A Country for Old Men
The percentage of young players in top 20 European hockey leagues dropped in 2013-14, when compared to the last season – a study conducted by Polish hockey website Hokej.Net has found.
It is a second installment of Hokej.Net's
report on the importance of prospects in European hockey leagues. Eurohockey.com
reported on the first's findings last year. With the same 20
leagues being taken into account this time, the objective of the study was to
find out whether the percentage of youngsters (U20 players) in European leagues
changed in 2013-14 in comparison to 2012-13 and how it looks like in particular
leagues.
Numbers compiled show a significant decline of
young players' number when compared to last year's study. While there was an
average close to 52 juniors per league in 2012-13, this rate dropped to 44,4
juniors in 2013-14 (goaltenders were excluded from the research). Swedish SHL
goes on top of this category with 95 players, while Danish Metalligaen took
quite distant second place with 73 and last year's leader, Latvian league is
third with 71. Yet again it shows us that Swedish excellent youth system time
and time again produces players who are ready to take their spots in the
professional league. No wonder why Sweden continues to gain so many World
Juniors medals and delivers more NHL draftees than any other European country
on a yearly basis.
Last year we, at Hokej.Net pointed out in our
report that result of Latvian league is at least a touch inflated by the fact
that top Latvian clubs, namely Dinamo Riga and Liepajas Metalurgs happened to
play in other leagues, what turned national competition into a development
league for youngsters. This year, partially due to Metalurgs' folding,
aforementioned effect is not so strong, yet still visible because of the
presence of Dinamo Juniors Riga team, consisting mainly very young players.
While 73 juniors playing in the Latvian league
is the third biggest number nominally, youngsters make up for nearly 34 % of
all players in the league and it's the highest rate of all analysed national
competitions. Again, top 3 comprise Metalligaen (29.7 %) as well as SHL (24.7
%). If you add that Norwegian GET-Ligaen is placed 5th (with Eredivisie being
4th), it's quite easy to spot a hockey kind of „scandinavian model” in which
youngsters take so many squad places in national leagues from older players.
Apart from SHL top European leagues doesn't
seem to be good places for young players to blossom. All national competitions
from the so called „Top 7” (or maybe Top 8 now when you add EBEL), bar Swedish
league possess lower than average percentage of young players playing in them.
Arguably the most alarming numbers came from the KHL. Admittedly, 63 juniors
playing in the league in 2013-14 is quite impressive stat, but taking into
account KHL's „size”, it means that only 6.67 % of all league's players are
juniors. Of course, many youngsters have a chance to play in MHL, but level of
two leagues is absolutely incomparable.
The lowest percentage of all leagues belongs to
the EIHL, in which juniors make up for 5.67 % of all players. However, when
they play, they play much – Hokej.Net's study shows. Just like a year ago, the
EIHL is placed on top when it comes to average number of games per junior with
a very good score of 24.89. Quite curiously leagues with a relatively high
percentage of juniors don't tend to be the ones with young players playing most
games. With the exception of Metalligaen (second place with 23.87 games per
junior) and – to the lesser extent – GET-Ligaen, all leagues placed on top in
„percentage of juniors” category, get lower than average scores in „games per
junior” category.
But it probably shouldn't be treated as a
paradox, because obviously not all young players who play in senior leagues are
supertalents who take competitions by storm. There are also many, who are
hockey equivalent of football's „squad players”. By this you have to comprehend
young players who are not ready to make their impact felt yet, albeit useful to
fill holes in squads, caused by injuries or suspensions. They are not expected
to play many games, thus consequently, their personal number of games lower an
average score of their leagues.
And the more juniors you have in a league, the
more are only „squad fillers”, at least at this early stage of their careers.
For example - while there were 95 juniors playing in the SHL last year, 15 of
them played in only one game. And SHL's juniors average of 17.01, just below an
average score of all analysed leagues, shows it. Then again, it's still better
than the results of KHL, DEL, EBEL and NLA, which comes at the bottom in this
category with young players playing an average of 11.8 games per season in the
Swiss top league.
Hokej.Net's study shows also the importance of
young players for their teams in particular leagues. We analysed the number of
points accumulated by U20 players in 2013-14 season. European average has
dropped significantly since the last season (from 174 to 121.05) and once again
Latvian league is placed on top with an aggregate score of 480 points. Then
comes „Nordic coalition” with SHL placed second (280 points), Finnish Liiga
third (240) and Metalligaen fourth (221). While KHL's score boosted by a quite
high nominal number of juniors and number of games played in the league is
above average (146 points), juniors scoring stats may be a reason for concern
for some of other top European leagues. Juniors contributed only 77 points in
the NLA, 27 in the DEL and 26 in the EBEL, which is the worst result of all
leagues, bar Ukrainian league with an alarming 11 points aggregated by only 8
juniors playing in the national competition.
League |
Number of
juniors |
Percentage of
juniors |
Latvia |
71 |
33.81 |
Denmark |
73 |
29.67 |
Sweden |
95 |
24.68 |
Netherlands |
41 |
23.43 |
Norway |
54 |
19.64 |
Italy |
36 |
18.09 |
Average |
44,4 |
14.8 |
France |
48 |
14,68 |
Kazakhstan |
54 |
14.21 |
Hungary |
28 |
13.73 |
Slovakia |
43 |
12.68 |
Switzerland |
47 |
12.53 |
Poland |
31 |
11.74 |
Belarus |
35 |
10.89 |
Finland |
46 |
10.29 |
EBEL |
34 |
10.06 |
Czech Republic |
43 |
9.64 |
Germany |
25 |
7.16 |
Ukraine |
8 |
6.72 |
KHL |
63 |
6.67 |
Great Britain |
13 |
5.63 |
League |
Games per junior |
Great Britain |
27.38 |
Denmark |
22.88 |
Slovakia |
19.79 |
Belarus |
19.71 |
Poland |
19.3 |
Italy |
19.28 |
Kazakhstan |
18.91 |
Norway |
18.44 |
Finland |
18.11 |
Average |
17.27 |
Sweden |
17.01 |
Latvia |
16.41 |
Hungary |
16.25 |
Czech Republic |
16 |
Netherlands |
15.95 |
KHL |
15.76 |
Ukraine |
15.5 |
Germany |
12.64 |
EBEL |
12.18 |
France |
12.17 |
Switzerland |
11.81 |
League |
Points |
Latvia |
405 |
Sweden |
280 |
Finland |
240 |
Denmark |
221 |
Slovakia |
161 |
Netherlands |
161 |
KHL |
146 |
Kazakhstan |
134 |
Average |
121.05 |
Belarus |
104 |
Poland |
104 |
Norway |
98 |
Switzerland |
77 |
Czech Republic |
70 |
Italy |
45 |
Hungary |
44 |
France |
40 |
Germany |
27 |
Great Britain |
27 |
EBEL |
26 |
Ukraine |
11 |
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