Barclay Donaldson
Registered User
Um, yes you do. That's pretty much the definition of how you judge the best team in the NHL.
I think what you meant to suggest is that the strength of an entire league should not be judged based on the performance of one of its teams in a short tournament.
If you want to judge the quality of a development league, draft picks is not an ideal metric because it's age-dependent. There are worse measures, mind-you, but one factor that drives the quality of a league is the average age of players in that league.
A better measure is NHLe ... the predicted number of points a player would produce in the NHL for every point they produce in a lower league. The higher the NHLe, the better the league.
A good overview is here:
BEHIND THE NET: Hockey Analysis and Statistics
A more current estimator is here:
NHLe Calculator - Frozen Tools
If you play around with it, basically the KHL is the second-best league in the world. The OHL, WHL, and QMJHL are similar but ranked in that order. The USHL is not even on the radar, likely because so many players leave it when they hit 19 years old, and estimating an NHLe is super-noisy.
NCAA leagues generally have higher NHLe's than the CHL, again because of age ... players are older in the NCAA, thereby making it a tougher league to score in than the CHL.
The USHL has improved, and is a strong league. But I would stop short of declaring it better than the QMJHL.
Saying the Stanley Cup winner is the best team in the NHL sounds nice but is 100% fallacious. The St. Louis Blues were not the best team in the NHL last year. The Ottawa Senators were one goal away from the Stanley Cup Finals. It is erroneous to think that success in the Playoffs is indicative of who is the better team. It's whoever gets hot at the right time, and nothing more. With the number of series that go to Game 7 and the type of play in the playoffs, the game is often down to luck or bounces (from no call on Bozak tripping to Calgary's no goal) rather than skill.
Measuring by draft picks is age dependent, but it is also the most indicative of who is going on to play in the NHL and from where. The vast majority of NHL players are ones that are drafted. As much as they like to point out the Gourde's and Bobrovsky's of the league, they are few and far between.