AHL

My only point was that for entertainment value, you can't beat junior hockey because you're seeing future NHL Superstars. And you see them develop as players.

Hell, we watced former Battalion star Wojtek Wolski for three years and now he's third in rookie scoring in the NHL.

Jordan Staal? Same thing.

This year there's John Tavares who's burning up the league for Oshawa and Gagne & Kane for London.

Nothing wrong with the AHL or its players but I find it kinda dull.

 

There's some talk that Tomas Fleischmann might be a future star ... he's in his second AHL season ...

 

I know junior hockey sells itself as a hothouse for future stars and in some cases that's true. But there are a lot of kids playing junior hockey who never go anywhere.
They still play three games in three nights, meaning they're tired by the end of the trip, and their skills aren't as polished as in pro. At least in the AHL, they're the top of the pro pyramid: somebody drafted them and signed them to a contract and thought enough of their skills to do so.
In junior, past a handful of good players, you're watching mostly interchangable parts.

 

Remember that all the CBAs prior to this didn't allow draft picks from junior to be sent to the AHL for their first two (?) years. You had to keep them on the NHL roster or send them back to junior, so it's not like you got to see the cream of the crop develop down in AAA.

I would like to see the NHL formalize a minor-league ladder system with the ECHL/CHL/whomever else, at least down to a AA-level league. I know a lot of NHL clubs do have ECHL affiliates, but not all do.

 

From my experience with the CHL, the guys who have NHL skill basically have only played their way into the low minors because of their attitudes. The few ex-NHLers (Brian Lawrence in the UHL, or Bruce Shoebottom in the CHL, for example) are extremely rare, and 90% of the players who get an NHL sniff are either goons (Shoebottom, Wade Brookbank) or goalies who somehow found their way in the low minors.

There's a BIG gulf between the AHL level and the low minors, where you might find 3-4 people per team who are capable of cracking an AHL roster as a fourth-liner. Most of the guys in the low minors are CHL/UHL/ECHL lifers who might hope to get a token sniff at the next level. But, for the most part, the caliber of hockey is wretched and the fights (which are numerous) are the main attraction.

Of course, what more do you expect from leagues where the salary caps lead to an average salary per player of about $17K per year.

I thought Slapshot! was a farce until I saw it up close. The CHL *is* Slapshot.

 

I don't know which low minors you're watching, but the current ECHL, at least in the South Division, is nothing like the hockey you describe. There are very few fights, (maybe six or seven in the 26 home games I've seen so far), and a LOT of talented skaters and scorers that frequently bounce up to the AHL and back, depending on NHL moves.
A lot of the guys, particularly goalies, are young and recent NHL draft picks who will only spend part of a season at the ECHL level before moving on to the AHL/NHL. The caliber of hockey is quite good, and the increased scoring is the main attraction, because there are sure aren't as many fights as in years past.

 

I don't have the numbers in front of me but I'd be interested in knowing how many ECHL players make the NHL.

A lot of them were marginal junior players --that's why they had a hard time cracking the AHL in the first place. There are exceptions but I suspect that's what they are--exceptions.

 

From www.echl.com:
319 players have played in the NHL after the ECHL and 16 former ECHL players have played their first NHL game this season: Krys Barch (Dallas on Jan. 15), Sheldon Brookbank (Nashville on Feb. 6), Barry Brust (Los Angeles on Nov. 30), Drew Fata (New York Islanders on Feb. 4), Yutaka Fukufuji (Los Angeles on Jan. 13), Daniel Girardi (New York Rangers on Jan. 27), Martin Houle (Philadelphia on Dec. 13), D.J. King (St. Louis on Oct. 5), Drew Larman (Florida on Nov. 13), Martin Lojek (Florida on Feb. 3), Joey MacDonald (Detroit on Oct. 19), Kris Newbury (Toronto on Dec. 23), Pierre Parenteau (Chicago on Feb. 7), Jesse Schultz (Vancouver on Nov. 28), former ECHL All-Star goaltender Mike Smith (Dallas on Oct. 21), and Mike Wall (Anaheim on Nov. 26).

The Premier ‘AA’ Hockey League, the ECHL has affiliations with 25 of the 30 teams in the National Hockey League in 2006-07, marking the 10th consecutive season that the league has had affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL.

Since 2000-01 there have been 174 players who have played in the NHL after the ECHL including a record 47 who made their NHL debut in 2005-06. There have been 95 former ECHL players who have played in the NHL this season and in 2005-06 there were 112 former ECHL players who played in the NHL, including five goaltenders who played a game in both the ECHL and the NHL, and all 30 teams had a former ECHL player take the ice for at least one game.

There are two NHL head coaches (Peter Laviolette and Jim Playfair) and nine NHL assistant coaches who have an ECHL background. The ECHL was represented for the sixth consecutive year on the Stanley Cup champion in 2006 by Laviolette, who is the first ECHL coach to hoist the coveted trophy, Chad LaRose, Andrew Hutchinson and assistant athletic trainer Chris Stewart.

 

I am starting to wonder if jr is even from Canada.

 

ECHL spin. The stats are accurate but the reality is different.

Not doubting there are ECHL players who play a game or two in the NHL but take for example Yutaka Fukufuji, the guy who played a game for the Kings as basically their fourth back-up.
He's no more an NHL goalie than I am.

To put it in perspective: players who played ONE game in the NHL represent the largest group of players listed in the Hockey Encyclopedia. It's not to take anything away from their achievement but they hardly rank as NHL calibre players. Most of the make it due to injuries on the big team.

 

I have it on very good authority that, with the exception of the striptease, absolutely everything that happened in "Slap Shot" had already happened in real life. Including the fashion shows. Although, if anybody actually did yank it out while on the runway, nobody is talking.

 

And somewhere in minor league hockey, Trevor Jobe is still scoring a hat trick a game, probably. Anyhoo, the goaltending in the minors is where the big dropoff is. Horrible.