Estimating the size of the NHL's talent pool (1950-2023)

[Midnight Judges]

The money also wasn't insane enough that you'd have tons of incentive to stick around in the few minor leagues.

The money was relatively terrible.

The average NHL player in 1954 was making approximately $51,000 in today's dollars.

Where I live (Alexandria, Virginia) the average school teacher makes significantly more than that ($64K).

Today's NHL players average $3,500,000.

In other words, the NHL of the 1950s was likely losing a significant amount of talent to mundane everyday professions.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I'm not sure why anyone would expect 6 NHL teams to develop enough NHL talent for 30 teams. Maybe you're reading different analysis than I am. The point is that they developed and called up the best players to fill out their roster at the NHL level, for the most part. (Montreal probably developed enough talent to fill several NHL teams but they were an outlier in the resources they put into their sponsorship network).

That is precisely my point, that's the actual "talent pool", the players that are in the system playing on teams that could create a plausible path up the pyramid into the NHL. While the number of NHL spots has exponentially grown, so has the number of spots at each lower level of the pyramid.

Of course the development system wasn't 100% efficient in placing the best 120 players in the NHL. No system is. Many good players played long careers in the minor leagues who easily could have played in the NHL with more opportunity. Some just didn't fit into the roles that were available at the NHL level, like Guyle Fielder and Phil Maloney, but could have been NHL stars if they got first line ice time on an expansion team. Many others played long, competitive careers in senior amateur hockey and were compensated with good jobs and careers for businesses that supported the local team. Don't forget amateur hockey was a big part of Canada's competitive hockey infrastructure at the time. These players hadn't "quit playing " hockey by any means. If the NHL expanded back in the 1950s, senior hockey players would have been in the mix for the new roster spots.

I think citing to amateur senior players as part of the talent pool makes my point for me. These players were obviously not professionals and had to work full-time jobs to make ends meet and continue playing as amateurs. If the NHL expanded today, they wouldn't be looking at amateurs, they'd be looking towards the wide network of other full-time professional players. These players train, practice and play similar to NHL players already, their lives are basically the same, they just make less money.

I agree the NHL teams excluded players who weren't willing to play for their sponsored junior teams, which largely meant non-Canadians didn't get a chance. The teams were able to fill their rosters through their existing system so there was no need to go outside of it. This system is a good example of teams narrowing the focus of their scouting and development, so the talent pool was smaller in quantity but they got more quality out of it. In any case, earlier NHL expansion would have given teams more incentive to look at American and European players.

I think this goes back to a 6-team NHL has a "6-team worth of NHL" player pool. There just weren't that many players "in the system".

If you look at the history of expansion, a whole lot of AHL and WHL players from the 1960s showed they could play in the NHL when given the chance. It wasn't a hypothetical event, it actually happened. Then over-expansion happened, combined with the weaker player development from the now-independent junior leagues, and many people watching the NHL in the 1970s and 1980s knew the quality of play on a night to night basis was far from what it had been under the old system. There's a reason why nostalgia for the Original Six took off at this time. It wasn't unthinking resistance to anything new. People remembered a time when they had seen better quality hockey.

Yes, certainly by the 60s it was abundantly obvious that the NHL should expand and could without issue. The resistance was because of the extremely conservative hockey culture and feelings of soulless teams with fake logos and no history. You're probably overrating the quality of expansion teams a bit as they were kept in a separate division and generally got smoked by the existing teams. It took a bit of time for them to catch up. Of course the rapid expansion watered down the league, the development systems needed time to catch up to produce the talent for an exponentially larger league. There is a reason Johnny Bucyk had an amazing second half renaissance as his career straddled O6/Expansion and he could play forever when people generally didn't previously.

 

[Michael Farkas]

"Basic NHL salary" around that time was $7,500 in 1961 (rookies would get that at times even)...in the mid-50's bottom of the barrel players (Dave Reid, for instance) were getting $6,000...

So, about $70k - $75k in today's money.

 

[MadLuke]

The money was relatively terrible.

The average NHL player in 1954 was making approximately $51,000 in today's dollars.

Where I live (Alexandria, Virginia) the average school teacher makes significantly more than that ($64K).

People are quite richer now, you need to compare with a 1954 school teacher.

