[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....