Next CBA - potentially shortened draft

[4thline]

Don't get why fans would want to increase the draft age. All it does is force the greatest players to spend one more year playing kindergarten hockey rather that at the level they belong. Sure you'd have more information on drafted players but so would everyone else so there's no edge to be had unless you're conceding that your team's scouting department can't compete. If that's the case, blame ownership.

Nah, done right it give the NHL draft a lot more immediate relevancy to all 32 teams- driving more fan interest.

A hypothetical 2024 draft that would see up to 32 05's picked, and the all but 32 04's still available would hold a lot more importance to non-lottery teams.

 

[WarriorofTime]

I think they should drop one round for now, and see how it goes. 5th and 6th round picks still do hit on occasion and as others have mentioned, are thrown in more often into trades. On the other hand, 7th round picks are very rare and given the low draft capital invested, players would likely be better off being eligible the following year if they improve/being a free agent and being able to find the most ideal situation rather than having rights tied up. I think as is, 6th to 7th round is the steepest drop-off in terms of draft success rate so they seem like dart throws amongst dart throws.

 

[Regal]

Should bump the draft age to 19 as well. It sucks for the generational talents like Bedard/McDavid to miss out on an NHL season but those players are rare.

One more year of evaluation and development should in theory make the draft process better.

Matthews would still make the cut off if draft age was 19 (late birthday meant he turned 19 in his draft year).

I think it would be better to bump the draft age to 19 after the 1st round, but I’m not sure if that would be possible

 

[Menzinger]

It would absolutely be for the best.

ELCs and contract limits keep rich teams from hogging talent or flexing financial muscle.

From a fans pov we'd see a lot more.player movement

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Soft rules for rich teams that suck at drafting. A shame

 

[Orfieus]

Per 32 thoughts Friedman brings up how he's heard agents and maybe NHLPA that they may want to shorten the draft to 4 rounds, as most players that aren't signed aren't high picks.

Sounds like if you're not drafted you're automatically a free agent and can sign with your team of choice.

Why tie up a player's rights for 2-4 years just for them to go unsigned anyways. That seems like part of the reason to shorten the draft.

I'd rather they change the draft age from 18 to 19

 

[WarriorofTime]

For what it's worth, a lot of well-performing 5th/6th round picks drafted in their first go around would likely become 3rd and 4th round picks as second go arounds. Like Jamie Benn (5th round pick in 2007) becomes undrafted in 2007 out of the BCHL, but that doesn't mean he signs with anyone, he enters the 2008 Draft and despite being a year older, is still likely drafted because had a really good year in the WHL in 2007-08.

 

[SEALBound]

I'd be surprised if owners and particularly GMs truly wanted this. Getting players into the system is important from an organizational health and structure standpoint and more importantly, this would greatly affect trade values. 5/6/7 are often cheap currency in the trade market. If you take those away, it will become more difficult to make smaller transactions. Unless the plan is to, in lieu of drafting, go out and sign kids at 18 and stock the system that way. But I can see about 20+ teams not wanting that. If you're Winnipeg or Buffalo or even Utah potentially, you're not going to be as attractive to better talent. It would greatly affect parity in the league.

If they want to go to this though, NOW would be the time to renegotiate the CHL and AHL/NHL agreements. If I'm 18 and sign as a free agent to a NHL team but they don't have a spot...can you go to the CHL? And if so, what happens when they want to call you up? Same rules apply? They could also drop the AHL to 19.

 

[SEALBound]

For what it's worth, a lot of well-performing 5th/6th round picks drafted in their first go around would likely become 3rd and 4th round picks as second go arounds. Like Jamie Benn (5th round pick in 2007) becomes undrafted in 2007 out of the BCHL, but that doesn't mean he signs with anyone, he enters the 2008 Draft and despite being a year older, is still likely drafted because had a really good year in the WHL in 2007-08.

That's actually an interesting observation.

That would be a huge research project to see how many players drafted in the 5/6/7th rounds made major junior/NCAA leaps in their D+1 season and then go on to be solid NHL players.

 

[Le Barron de HF]

Didn't read the thread but wouldn't teams and ultimately young players be penalized due to contract limits?