Quick google give me $7000 usd for the average nhler salary around that time (I imagine they are estimate that they would change from place to place, not being necessarily all public at the time)

A 1954 Canadian median teacher in comparison:

Information archivée dans le Web | Information Archived on the Web

publications.gc.ca

Was making $2,654 canadian (USD-Can was about parity at the time I think), so it was nothing like today and you could be right that the top of the best paying regular job could make more unlike today, in a city school it would have been $3,400.

So the average nhler would have made about a bit more than twice 2.7 time the median Canadian teacher salary or a 130k-170k job depending if city school or average school teacher being the better benchmark.

 

[WarriorofTime]

People are quite richer now, you need to compare with a 1954 school teacher.

Quick google give me $7000 usd for the average nhler salary around that time (I imagine they are estimate that they would change from place to place, not being necessarily all public at the time)

A 1954 Canadian median teacher in comparison:

Information archivée dans le Web | Information Archived on the Web

publications.gc.ca

Was making $2,654 canadian (USD-Can was about parity at the time I think), so it was nothing like today and you could be right that the top of the best paying regular job could make more unlike today, in a city school it would have been $3,400.

So the average nhler would have made about a bit more than twice 2.7 time the median Canadian teacher salary or a 130k-170k job depending if city school or average school teacher being the better benchmark.

Money will always incentivize behavior. If you are an American college player with a degree in hand, if the NHL player salary is a bit higher than average, a player may assess the situation and determine "I can just go into business, earn a good salary with my degree, it's not worth it to keep myself on the radar, chase minor leagues for an outside shot", whereas if NHL average salary if $3 million and even two-way contracts (fringe/"next man up" level players that will only play NHL games with injuries) are getting contracts that guarantee them a minimum of say $425,000 salary that give incentive to "keep going" and continue developing/remaining as part of the overall global talent pool.

Thank You - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Thank you for the amazing 9 years

www.capfriendly.com

Undrafted USHL turned 4 year NCAA player, 29 years old, 353 career AHL games and 4 career NHL games to date. Didn't make and hasn't been called up to the worst team in the League that has a huge number of injuries. AHL contracts turned into NHL contracts and made $300,000 last year and $400,000 this year as AHL salary. That guy stays in the talent pool that is firmly and unquestionably battling it out for the NHL beyond his teenage years, and he has plenty of rational economic actor incentive to do so.

 

[MadLuke]

Money will always incentivize behavior.

We can see that with how stars NCAA college woman basketball players take their time to join the WNBA

 

[overpass]

That is precisely my point, that's the actual "talent pool", the players that are in the system playing on teams that could create a plausible path up the pyramid into the NHL. While the number of NHL spots has exponentially grown, so has the number of spots at each lower level of the pyramid.

I think citing to amateur senior players as part of the talent pool makes my point for me. These players were obviously not professionals and had to work full-time jobs to make ends meet and continue playing as amateurs. If the NHL expanded today, they wouldn't be looking at amateurs, they'd be looking towards the wide network of other full-time professional players. These players train, practice and play similar to NHL players already, their lives are basically the same, they just make less money.

I think this goes back to a 6-team NHL has a "6-team worth of NHL" player pool. There just weren't that many players "in the system".

Yes, certainly by the 60s it was abundantly obvious that the NHL should expand and could without issue. The resistance was because of the extremely conservative hockey culture and feelings of soulless teams with fake logos and no history. You're probably overrating the quality of expansion teams a bit as they were kept in a separate division and generally got smoked by the existing teams. It took a bit of time for them to catch up. Of course the rapid expansion watered down the league, the development systems needed time to catch up to produce the talent for an exponentially larger league. There is a reason Johnny Bucyk had an amazing second half renaissance as his career straddled O6/Expansion and he could play forever when people generally didn't previously.

If we're just saying the development system for a 6 team league was sized for a 6 team league, that's nothing more than a tautology. Surely the point is that there was enough hockey talent in the world to fill more than 6 teams in a hypothetical larger league.

And senior amateur hockey players were absolutely part of that hockey talent. You're taking the gap between today's amateur and professional players and projecting it back to a different world. Senior amateur hockey results were reported just as prominently as professional hockey results in Canadian newspapers of the 1940s. Many senior amateur players refused professional offers, because a good job at a local business was part of the package for top level amateur players. Jean Beliveau played for a Quebec team whose players worked for the local pulp and paper company, for example. Those jobs didn't pay as much as an NHL club, but they were considered good jobs, especially for working class young men. Saying they "had" to work full time jobs misses the point, that was part of the package. And these jobs provided the accommodation they needed to to play hockey. It's not as if they were rushing out of the office at 5 PM and driving through rush hour traffic to pick up the kids at daycare and make it to the hockey game on time.

