A Mistake With Junior Aged NHLers

In order to win big in today?s salary capped NHL it is necessary to have key players who play at a level to far exceed the price of their contracts.  One common way to do this is with star players on entry level contracts.  Recent examples of Stanley Cup winning stars who far exceeded the cost in their entry level contracts are Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane and Evgeni Malkin.  Thus it is valuable to keep players on entry level deals from making their NHL debuts before they are NHL ready if they are still teenagers.  Teenaged players on entry level deals have the start dates on their entry level deals slide a year if they remain in junior.

Further a player becomes an unrestricted free agent at age 27 or seven years into their NHL career.  If they enter the NHL at age 18, this happens at age 25.  Thus it is in the best interests of teams to keep players on entry level deals out of the NHL when they are still junior aged unless they are 100% sure the player is NHL ready.  Even if the player is NHL ready, it can make sense to keep the player in junior.  In an extreme case, I argued that it would be reasonable if Edmonton sent Ryan Nugent-Hopkins back to junior.

Source: http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/psh/comments/a_mistake_with_junior_aged_nhlers/

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