Is the NCAA the new fertile ground for NHLers?

[Street Pharmacist]

Saw a neat infographic from collegehockeyinc.com.



http://collegehockeyinc.com/pages/gr...representation

When Feaster drafted Gaudreau, Jankowski, Gillies, etc. I thought he was just focused on the system he, Conroy and Weidbrod likely knew the best. After all, we went from drafting mostly western Canadian kids to mostly Americans.

With numerous stars from college hockey now playing bigger and bigger roles, plus the hype machine from Justin Schultz, has the College program caught up with the CHA in terms of player development? Will the trend continue, and is this the future of player development? If so, that likely means fewer players playing in the NHL or AHL under 20.

Interested in EddyBeers take on this.

[Da_Chief]

Undrafted players is the key. There's more of them then 1st rounders. They get a shot and fade away quickly, there was a reason they went undrafted in the first place. Teams are just looking for free assets and thats the supposed "goldmine" right now.

[moon]

Nope.

Those graphs show that the NCAA players are higher than in past years versus other NCAA players but CHL is still producing more and much better players than the NCAA.

Using last year as an example out of the top 20 eligible scorers for guys who went to college or CHL 15 went to CHL 5 went to college, for defensemen top 10 7-3 top 20 12-8. These arent the be all and end all but shows that the CHL is still producing by far the more elite players.

The NHL awards were split between Euros and CHL guys, the All-Star teams made up mainly of CHL guys (especially the rookie team), draft picks made up of CHL guys.

The NCAA is doing better but still is far behind the CHL in terms of quantity and especially quality of the players that they are producing.

Edit: As for the less 20 year olds in NHL the best college guys normally go to NHL early anyways so likely won't reduce number of those guys in the league. The number of guys able to play in NHL at 20 and don't because of NCAA is miniscule and right now sits at Jack Johnson.

[SuperMatt18]

NCAA is better for guys who are less of a "sure thing".

If a player needs some more coaching, time to be able to workout to work on his physique, and more practice time to hone his craft then the NCAA is the way to go.

If you are a top tier player you are better off going to the CHL, where you will play against a higher quality of competition and will play more of a pro style schedule.

The NCAA is better at "developing" players but the CHL is better at "producing" players if that makes any sense.

[renny]

I would say it might just be a change in mindset of younger players too. It's likely that younger players who are on the cross-roads of deciding whether to pursue hockey as a career or not are deciding to go the college route so they have a backup plan in case hockey doesn't work out.

It's not a bad mindset to have, I know a few guys that made the OHL and WHL, phenomenal rec league players, working dead-end jobs unfortunately.

That's my take on the increased number of NHLers who attended college.

[moon]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

The NCAA is better at "developing" players but the CHL is better at "producing" players if that makes any sense.

I don't think that as a blanket statement is true but this has been dealt with before on this site so no need to bring that argument up again.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by moon

I don't think that as a blanket statement is true but this has been dealt with before on this site so no need to bring that argument up again.

Yeah it is hard to speak in generalities in terms of this. Really it comes down to the individual player when talking about development.

Different teams also play a factor in it as well. If you go to Boston College you are getting some of the best coaching in the world, but doesn't mean that smaller NCAA teams are up to that standard. Same with the CHL there are some teams that you likely would not want to be drafted to as a player if you are looking to develop.

I think the problem with the statement is the term "better", as it is impossible to quantify which system is better.

Maybe the better way of framing it is that the NCAA is more of a developmental system, where the CHL is more of a production system. More projects end up in the NCAA for a variety of reasons (size, skill, strength, etc) whereas the CHL will get the top prospects since they do a good job of immediately preparing you for a step to the NHL due to schedule, travel, etc.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by moon

Nope.

Those graphs show that the NCAA players are higher than in past years versus other NCAA players but CHL is still producing more and much better players than the NCAA.

Using last year as an example out of the top 20 eligible scorers for guys who went to college or CHL 15 went to CHL 5 went to college, for defensemen top 10 7-3 top 20 12-8. These arent the be all and end all but shows that the CHL is still producing by far the more elite players.

The NHL awards were split between Euros and CHL guys, the All-Star teams made up mainly of CHL guys (especially the rookie team), draft picks made up of CHL guys.

The NCAA is doing better but still is far behind the CHL in terms of quantity and especially quality of the players that they are producing.

Edit: As for the less 20 year olds in NHL the best college guys normally go to NHL early anyways so likely won't reduce number of those guys in the league. The number of guys able to play in NHL at 20 and don't because of NCAA is miniscule and right now sits at Jack Johnson.