Not only were those senior amateur players part of the worldwide talent pool, they also provided an alternate career path for junior hockey players. Junior hockey players didn't have to quit hockey if they fell off the NHL track. They could continue to pursue a spot in competitive senior hockey, which would establish them in a non-hockey career.

Re: the quality of the expansion teams, certainly they were initially weaker than the NHL teams. Even so, most of the players who joined in 1967 showed they could play NHL hockey. Yes, by 1975 there were more than a few questionable pro players out there with 32 NHL and WHA teams, and it didn't help that the newly independent junior teams were sometimes more focused on drawing fans than on player development.

 

[WarriorofTime]

If we're just saying the development system for a 6 team league was sized for a 6 team league, that's nothing more than a tautology. Surely the point is that there was enough hockey talent in the world to fill more than 6 teams in a hypothetical larger league.

And senior amateur hockey players were absolutely part of that hockey talent. You're taking the gap between today's amateur and professional players and projecting it back to a different world. Senior amateur hockey results were reported just as prominently as professional hockey results in Canadian newspapers of the 1940s. Many senior amateur players refused professional offers, because a good job at a local business was part of the package for top level amateur players. Jean Beliveau played for a Quebec team whose players worked for the local pulp and paper company, for example. Those jobs didn't pay as much as an NHL club, but they were considered good jobs, especially for working class young men. Saying they "had" to work full time jobs misses the point, that was part of the package. And these jobs provided the accommodation they needed to to play hockey. It's not as if they were rushing out of the office at 5 PM and driving through rush hour traffic to pick up the kids at daycare and make it to the hockey game on time.

Not only were those senior amateur players part of the worldwide talent pool, they also provided an alternate career path for junior hockey players. Junior hockey players didn't have to quit hockey if they fell off the NHL track. They could continue to pursue a spot in competitive senior hockey, which would establish them in a non-hockey career.

Re: the quality of the expansion teams, certainly they were initially weaker than the NHL teams. Even so, most of the players who joined in 1967 showed they could play NHL hockey. Yes, by 1975 there were more than a few questionable pro players out there with 32 NHL and WHA teams, and it didn't help that the newly independent junior teams were sometimes more focused on drawing fans than on player development.

I'm going with 2020s AHL players being far closer to 2020s NHL players than 1950s paper technicians to 1950s NHL players. If that is somehow NOT the case than I'd say that speaks far more to a low quality of professional for 1950s NHL players than it does to a high quality of 1950s paper technicians. Which lends credence to "plumbers and milkmen" dismissive talk about players of yesteryear, which was not my intent...

Amateurs are inherently amateur. They have other jobs, and only so many hours in a day to devote to hockey. Pro hockey players inherently have much more time and don't have split responsibilities.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Didn't a 45 year old zamboni driver just beat one of the best offenses in the league?

Re: splitting time. NFL referees generally have other jobs. Why? They make enough money...but they don't work for most of the year. Why not have another job in that time if you can? Are they no longer considered professionals as a result?

NHL seasons were five months...six if you made Final. So, they worked on a farm. Did that make them worse athletes?

 

[jigglysquishy]

There could be value in a GPG/GPG method. It's just the HRef method is awful and comes from a deep unfamiliarity with hockey. The ice time distribution assumptions are demonstrably false. Fixing it would be fairly easy and would remove the biggest problem with the formula: that it's fundamentally broken for 1927-1967 hockey.

It would benefit from accounting for EV/PP scoring ratios. But then you will end up with seasons where the adjusted order isn't preserved.

 

[wetcoast]

"Basic NHL salary" around that time was $7,500 in 1961 (rookies would get that at times even)...in the mid-50's bottom of the barrel players (Dave Reid, for instance) were getting $6,000...

So, about $70k - $75k in today's money.

My parents bought a house in East Vancouver in the late 60s for $5000 so everything is relative.

Put another way NHL salaries weren't like they are now but they weren't all that bad in the late 06 era.

 

[BraveCanadian]

It would benefit from accounting for EV/PP scoring ratios. But then you will end up with seasons where the adjusted order isn't preserved.

