Source of the post It's a popular narrative, but given the steady influx of first European and then ever more US players over the last quarter century, how diluted can the talent pool really be?
Well, the Russians have taken their players back. And say what you will about them, but that's a lot of talent. The KHL has a lot of talent.
In 2000-01 there were 72 Russians/Soviets in the league, This year there's 34...there's more KHL teams now, there's money in that league...
American talent generally isn't even all that remarkable yet...it definitely helps, it's coming along for sure...Kane (finishing school in Canadian Juniors), Gaudreau, Tyler Johnson (not good enough to make World Cup team I guess, finishing school Canadian Juniors), Auston Matthews (finishing school Switzerland), etc. By and large, we have a lot of grinder players...a lot of workers...the skill is just now starting to really get going, that is skill that is really in line with the Canadians...dynamic skill sets, something the USA lacked for a while...
Even if you go back to the '98 Olympic team, who were the real "dynamic" talents: Pat Lafontaine (finishing school Canadian Juniors), Mike Modano (finishing school Canadian Juniors), Brian Leetch (US College), Jeremy Roenick (finishing school Canadian Juniors)...guys like Hull, Guerin, Tkachuk, Weight, the Hatchers...they weren't exactly poetry in motion, in same way that Max Pacioretty isn't...really good players, don't get me wrong, but Canada and Russia have all these guys that can beat anything...we're just not there yet overall...I know the American Development Model has been tweaked again, so hopefully we start to see it...they are really on the "small game" model now, lots of puck touches in a very small area, small area footwork, quick decisions, we're trying to generate one of these "hyper-speed" superstars like 87 and 97 are...
But the pro hockey community may or may not have caught up from the jump from six pro teams in 1967 to 28 (!) pro teams in 1972...noticeably, play deteriorated from the golden era of the 50's and early 60's...eventually forward skill filled out, then defensemen, then goaltending in the 90's, then coaching really in the 2000's - we play this too-fast-for-its-own-good game...the short shift game - not that short shift game didn't exist before, teams would use it to do wonky scheduling in the O6 days, train travel, etc. - but as all the positions caught up to parity (though, frankly, goaltending is probably worse, to a man, now than it was in the 1950's - however, it's more efficient now) the game and its creativity became easier to destroy than to create...
Adding another 23 players into that pool when already we have a game that has caught up to positional parity in such a way that it causes gridlock like it does is really not great for the game. And this expansion team is going to be much more competent than any we've seen since the merger I predict...scoring skyrocketed in 1993 because the Senators and Sharks were giving up 10 goals per game because the league made it so that their players could only play with one leg, goalies with one eye...the guys you claimed were like the 14th forward, the 8th d-man, 4th goalie...now you can claim legitimate 2nd/3rd line tweener talent in this thing...you can claim a legit or near-legit top-4 d-man in this thing...so scoring isn't going to go up because parity won't be deeply effected...but you are going to apply another coat of "well, I'll just skate as fast I can back towards Crosby or Malkin, then I'll tip it in at the far blueline and get off"...
LOL