Issue 1: By now, it’s conventional wisdom among scouts. Elite goaltenders among NHL prospects are scarce and growing scarcer than ever in the CHL ranks.
We’ve seen it play out at the world juniors in recent years. Painfully.
It’s also borne out by the latest projections from NHL Central Scouting Service: Out of the three CHL leagues, the only goalies designated as A prospects are Barrie’s MacKenzie Blackwood and Quebec’s Callum Booth.
Central Scouting defines an A-lister as a “first-round candidate.” According to scouts I spoke to this week, NHLCSS might be generous in its ranking of both players here.
“I see them as second-round picks, mid- to late-second-rounders,” one scout for an Eastern Conference team said. “It would have to be a team with multiple first- and second-round picks.”
The symptoms are even more conspicuous as you go down the list. According to NHLCSS, only two goaltenders in the three leagues land on the B list, or players projected as candidates for the second and third round.
There are a few mitigating factors here, though—ones that really soften the stock and rankings of draft-eligible goaltenders. First and foremost, the fact that major-junior franchises lean on over-agers (OAs) in net. To a degree, that’s understandable—of all over-age players, goaltenders are the most likely to welcome a year back in junior. Most of them are likely to see a logjam of talent in the AHL that would exile them to an East Coast League tryout or worse.
If you’re a goalie, it’s hard to work your way onto or up the NHLCSS list if you are a backup or if you didn’t make the roster in your first year of eligibility. Then you’re left in the wake by prospects at other positions and your development is stymied. A mandated number of starts for back-ups might address this issue—I’m not sure what the legislation would look like but it’s a conversation that has to start when the CHL power-brokers gather next. It’s been going like this for too long.
Issue 2: A lot of people were left scratching their heads when Hockey Canada decided to go with three select teams at the U-17 Challenge instead of five regional teams as has been the case in the past. The rationale was that three select teams would be more competitive against the heavyweight U.S. under-17s from Ann Arbor, a group that has the benefit of playing together for months in advance of the tournament.
The results for Canada were hugely disappointing. Russia beat the U.S. in the final and Sweden beat Finland in the bronze-medal game.
I’m not saying that the five-regional-team strategy of the past would have created a different result—you have to respect those who won. But the idea that 40 fewer kids got exposure to high-level hockey is tough to swallow. Likewise for the six other qualified coaches who will have to wait for their turns until next year, or even the year after that.
The U-17 tournament is designed to identify not only talent on the ice but talent off it as well. So then, looking back at the first issue again, there are now four goaltenders who are probably cooling their heels (or playing very sparingly) behind OAs in the CHL, who previously missed out on a chance to play in what would likely be the biggest starts of their seasons at the U-17 Challenge.
“Forty kids didn’t go [because of the three-team format] and at least five or six surprises would be in there… kids who would play themselves onto Hockey Canada’s radar,” one NHL scouting director said.
I know people will chime in and say Team Atlantic would be bound to struggle, and Teams Quebec and West would be at a disadvantage versus Team Ontario and Team Pacific—some programs are by reason of population a big step behind. But under-17s are supposed to be about development and identifying talent. If not, then it’s about winning the gold medal, and one team could get the job done.