Here is the framework for that table:
NHL Equivalency and Prospect Projection Models: Building the NHL Equivalency Model (Part 2)
There are more current calculators to use, but none of it is supposed to be definitive. It's just a gauge where you can assess relative performance across leagues. You were talking about the relative strength of the AHL/SHL and so I thought it would be beneficial for you.
Because the OP didn't provide all NHLe calculators/conversion in his one post.
Using Lekkerimaki's same point ratio (45 games/31 points) in the AHL and SHL still yields more NHLe production when coming from the SHL than the AHL. They must not have updated their calulator with that 2024 information:
NHL Equivalency calculator from dobberhockey.com
frozenpool.dobbersports.com
Please elaborate.
TLDR: The kinds of players following the AHL - NHL route are systematically different than the [European League] - AHL - NHL or [European League] - NHL route, and this is depressing the AHL's quality relative to these other leagues. Similar issues are potentially having the same effect for some European leagues.
The full story:
This is a great example of somebody who wants to run numbers but hasn't fully thought through the real world conditions underlying their parameters. Some people have already laid out the problems in very simple terms above, but since you're defending the stats in good faith, I wanted to break it down for you in more specific terms as someone who has a "PhD from a very good place" level background in interpreting stats.
There are really two problems with the model.
The first is that, as the author snuck in towards the end of the article, there are some really low numbers involved here. One transition had only 8 instances on record, and yet it has been included in the calculations. It could be having a significant effect on the outcome.
The second is more problematic: as the direct feeder league to the NHL, you have far more movement between the AHL and the NHL than the other leagues, and the types of players who are moving are also very different. You regularly have grinders being called up to play fourth line minutes from the AHL to the NHL, but will have far less of that in other league transitions (for example) because unlike the AHL to NHL, the transitions between most other leagues are not within farm systems or "systematic" in the same way.
This in itself wouldn't be a problem if the players moving to and from the NHL via the AHL were proportionally distributed among the different European feeder leagues, but that is highly unlikely. In other words, there are differences in kind among the transitions that are not represented in model. Players moving from the SHL to the KHL will have a very different profile than players moving from the SHL to the AHL to the NHL. You have players who are on average younger/older, have different prospect potential, are more/less offensively inclined, etc., and these rates will vary by league transition.
In sum, there are many different, nonrandom kinds of circumstances that could skew the results when considered in this light.
There will be leagues where players who break out are almost immediately scooped up by other leagues, but the rest of the league has very little movement from one league to another - the Czech Extraliga has this reputation. When players break out, they are quickly ushered elsewhere, while the rest of the league remains quite stable. In that instance, you really only have "star" players making the transition, which will dramatically skew the numbers.
Likewise, the main issue that is pushing down the AHL relative to other leagues is that, for many of these European leagues, most of the players who are transitioning from them through the AHL to the NHL are top prospects (as one poster above put it: "they're coming here for a reason"). There's better money in Europe and its closer to home, so unless you are drafted and at least somewhat touted, you're probably not playing in the AHL. By contrast, there are many players in the AHL who are not top prospects who worked up from the ECHL, etc., after playing junior or college hockey. To the extent those players are making short-term/fill-in appearances on NHL rosters due to being "in the system", their presence will drag down the AHL averages relative to the other leagues. This is why the "straight to the AHL and then to the NHL" path includes "player classes" that will not be present in the SHL-AHL-NHL or KHL-AHL-NHL path.
In sum, there are some huge theoretical problems with the stats here, and those problems seem highly likely to explain the counterintuitive ranking they provide. Hard to say exactly how big of an issue the "small numbers" problem is because the original author wasn't transparent on that front, but the "middle class" players in most of the European leagues are never playing in the NHL, while those in the AHL will tend to be less European than average (meaning they came to the AHL via other, lesser league routes) and will tend to actually show up fairly often for brief stints to play fourth line minutes and score at low/nonexistent rates. Similar kinds of issues are true for a range of other league transitions in Europe as well. This systematically damages the AHL's relative ranking (and potentially other leagues as well), and renders these results pretty much meaningless.
EDIT: And it's worth mentioning: it does the same to the measure as a means of projecting future scoring rates - or at least it does so for the "direct to AHL - NHL" route. Would have to look deeper on the rest.
Though I guess this on its own doesn't necessarily invalidate the measure as a means of (very roughly) projecting scoring, it just means you can't use it to compare league strength. Combined with the other stuff, its validity is completely blown out on both fronts though.
