Two weeks ago, The Hockey News’ Adam Kierszenblat wrote an interesting story about how the Vancouver Canucks have yet to have drafted a QMJHL player since the 2015 NHL Draft.
From this absurd realization, spun a couple of weeks of sporadic data collecting has now led to this — a perhaps unnecessarily in-depth look at which teams are positively biased toward or against taking QMJHL talent in the NHL draft.
I felt that this was important to look at for two reasons.
Firstly, there’s been an increasing trend of Maritime or Quebec born players who have decided to forego the QMJHL entirely, opting to go the NCAA route.
This list includes the likes of eventual NHL first rounders Alex Newhook (Montreal, Drafted by Colorado), Shane Bowers (Drafted by Ottawa), and more recently Carolina’s Bradly Nadeau and Chicago‘s Sacha Boisvert.
Not to mention, just this year, the QMJHL has seen three of its first round talents — two of which who were taken in the top 10 — commit to college in Victoriaville’s pick Enzo Lottin (7th overall) and Saint John’s pick Tynan Lawrence (10th overall).
Read more here:
Related: REVIEW: The 2024 QMJHL Draft, Two Months Later
Secondly, there’s this notion that has appeared in online scouting circles lately that the QMJHL is the lesser of the three CHL leagues.
There’s also claims from Jack Han, former player development analyst for the Toronto Maple Leafs, that the physical development of QMJHL and Quebec raised talent is stunted due to poor coaching.
A few other thoughts after you’ve read the breakdown:
1) The underlying issue is coaching. MANY Quebec-developed offensive players have the same problems, and it is never really addressed in minor hockey, Midget AAA or QMJHL. Then they get to the pro level and get exposed.
— Jack Han (@JhanHky) February 1, 2023
This negative slant against the league is present not only in scouting discourse but also shown in public data model’s such as Patrick Bacon’s — used by Twitter analytics guy and EPRinkside’s JFresh — equates one point in the QMJHL to .113 NHL points, compared to .141 for the WHL and .144 for the OHL.
#LetsGoFlyers select Spencer Gill 59th overall. I ranked him 66th overall.
Top remaining forwards:
1. Mac Swanson (21st)
2. Brodie Ziemer (31st)
3. Justin Poirier (35th)Top remaining defensemen:
1. Henry Mews (24th)
2. Timur Kol (30th)
3. Luca Marrelli (34th) pic.twitter.com/uOFPyNBKka— Patrick Bacon (@TopDownHockey) June 29, 2024
This reflection has already seemed to present itself in team’s draft…