There have been hundreds (and probably thousands) of posts on HOH that discuss the size of the NHL's talent pool. The data that's needed to determine the talent pool (youths actively involved in organized hockey) has never been maintained with any rigour or consistency, across countries and decades. As a result, people have had very different opinions on the topic. Some have argued that the NHL was at its pinnacle during the Original Six era (where only the ~100 best players in the world made the league). Others have argued that the fifties and sixties had a shallow talent pool, because nearly all of the players came from a single, relatively small country.
@jigglysquishy recently came up with an interesting approach. His starting point was to estimate the Canadian talent pool. (This appears to be a good starting point because, throughout NHL history, Canada has produced by far the most players). We can estimate Canada's talent pool by looking at males from ages 20-34 (the age range for the majority of NHL players). It's great that life expectancies are longer nowadays, but it doesn't impact the NHL talent pool if we have more men living into their seventies, eighties, and beyond. We would then estimate the global talent pool by assuming that the ratio of Canadian NHL players to non-Canadian NHL players approximates the global ratio. In other words, if 80% of all NHL players are Canadian, Canada has probably produced 80% of the world's NHL-calibre players. Both of these concepts make sense, but I'll take a deeper dive into each.
Based on this approach, my conclusion is the NHL was at its highest quality (on a per roster spot basis) during the late Original Six era. It reached its nadir during the 1970's and Dead Puck Era. The current NHL talent pool (as of 2023) is rapidly approaching the quality of the Original Six era.
