Like its NFL, MLB and NBA counterparts, the NHL draft is an inexact science, and is often times a relative shot in the dark. Its past is littered with No. 1 picks that were supposed to be "the next one," that turned out to be complete and utter failures. Take, for example, 1993 No. 1 overall pick Alexandre Daigle, who, upon being selected by the Ottawa Senators with the top pick was quoted as saying: "I'm glad I got drafted first, because no one remembers number two."The player selected with the No. 2 pick that year? Defenseman Chris Pronger. Like I said, it's an inexact science.
One of the debates that usually gets brought up this time of year is whether players out of the NCAA or the Canadian Major Junior programs turn out to be the best pros. After the jump, some data on the subject as well as some comments and opinions from a couple of NHL scouting directors.
To begin, I went back over every draft between 1990 and 2001 and compared the success rates of players taken out of the NCAA, OHL, WHL and the QMJHL and looked at the following:
1) How many players were selected out of each league?
2) How many players eventually played at least one game in the NHL?
3) How many players played 246 games in the NHL, the equivalent of three full seasons?
The results:
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Obviously, not much of a difference, though, as a group the NCAA players had not only the lowest percentage of actually making NHL, but of also lasting at least three full seasons. Bottom line, however, is that over half of the picks in each individual group didn't even make the NHL, while over 80 percent didn't play three seasons in the league.
So, is there a difference on draft day? Depends on who you ask.
"No," said Calgary Flames director of scouting Tod Button with a laugh. "How's that for a simple answer? There's good players in both leagues, and where you choose to hone your craft it doesn't really matter."
"It's like going to school," Button continued. "If you want to be a doctor, there's schools that are better and programs that are better than others, but if you're going to be a top doctor you're going to be a top doctor. With hockey players it's the same thing. You have some really well run junior programs, there's some middle of the road ones, there's some poor ones, and the same with colleges. The top players are going to be the top players so I don't think it really matters where they come from."
Nashville Predators chief amateur scout, Jeff Kealty, acknowledged that there are some differences between the leagues, while each has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I always believed players coming out of the NCAA had an advantage and would be more "NHL ready" based on the fact they're playing against better competition -- 20- and 21-year-old players as opposed to other 17- and 18 year-old players.
"From a strength and physical maturity standpoint, yes, the college players can be physically stronger," said Kealty. "They're older and they don't play as many games, so they have more time to workout and develop physically."
"But, on the flip side, the junior kids are playing more games, there's more travel, there's a longer training camp and preseason, the playoffs are different and each round is seven games. So there's benefits to both sides of it. The college kids can be a little bit older coming out, but there's certainly elements on both sides of the ledger that can benefit players and prepare them in different ways."
Since the 2005 draft, there has been a sharp decline in the number of players selected out of the NCAA. After the 2004 draft saw 28 players get selected, there were only 13 taken in '05, 18 in '06, and less than 10 in each of the past two drafts. Most mock drafts for this year have only one NCAA player going in the first round -- University of Minnesota forward Jordan Schroeder. Why the sudden drop? Button explained that it's all because of the new CBA and the fact that college players no longer have to opt into the NHL draft.
"I think what's happened now with the college, when you were going to college before you had to opt into the NHL draft, and usually kids were drafted a year later," said Button. "Now there's no opting rule, you can be drafted before you go to college. There's very, very few kids that are drafted now out of college because of the rules."
"In that regard they're all the same birth year and there's not too many 18-year-old kids, and that's the draft year, their first year of eligibility, the year they turn 18, so there's not too many 18-year-old kids playing college hockey anymore. That's just the new CBA and the change in the rule."
He continued: "When I first started scouting amateur players back in 2000, there were way more college kids, and most college kids always had to wait a year past their original draft year, so the junior kids were getting drafted a year earlier than the college kids because of the NCAA rules. Now you don't have that anymore. So if you took a kid that's going to be drafted in the first round this year, Jordan Schroeder, he's born in 1990 with the other kids. Most of the kids that go to college now are getting drafted out of US junior leagues, or US high schools or prep schools."
So, hypothetically, a team is making a pick and it has two players with an identical grade at the top of its draft board; one player plays for Brampton of the OHL, and the other is from Notre Dame, an NCAA player. Does the level of competition weigh into the decision of which player gets picked?
"We don't factor that into who we take," said Kealty. "We'll split the hairs on the player, but we won't let where the player plays be the determining factor. When we discuss a player we'll talk about where they're playing, what program they're in, and the pros and cons of it. At the end of the day, as an organization, we've always gone by the thought that a hockey player is a hockey player no matter where he plays, and that if he has the skills, the determination and the character, he's going to eventually find his way and succeed."
