NCAA I last season. The NHLe differ quite a bit from one NCAA conference to another, but we'll round them all out by getting 0.3425 NHLe.

To avoid calculating the average production rate of all the players, let's just go straight to the cutoff mark and players ranked outside the top 300 (so outside the top 20%). Their productivity is little above 0.50 PPG, but I will be generous and round it to 0.50.

By using the NHLe conversion rate, what we get is 0.17125 for the players ranked OUTSIDE the top 20%.

The NHLe for all ex-AHL guys in EBEL is 0.15.

In other words, NCAA is a slightly better league.

 

[Namejs]

Obviously, the variation in a 1500 player league is going to be a lot bigger than in a smaller league, but we're talking about the average level here.

The same thing happens when we compare the median player in each league. The average NCAA I collegiate player posts a very similar, but slightly higher NHLe.

 

[Lambo]

well look at eht, finland is better almost every year than sweden.

Interesting view! CHL: SHL > Liiga and EHT: Liiga > SHL

 

[Tomas W]

well look at eht, finland is better almost every year than sweden.

There is finns playing in the SHL that alsoplays in the EHT, so dont use that as a comparison, use CHL which actually IS a club tournament. Btw the Finns just got thier asses wopped in Stockholm..

 

[Lambo]

There is finns playing in the SHL that alsoplays in the EHT, so dont use that as a comparison, use CHL which actually IS a club tournament. Btw the Finns just got thier asses wopped in Stockholm..

But the top finns(Europe) are playing in KHL, NLA and Liiga(particular top talents). And remember the finns won the WC with 14 Liiga players.

 

[SoundAndFury]

In other words, NCAA is a slightly better league.

Yes, just disregard completely than players come to the EBEL in their prime as opposed to them likely playing their 1st pro seasons in AHL or progression in NCAA. Also, NHLe is a very strong stat. Tell it to 50% of Hobey Baker winners who never make it to the NHL. Like between 2003 an 2013 none of those guys became and impact player in the NHL.

Whatever. If you want to believe an average NCAA team would beat an average EBEL team, go ahead. Good luck.

 

[Namejs]

Yes, just disregard completely than players come to the EBEL in their prime as opposed to them likely playing their 1st pro seasons in AHL or progression in NCAA. Also, NHLe is a very strong stat. Tell it to 50% of Hobey Baker winners who never make it to the NHL. Like between 2003 an 2013 none of those guys became and impact player in the NHL.

Whatever. If you want to believe an average NCAA team would beat an average EBEL team, go ahead. Good luck.

The prime for a hockey player is at the ripe age of 23. EBEL guys are often in their late 20s or early 30s.

And NHLe has nothing to do with individual players or any individual award winners. It's a compounding stat that makes it possible to work with a large amount of data and averages. It doesn't mean in any way that a specific player with a higher NHLe is definitely better than some other guy with a lower NHLe.

It's just some fact-based evidence. It's not a perfect stat, but it does give you an idea. And this is not a hill that I'm willing to die on, it merely shows that these are comparable leagues in terms of skill.

There is nothing that would indicate that EBEL is markedly better than NCAA.