 

[Brodeur]

Lol it wasn't me!

But in a dream scenario, for me, the NHL would fully invest in the AHL and ECHL as development leagues (not just for teams, but for the sport as a whole), and expand contract limits, and expand the draft haha

It was a different poster, I sorta saw where he was coming from. I think he had the idealistic view of a team with good scouting landing somebody like Dustin Byfuglien in the 8th round. For some reason he thought prospects would feel shamed for going undrafted. But I pointed out that Sean Durzi went undrafted in 2017 and made adjustments on/off the ice which led to him going in the 2nd round in 2018. I wondered if Durzi would have had the same chip on his shoulder had he been an 8th/9th rounder.

To varying degrees, teams have been going the undrafted free agent route anyways. It was a small trade, but in 2017 San Jose dealt two 7th round picks to New Jersey to move into the 6th round for Sasha Chmelevski. A couple Sharks scouts were bummed since they had earmarked one of those 7th rounders for Josef Korenar. But then Korenar went undrafted and the Sharks were able to sign him a few weeks after the draft anyways.

As others pointed out, teams still have the 50 contract limit so they can't hand out ELCs like candy. I think the draft is fine at seven rounds. When it comes to CBA negotiation, I could see the NHLPA asking for a round reduction but I don't think that'd be a hill to die on.

 

[StreetHawk]

I'd rather they change the draft age from 18 to 19

Maybe also the length of time an NHL gets to maintain the player's rights?
Currently CHL, it's 2 years and if not signed they can return to the draft.
NCAA is 4 years or when your class graduates college then you become a free agent
Euros, seems like a long time as Nikishin is already 4 years from the 2020 draft and Carolina holds his rights through 24/25 season.

 

[57special]

I really dislike this. For one, I am a fan of a big market team but this is going to massively benefit teams with robust scouting and popular markets who will be able to fill their prospect pool with promising talent, especially those coming from over seas and Russia.

Re raising the draft age, I also hate that. Tell me that McDavid shouldn't have been in the NHL until he was 19. Nonsense.

So we build the league around the one exception, rather than the 99% of the drafted players who aren't ready to play at 18yo?

 

[Tasty Biscuits]

Seems weird to do this given the league is already at 32 teams and they want two more.

Think that's a good argument to just reduce to 6. Adding two teams is another 14 players to a 7 round draft. Just adding 12 it'd effectively be 6 1/3 rounds in comparison to what we've got now, so, would def be in favor of a 6-rounder moving forward.

 

[absolute garbage]

Would they?
2007 -Kane (his only OHL year)
2008- Doughty
2009- Tavares, Kadri
2010- Hall
2011 - Landeskog
2012- Yakupov and Murray
2013- Jones, Monahan
2014-Reinhart, Draisaitl
2016- Tkachuk
2020-Lafreniere

All were faced with waiting til after their U19, many were top prospects from the time they were 14,15, still chose CHL- some coming from other countries.

If someone like Bedard was draft eligible this summer, I think it's very likely he would've not played in the CHL at all and played his D-1 and possibly D-2 season too in Europe.

But this is not relevant for the vast majority of players, since playing D+1 in CHL with the current draft age is pretty common place and also the smart development choice.

Main point being that IMO "McDavids and Bedards will miss one NHL year!" is not a good argument against bumping the draft age to 19.

 

[Habsfunk]

It was part of the WHA era lawsuit. And it was a Canadian court that rendered the decision. And it's why the NHL moved the draft age down to 18.

Preventing 18 year olds from selling their services was found to be illegal.

I heard a story once that the reason Montreal had the first overall pick in 1980 is because that would have been Gretzky's draft year if the draft age stayed at 20 and didn't sign in the WHA. They acquired the pick in 1976 and Colorado was a perennially bad team, so it was a pretty good gamble.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I heard a story once that the reason Montreal had the first overall pick in 1980 is because that would have been Gretzky's draft year if the draft age stayed at 20 and didn't sign in the WHA. They acquired the pick in 1976 and Colorado was a perennially bad team, so it was a pretty good gamble.

and they still managed to screw it up.

