Quote:
Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy
The difference is any other league you can get peace of mind by locking up your good, high quality prospects early and then let their EL contract slide.
If you draft a good kid out of junior, you can sign him immediately and be done with it until he's ready to go pro.
In the NCAA you can't do that. Meanwhile the lustre of being drafted wears off over time, and they start thinking about maybe going here, or going there. Basically just have to wait and finish my education and I can go wherever I want.
So in that sense the playing field isn't level. Because you can't sign these NCAA kids they should extend the length teams hold their rights to 5 years. A kid like Fox would get his degree and then have to sit around for a year if he didn't want to sign with Calgary. He wouldn't want to do that obviously, so he'd sign with Calgary.
If it deters kids from going the college route so be it. Then maybe they'll let teams sign these kids before they're ready to go pro. Don't have to give them a signing bonus, just get a legal commitment that they're rights now belong to the team that drafted them until they qualify for UFA status.
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I think the solution might be more along the lines of increasing the draft pick compensation rather than punishing the player an extra year.
Ie if you want to sign someone's former NCAA 1st rounder, you have to give up a 1st in return. You might really like Jimmy Vesey, but do you like him enough to give up a 2nd round pick for him?
Also, level playing fields are an illusion. The NCAA/CHL is close enough. Even actual playing fields slope to allow for water runoff.