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Food for thought:

Duha has a few interesting draft thoughts on The Athletic tonight:

Why do teams feel so compelled to insert their shiny new toys into the lineup right away, when they could benefit from a little more time, developing at a more managed pace, at a lower level of hockey?
And the answer, probably, is threefold. Because the team’s marketing department wants them in the lineup. They sell tickets. Because the fans want to see what the future looks like. They buy tickets. And because every team in the salary-cap era can use a player on an entry-level contract to keep costs down.
That, of course, ignores the biggest counterargument of all: If you let that entry-level contract slide a year, let that player mature, and let him play his first NHL season as a 19-year-old, or even a 20-year-old, or even a 21-year-old, instead of as an 18-year-old, everyone usually benefits in the end.
Because if a player isn’t suddenly thrown into the NHL deep end and asked to swim, he’s usually readier for the demands that lie ahead. And of course, the accountants would be pleased if the contract slides a year because you still get the full benefit of having a player on an entry-level deal for three years, only the clock starts ticking toward free agency a year later.

Last year, ahead of the 2023 entry draft, I called several scouts who were active 20 years earlier – and took part in the 2003 draft, considered one of the greatest in NHL history.
One of the key questions in that discussion was: Was 2003 a great draft because there were so many talented players in it? Or was it a great draft because, the year after those players were selected, the NHL had a lockout that cost teams an entire season?
That, in turn, forced all these first-rounders to continue playing where they played the year before – some in major junior, some in college, some in Europe. And did that extra forced year of development, outside the NHL, make them readier for the NHL, when they made their debuts a year or more later?
The answer, of course, is we’ll never know for sure.