If you only look at top players right now, I think you miss the big increase in the last few years. Also of note, as people have said, the big name prospects seem to still choose the CHL

[moon]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

If you only look at top players right now, I think you miss the big increase in the last few years. Also of note, as people have said, the big name prospects seem to still choose the CHL

Well the rookies were mainly CHL guys, top 10 picks of the last couple of drafts have been much more CHL guys and many of guys on that list are fairly young so it does take in the increase of the last few years.

[EddyBeers]

There is no doubt that the CHL does a great job of taking great players and ensuring that they are great players in the NHL. Out of the 15 forwards that Moon named, 13 were first rounders or the modern equivalent of a first rounder (Whitney was taken 23rd overall) the other two were second rounders. Out of the 5 NCAA guys, 2 were undrafted, one was a 4th rounder and two were first rounders.

Moon missed out on goalies, which is where the NCAA does a better job than the CHL in my humble opinion. Last year based on SV%, the NHL had the following breakdown of North American goalies who played at least 25 games:

1) Brian Elliott - NCAA
2) Cory Schneider - NCAA
3) Mike Smith - CHL
4) Jonathan Quick - NCAA
5) Jimmy Howard - NCAA
6) Tim Thomas - NCAA
7) Roberto Luongo - CHL
8) Giguere - CHL
9) Theodore - CHL
10) Ryan Miller - NCAA

If I was a goalie dad, regardless of whether my kid was the greatest goalie or not I would tell him to go NCAA. Full time goalie coaches, double or triple the practice time to learn a position that is more technique than anything, NCAA is definitely the way to go for goalies.

That overall percentage will continue to slowly increase I would suspect, probably going up by about half a percentage point each year.

The CHL will always produce Stamkos's (1st overall pick of the Sarnia Sting in the OHL draft) or Sidney Crosby's (First Overall pick in the QMJHL draft) or Jason Spezza's (1st overall pick in the OHL draft), John Tavares's (1st overall pick in the OHL draft) but I am not sure how great of an accomplishment it is to say that you took a great player and he remained great, but that is just my opinion. There are odd exceptions like Jordan Eberle, but for the most part the CHL takes guys who are already great (Nugent Hopkins first overall pick, Hall second overall pick) and gives them a place to play for a couple years.

I will say that if I was the Flames I would undoubtedly take the BPA in the first two rounds of any draft, whether they play CHL, NCAA, men's beer league, whatever. But after that, given the 50 contract rule and the fact that you have to make a decision on a CHL player within 24 months as opposed to 48 months, I would much rather see them take late round picks on NCAA guys rather than have professional contracts tied up with guys like Ryan Howse. Usually by the time the NCAA guys are done their 4 years you have a pretty good idea whether or not you want to sign them. Add to that the fact that the Schultz exception that everyone is worried about is extremely rare (a kid would have to play the year after his draft year in the USHL or Junior A in Canada and then go to college) I think anything 4th round or later should be used on NCAA guys and I definitely would not be taking any CHL goalies with draft picks after the 2nd round. Just my two cents. An example of this would be Coda Gordon, the Flames took him 6th round last year, he is pretty much having the same year offensively this year, slightly down in goal production and slightly higher in terms of assists. The Flames have to make a call on him next year. I would rather see the Flames in that spot in the draft take a Riley Barber or a Hunter Fejees or a Matthew Benning in that spot, given the additional time you get to see them develop or not.

Note - That graph is based on all NHL players, if one was to look at strictly North American players (since the NCAA gets close to zero European players) the numbers are closer to a 62-38 split for North American players, the CHL really juices their numbers with imports like Marian Hossa or Sven Baertschi's....

[Resolute 14]

It seems silly to eliminate European players from the NCAA vs. CHL argument. The fact is, the CHL can bring over and develop European talent, while the NCAA is not a preferred path for such players. Also worth considering is the number of players who start in the NCAA but jump to the CHL when they decide that is the better path to the NHL. Patrick Kane being the poster child. But also guys like T.J. Galliardi.

There's little doubt, however, that the NCAA is a legitimate breeding ground, and much of its growth parallels that of the game south of the border. Most American kids are going to at least start in the NCAA, and the increase in talent coming from the States makes the NCAA more attractive. Unfortunately, it also leads to stupidity like the Big Ten Hockey Conference, which will pretty much destroy some long-standing rivalries when it starts up next year.

[Stay Golden]

I watch a fair amount of Big Ten Hockey and the level of hockey on average JMO is not on the same "over all" level as the CHL.
I'm not saying there isn't pockets of talent in the NCAA but it is definately a more sloppy and less physically taxing style of hockey.
There are some very skilled NCAA players but not to the same amount as in the CHL.