It seems like this overage/Euro debate comes up every year but there obviously hasn't been any serious appetite for change at the CHL level in the recent past or else it would have happened by now. Is there serious appetite for change today? I don't know....I know a number of G.M.'s around the WHL and OHL have expressed a desire to change the import numbers down to one. I haven't heard any serious interest anywhere in making changes to the number of overagers allowed.
Thing is, it's not enough for the WHL to decide it wants to use, say, four O/As and one import (which I think would be a good idea, BTW). The OHL and QMJHL need to sign off on that change too, so you all can imagine the headache required to make a change of this magnitude.
I thought Euros were a good thing at one time, back when there were good ones coming over. Any time you can add some high-skill players to your league, it raises the overall calibre of your product and the North American kids in the league benefit too from playing with and against better quality players. But the calibre of the average import in the WHL today has fallen so far from where it was 10 years ago that you really have to wonder why many WHL teams even bother having some of these duds taking up roster space anymore.
This past season in the WHL, there were TWO imports in the top 100 scorers in the league. Milan Kytnar of Saskatoon was 43rd with 64 points, and Bostjan Golicic of Calgary was 73rd with 56 points. Think about that for a minute: TWO out of 100, and none in the top 40.
Now, I know points aren't the be-all and end-all of player quality and I'm sure there were some good import defencemen and goaltenders in the WHL this year too: Sbisa, Niemi, Ulmer, Kundratek, Metsola, etc. But the point is still that the quality of imports in the league has fallen off quite a bit. No longer does everyone have two Euros playing in their top six forwards and top four defencemen. Now the best Euros stay home and play for money and WHL teams are just as likely or even more likely to have imports playing average depth roles as they are to be playing impact roles. Unless that changes, I think we're better off letting North American kids play those roles rather than Europeans.
So, why not drop the allowed number of imports down to one, and offset their loss (not much of a "loss" in many cases) by allowing four overagers per team instead of three? To those who say there aren't enough good overagers as it is right now, I say phooey on that - there are dozens of good 20 year olds playing Jr A and if WHL clubs were allowed to use more of them, then some of those kids might get more attention. Any WHL club that can't find a 20 year old Jr A forward to be a 3rd line role player instead of using an import 3rd line role player just isn't looking hard enough for them.
2 comments:
We've talked about that very idea on the show a few times and pitched it to a selection of WHL team GMs as well as Ron Robison. Everyone seemed to agree it was a good idea.
BUt it wasn't mine so I can't take any credit for it; Millard came up with that one months ago.
Alan, I completely support your position on this. It is long overdue. I would be prepared to bet that the extra 22 Canadian kids playing if we were down to one euro would yield good results. I am sure you would likely find more than one in the top 100 scorers!
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