[MrMastodonFarm]

Here's an article The Hockey Writers did on the age gap in drafts.
http://thehockeywriters.com/late-bir...the-nhl-draft/

At first glance, the pick didn’t look so bad. Hamill was coming off of a fantastic season with the WHL’s Evertt Silvertips, where he scored 93 points in 67 games.

The very next pick, 9th overall, went to the San Jose Sharks, who took forward Logan Couture of the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s. Couture was also coming off of a solid junior season, with 78 points in 54 games.

Considering the two prospects came from similar leagues and scored at a similar pace, it would have been safe to assume that they would both have developed into similar players at the NHL level.

The Ravages Of Age
While there are a large, varied list of reasons why a prospect’s development never pans out, many of which that could probably be applied to Hamill specifically, I’m going to illustrate one key difference between the two draft picks that benefited the Sharks but hindered the Bruins: age.

As per NHL draft rules, players that turn 18 years of age by September 15th of that year are eligible for the draft. The flipside of that coin, however, is that players whose birthdays fall after the 15th are ineligible, and have to enter the draft the following year.

Hamill and Couture illustrate this key part of the draft rules. Both players were eligible for that year’s draft, but Hamill (born on September 23rd, 1988) was older than Couture (born in 1989). If Hamill was a little more than a week older he would have been part of the 2006 draft alongside other players born in 1988.

Why is this important? Hamill’s awesome draft-eligible junior year doesn’t look as impressive considering it was his third year in juniors, while Couture’s draft year was only his second. Naturally, a prospect in his third year of juniors is going to be further along in his development, and have an edge over, players in their second years.

Hamill looks less impressive when you look at his 2005-2006 junior season, which would have been his draft season if he was born a little earlier: 59 points in 53 games. Now, on their own those aren’t bad numbers. But is that level of production good enough for a player to get selected 8th overall? Probably not.