 

[TGWL]

I think it would be better to bump the draft age to 19 after the 1st round, but I’m not sure if that would be possible

I don't really see this working. You have a fresh 18 year old vs a potential later side 19 year old. When talking about the first round, you're elite talent will stand out, but after the 5-8th pick? Then you're basically shoving 18 year old players down the list for 19 year olds who are viewed as little better because they've have almost a 2 year advance in size, strength, ready'ness, etc. Most teams would probably take the 19 year old in the 1st round. Now those players who would have gotten drafted in the first round, probably don't. In this scenario you're basically making the 1st round an exception round for elite status only, but leaving it up to the GM's to determine that. I don't see a realistic draft where the age changes based on round.

 

[beowulf]

Interesting from 12 rounds when I was a kid to potentially 4...the thing that sucks is a lot of guys will no longer be able to say "I was drafted in the NHL" without mentioning it was the7th round.

 

[RayMartyniukTotems]

Going from 7 to 4 seems like a pretty big jump at once. Would try with 5 rounds for a few years first and see how that goes.

From 7 to 4 Round...Sounds good especially for Expansion teams...perhaps they could be allowed to sign players at 18 before being admitted to the group in 2-3 years time that way they have some youngsters potentially coming on board...

 

[RayMartyniukTotems]

lol, poster is not misremembering
It was the Kenny Linesman rule.

Maybe read up on the rules for the draft, Matthew’s missed the date by 2 days.

I remember when the 4 WHA teams were merged in 1979 the NHL had some 18-19 yearolds to deal with...some wanted them sent back to Junior after playing Pro...to me this is when the Rule came in ala Messier,Goulet and others...Linesman came into the NHL on his 20 B-day and had played the year before the Birmingham kids came aboard(7-8) of them...Goulet,Vaive,Ramage,Hartsburg,Gingras,Riggins,Sleigher...KCrowder

 

[KeyserSoze81]

I don't really see how this works well. Who is signing a 5th round talent 18 year old for a 3 year contract? Those players usually have major deficiencies that take years to address. Why would I as a GM waste a contract spot on that player? Or they sign AHL deals, but a CHL player cannot sign an AHL contract until 20...

 

[Golden_Jet]

I remember when the 4 WHA teams were merged in 1979 the NHL had some 18-19 yearolds to deal with...some wanted them sent back to Junior after playing Pro...to me this is when the Rule came in ala Messier,Goulet and others...Linesman came into the NHL on his 20 B-day and had played the year before the Birmingham kids came aboard(7-8) of them...Goulet,Vaive,Ramage,Hartsburg,Gingras,Riggins,Sleigher...KCrowder

Ya Linesman got the rule changed to play in the WHA, the NHL didn’t want to lose anymore top players to WHA,, so lowered their draft age to match.

 

[Brodeur]

I don't really see how this works well. Who is signing a 5th round talent 18 year old for a 3 year contract? Those players usually have major deficiencies that take years to address. Why would I as a GM waste a contract spot on that player?

Occasionally we'll see teams sign undrafted North Americans with remaining draft eligibility. LA signed Martin Jones in 2008, otherwise he would have still been eligible to re-enter the draft pool in 2009. Doesn't happen all the time, but you might see a handful of cases each year like that. Way back when, San Jose traded away a ton of picks so they were always hunting for those sort of guys to restock the farm. San Jose signed Michael Sgarbossa a few months after he went undrafted in 2010 and he'd win the OHL scoring title a couple years later.

But from an NHLPA perspective, reducing the draft would lead to more guys becoming UDFAs eventually and having their choice in teams. It's not necessarily something the teams would want.

 

[CycloneSweep]

I think they should drop one round for now, and see how it goes. 5th and 6th round picks still do hit on occasion and as others have mentioned, are thrown in more often into trades. On the other hand, 7th round picks are very rare and given the low draft capital invested, players would likely be better off being eligible the following year if they improve/being a free agent and being able to find the most ideal situation rather than having rights tied up. I think as is, 6th to 7th round is the steepest drop-off in terms of draft success rate so they seem like dart throws amongst dart throws.

At the same time though, when guys who were drafted in the 5th-7th rounds do hit, its almost never with the org that drafted them anyways.