That would help a lot as well as the distribution through the lineup.

 

[overpass]

I'm going with 2020s AHL players being far closer to 2020s NHL players than 1950s paper technicians to 1950s NHL players. If that is somehow NOT the case than I'd say that speaks far more to a low quality of professional for 1950s NHL players than it does to a high quality of 1950s paper technicians. Which lends credence to "plumbers and milkmen" dismissive talk about players of yesteryear, which was not my intent...

Amateurs are inherently amateur. They have other jobs, and only so many hours in a day to devote to hockey. Pro hockey players inherently have much more time and don't have split responsibilities.

Maurice Richard worked as a machinist. Jean Beliveau worked for Molson. Gordie Howe maintained a golf course. I'm not sure how those jobs are supposed to have diminished them as hockey players.

It comes across as class snobbery. As if you can't be a real athlete if you work a real job.

Senior hockey was featured in the sports pages across Canada. Players moved from senior hockey to pro hockey back then in the same way as players of today move from the AHL to the NHL. There's no reason to believe it was low quality hockey.

 

[WarriorofTime]

It comes across as class snobbery. As if you can't be a real athlete if you work a real job.

Huh? That fulltime dedicated professionals are ahead of amateurs is not "snobby", I would say that applies to any profession, not only hockey players. I would say a fulltime mechanic is a better bet than the guy who tinkers around a bit after work.

 

[Michael Farkas]

So the guys in front office and operations at the NHL level that have consulting contracts outside the league, or coach youth teams, and the like...they're not "dedicated professionals"? Only if they go home in the offseason and not pursue anything else are they not "amateurs"...?

Just trying to understand this mindset here...because it doesn't seem as if you're going to watch the games and decide for yourself...

 

[WarriorofTime]

So the guys in front office and operations at the NHL level that have consulting contracts outside the league, or coach youth teams, and the like...they're not "dedicated professionals"? Only if they go home in the offseason and not pursue anything else are they not "amateurs"...?

Just trying to understand this mindset here...because it doesn't seem as if you're going to watch the games and decide for yourself...

Don't see a point in comparing side hustles because their main job is seasonal to literal amateur players.

Watch what games? 1950s Senior Amateur Games?

 

[The Panther]

I note that some of you are really into this "size of talent pool" topic. It has some vague interest for me... but very little. I simply don't see it as particularly important. There's no way to determine any "answer" to the question, and even if we did somehow magically determine that, say, 1965 or 2010 was the be-all and end-all NHL of talent-depth... er, so what? It's not going to detemine that Bobby Hull or Alex Ovechkin was the greatest player of all time. It's not going to change who the greatest players were. There are too many other factors to consider.

I will say that, basically, trying to apply today's sporting / pro-sports / salary / cultural-standards to the 1930s or 1950s or whatever is a very poor way to approach the topic. It's just a completely different world. Money is a big part of this, as there simply wasn't the financial incentive for borderline top-talents in the 1920s or 1940s to devote themselves to hockey.

But that point goes both ways: Let's say that we magically determined that 2022 was the peak of hockey talent and competition in the NHL. Does anyone here think that, say, Johnny Gaudreau (for example) is a tougher competition for top spots on rosters compared to top lines in the 1950s and 1960s? I just don't see it. Gaudreau may have competed against a tougher talent pool and may have had longer odds to making the NHL from the outset, but he's also trying to earn a spot in a 30-team League where every club pays big dollars. This means that once Gaudreau was established as a talented player (no small feat, of course), he could sign a lucrative contract (as he did) and now can cash pay-checks the rest of his career while giving 50% effort and avoiding injury (and he's hardly the only player who, consciously or unconsciously, is doing this). The NHL is now a career move

That kind of thing simply wasn't possible in Gordie Howe or Bobby Hull's day. If you underperformed, you were gone almost overnight, and the path back was nearly impossible. It was also a much smaller League, with only 90 to 100 full-time jobs available. I tend to think that in those conditions --- no job security, lower pay, abusive coaches, physical punishment every night --- only the very best and most determined rose to the top.

