Does Expansion Increase or Dilute the NHL's Talent Pool?

[AKL]

I don’t really see why we need more teams. The NHL already has more than the NBA and that’s the closest comparable sport.

Because Canada.

NBA has 1 Canadian team, NHL has 7 Canadian teams.
NBA has 29 American teams, NHL has 25 American teams.

There are more American markets that can support NHL teams. Canada doesn't have 7 markets that could support NBA teams.

 

[Dog]

Dilutes it but gives more chances for players to make NHL. Not in favor of adding more teams at least should wait few years. 34 teams at 82 games seems like going to put more pressure on league and the players. Already travel quite a bit!

 

[biturbo19]

At the risk of being pedantic, expansion means there will be more "NHL level" players so one could conclude that mathematically, the talent pool for NHL players has literally expanded.

At the risk of continuing to pull at a pedantic thread...Expansion of the talent pool is what causes the dilution. There are the same number of qualified players whether there are 32 teams or 40 teams. Dilution occurs when the same concentration of talent is expanded to fill more area (roster spots).

But it's back to that same idiotic notion that there are 32 Teams so there are "32 Number 1 Centers" and "32 Number 1 Defencemen". When there very clearly are not. There's a finite amount of "talent" at any given moment. The number of teams does not inherently change that supply. Expansion doesn't magically make the 33rd best Center any better at actually playing hockey. Hence, spreading that talent over a broader number of teams and roster spots, causes "dilution". Talent is thusly, less concentrated, the more teams and players overall that are included in the system.

 

[biturbo19]

I'm going to disagree (lets just leave it at agree to disagree because I think you make a lot of valid points as well) and you're entitled to your opinion on this as also being about as valid as I feel mine is in this.

Because I think with how many players this league has that are either being shoved down to the AHL or going on unclaimed, leaving for Europe, so and so popping up as the next undiscovered talent, undrafted, change of scenery, etc, I think it's fine for the league. Because sure it takes some time for these teams to build up better talent and lessen the "dilution" if you will, but it is something that can be done and we've seen it since the last few expansions, it takes some time but it gets there.

Personally I am not really that keen on seeing more teams just yet, I would wait a while before it happens, at least not in the next 5 years. At best, I would rather see places like Atlanta get a team back, places that were done dirty because of piss poor ownership but were actually doing fairly decent attendance wise and just needed better ownership. The league protects certain teams and allows them to figure out, but then doesn't give that benefit to other places which is just absolute bullshit.

Arizona got the longest rope, so did Edmonton and countless others when they were busted as franchises financially but Atlanta has some bent owners that didn't even really want the blokes that were trying to make it better, to make it better, only to have the league just blatantly allow them to move immediately is a joke. But if Atlanta getting a team again means they need to expand, fine, they deserve a clean slate team.

I mean...i really don't know fully if it makes the product overall, actually better or worse. I think there's a reasonable argument that it's actually improved the product on the whole, and further expansion might continue to do so. Helping to get scoring up, creating more exciting, unpredictable hockey. After all...defensive breakdowns are at the heart of a lot of "fun to watch" hockey.


But it does still fundamentally dilute the talent pool. It lessens the concentration of talent in the league by introducing a number of additional players who were otherwise, not good enough to make the cut.