Lol yaaa thought that ahl comment was silly, so I looked up an article to help me investigate, was pleased with results. Opening paragraphs of the first article I clicked on:
"The American Hockey League (AHL) is the top hockey league in the United States behind the NHL. It exists to prepare players for entry into the NHL, and over the years, many AHL alumni have gone on to successful NHL careers.
In fact, on opening night of the 2011-12 NHL season, over 600 former AHL players were on big-league rosters. These players accounted for around 83 percent of the league's players."
Don't mistake the fact that its just generally unlikely any player becomes a star for a correlation between that fact and the AHL. Players grow different ways, and a lot of big name stars are nhl ready at 18, but discounting players who aren't and assuming they'll never have the same type of impact is foolish. Concensous around here seems to be that some of edmontons "talent" could have used some professional seasoning before playing consistent nhl hockey. They must have heard if a player gets sent to the ahl in his first season(s) he loses the ability to become a star.
I know how people feel about bleacher report's stupid page by page organization, but here's the link
http://m.bleacherreport.com/articles...-hockey-league