This is a strange example to use to prove your point because both of the younger players were selected after the older players anyways, kind of proving that nobody is drafting solely based on age.
Sure, but I'm not arguing otherwise. NHL staffs generally don't go overboard with relative age as much as some fans do. I use the 2014 draft because you had 2 late-birthdays picked right ahead of 4 summer-born kids (Bennett, Dal Colle, Virtanen, H. Fleury), and it's the late-birthdays that ended up developing more, while the younger kids underwhelmed. It's purely anecdotal, and doesn't really prove anything. Still, I've never seen actual evidence that kids that are younger in their draft year develop more post-draft than their older peers.
As for younger draft eligible players, I'd have to assume that the majority of your top prospects each year are not 17 when drafted so you are going to have a higher amount of "older" players being good NHL'ers but you probably still have a large amount of busts or guys that don't live up to their draft potential.
It depends on how you define older. Late-birthdays (the oldest players in their draft year) are not actually that common; they're strongly under-represented in the CHL. Only
11.7% of QMJHL players this year were born in the last quarter of the year (Oct, Nov, Dec), while
38.7 % of players were born in the first quarter of the year (Jan, Feb, Mar), and it's similar and in the OHL and WHL. It's a well-known, well-documented discrepancy, and it continues at the draft: the later you're born in the year, the lower your chance of being an NHL 1st round pick. There's actually data that suggests those older, 4th-quarter kids are picked lower than they should, and have better career outcomes on average (see
here and
here and
here and
here).
3rd-quarter kids like Byfield (the youngest kids in the draft) are also under-represented at the draft because of this effect. Which is interesting because it suggests it has nothing to do with the draft age cutoff, but with relative age during youth hockey development.
So in short, being older or younger at the draft doesn't seem to really affect your NHL outcome. But being older or younger than your peers during development might?
We can throw names out of younger draft eligible players that went too high and then I can toss out a name like Anze Kopitar who is also an August birthday like Byfield.
I get your point that being younger in your draft season doesn't guarantee that the development curve continues and surpasses older players in the same class but that ignores that drafting kids in general can be a real crapshoot regardless. If Byfield merely put up a near PPG pace this season but was still being talked about at #2 because of his raw skill and August birthday, then we could dump on the age factor with him. The fact is that he put up one of the best draft seasons for a 17 year old in OHL history while also possessing the raw skills and likelihood of being a real physical specimen once he is a finished product. While there is no guarantee of anything because of the August birthday, you still have to like the fact that he's doing what he is doing at his age while still generally not using his size to its full effectiveness.
I don't really disagree with anything here. I think Byfield is the 2nd-best prospect in this class. I just think it has nothing to do with his birth month. He's the only guy in this class who's a pretty safe bet to become a top-6 center, and that's very valuable. My only real problem with Byfield is his ability to read plays and react to pressure, which is fine but doesn't really scream elite offensive player. Still, he has other skills to compensate.