I think it's pretty obvious that the 1960s was a period when NHL expansion was long overdue and that there was more than enough talent around for a League twice as big (as soon happened in 1967). 32 pro-teams by 1975 was far too many, of course (I would argue it's too many even today!), but I bet if the NHL had (a) been only 15 clubs, (b) allowed 18-19 year old players in the mid-70s, and (c) opened the door easily for Europeans (as the WHA did), a mid-1970s NHL of about 15 clubs would have every bit as competitive as the six clubs in 1966-67.

But again, all this is just speculation. There's no answer to these questions. While it's fun to discuss (sort of), I think once we start getting into racial analyses of the Canadian population in Quebec in 1965 or whatever, we're kind of entering on nutty territory.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I note that some of you are really into this "size of talent pool" topic. It has some vague interest for me... but very little. I simply don't see it as particularly important. There's no way to determine any "answer" to the question, and even if we did somehow magically determine that, say, 1965 or 2010 was the be-all and end-all NHL of talent-depth...

There is no way to know for sure, but having a rough idea of the talent feeding into the league and the league competitiveness is important when comparing players of different times. The "talent pool" mostly gets brought in discussions on the board by people attempting to simply dismiss all NHL players before 1995 or whatever as being unprofessional, chain-smoking, missing link sort of players.

One thing I always notice is that one side is honestly working on the problem with the information available to determine the ebbs and flows in the league, and the other side just has excuses and hand waving.. like up thread here where "players used to have an off-season job!" They bring nothing to the table and can be ignored.

 

[WarriorofTime]

One thing I always notice is that one side is honestly working on the problem with the information available to determine the ebbs and flows in the league, and the other side and the other just has excuses and hand waving.. like up thread here where "players used to have an off-season job!" They bring nothing to the table and can be ignored.

Please keep civil. If you feel I am not, let me know so I can adjust.

My point has been to look broader to the lower tier and feeder systems to get a more accurate understanding of talent pool than simply plucking people from the street and seeing how likely a particular 26 year old Canadian is an nhl player.

I pointed out a player who has played essentially their entire career in the AHL and is 29 is able to command a $400K salary and this sort of system creates a massive incentive to widen the true talent pool of people competing to be in the NHL.

 

[Midnight Judges]

There is no way to know for sure, but having a rough idea of the talent feeding into the league and the league competitiveness is important when comparing players of different times. The "talent pool" mostly gets brought in discussions on the board by people attempting to simply dismiss all NHL players before 1995 or whatever as being unprofessional, chain-smoking, missing link sort of players.

That is a straw man.

The purpose is to make evaluations of all players across all eras equitable.

 

[wetcoast]

There could be value in a GPG/GPG method. It's just the HRef method is awful and comes from a deep unfamiliarity with hockey. The ice time distribution assumptions are demonstrably false. Fixing it would be fairly easy and would remove the biggest problem with the formula: that it's fundamentally broken for 1927-1967 hockey.

It would benefit from accounting for EV/PP scoring ratios. But then you will end up with seasons where the adjusted order isn't preserved.

We still have lots of data points to compare scoring levels though like ESGF/ESGA, SOG and the differences in Dman scoring from 06 and then post Orr.

We also have the constant variable throughout the entire NHL timeline in that the best Canadians always played in the NHL.

Some of them had serious competition from non Canadian players and some not at all.

I also recall at least one or several posters here doing an adjusted formula to take into account rosters sizes that is a little better than hockey reference does.

 

[Michael Farkas]

That is a straw man.

The purpose is to make evaluations of all players across all eras equitable.

This isn't what happens though. If I can't say that Ovechkin is a shoot only player, you can't keep saying these obvious falsehoods. Once you go 'lawyer mode', you ought to be consistent...

 

[WarriorofTime]

. If I can't say that Ovechkin is a shoot only player

Well that would be a silly thing to say about a player 65th all time in assists across a low scoring era. Slanted (even heavily) towards shooting is not the same as shoot “only”.

 

[Midnight Judges]

This isn't what happens though.

Yes, it is. It doesn't jive with your assessment that the modern generation is pathetic while the legends of hockey's past are untouchable Gods.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I pointed out a player who has played essentially their entire career in the AHL and is 29 is able to command a $400K salary and this sort of system creates a massive incentive to widen the true talent pool of people competing to be in the NHL.

Ok, do you find this to be a new tactic relative to league(s) structures?

Yes, it is. It doesn't jive with your assessment that the modern generation is pathetic while the legends of hockey's past are untouchable Gods.

That is not my assessment.