special exemption

[cowboy644]

With all the conversations about our young prospects am I the only one that thinks the AHL should have a special exemptions rule like junior hockey.

Junior hockey teams were the ones screaming and moaning about losing star players to the nhl teams farm clubs so they instituted the 20 year old rule.A player can not play for an AHL league team unless he is either 20 years of age or will turn 20 on or before December 31.These rules only apply to CHL drafted players.

If the CHL teams can have a special exemption rule for 15 year olds, ala John Tavares(who I believe the rule was made for)then I think the AHL should have the same rule.There is no way they should have a leg to stand on to stop it.

There can be some adjustments to the rule.Instead of an NHL team having to decide in 9 games whether to keep or return a player to their CHL club,force them to play them the minimum 10 and pay their NHL contract.Now they can give them X number of games to see how they are developing at the NHL level.If not ready,send them to the farm and move them up and down with injuries or not.Another requirement can be 1st round draft picks only make the elegabilty rule.Either way the NHL teams should have more say about their top picks reguarding development.Pretty simple.

[BanTSN]

If a kid is good enough for the NHL, then there's that. It's not like they're sitting there in junior biting their nails wondering if they'll ever play for the Comets or not.

[Where's Wellwood]

If a kid is good enough for the NHL, then there's that. It's not like they're sitting there in junior biting their nails wondering if they'll ever play for the Comets or not.

But every year there are players who are beyond the level of the CHL but not quite good enough for the NHL and because of their age they have to spend another year, or even two, dominating against younger, smaller opposition. This doesn't get them ready for the NHL.

They're should be some sort of clause where a player could play in the AHL before they turn 20/have 4 years of junior.

[EmilyM]

If a kid is good enough for the NHL, then there's that. It's not like they're sitting there in junior biting their nails wondering if they'll ever play for the Comets or not.

But then it doesn't make them available for call-ups.

I'm guessing Bo Horvat was circling OP's head while coming up with this thread

[Fred65]

The WHL and there for the CHL does not have an exemption rule the OHL does. But that aside You wonder how much damage can be done to Junior hockey if their best players are poached by the AHL. Maybe if the CHL was to permit another " overage " player it might over come the loss

[elvis15]

The WHL and there for the CHL does not have an exemption rule the OHL does. But that aside You wonder how much damage can be done to Junior hockey if their best players are poached by the AHL. Maybe if the CHL was to permit another " overage " player it might over come the loss

And that's the point. The OHL doesn't make a lot of money to begin with, and they'd lose the revenue generated by the top players that return to junior because they aren't quite good enough for the NHL. If the OHL loses money, then they can't be as good a development league. If they aren't as good a development league, then young players aren't as good coming out of Canada.

[avelanch]

the ahl has no rule other than being over 18 to play. it's the nhl that has the rule that all under 20 chl drafted players with less than 4 years in the chl need to go back to the CHL if they dont make the nhl. blame the nhl for it.

that being said, i'll just leave this here from the virtanen signing thread:

at best I can see the NHL entering an exemption that allows a NHL team to pay ONE junior team per season to release a single player to allow them to play in the AHL that season (if the Junior team agrees to the release). This way the Junior team still gets revenue to stay solvent, and the level of competition still doesn't drop too much (that's the reason behind the agreement, to ensure the CHL isn't sapped of all it's talent and so the junior team doesn't loose out on revenue so they can continue to develop prospects.)

and since the NHL teams would only be allowed 1 player per season (they'd have to pay twice for a single player to be released for 2 consecutive seasons)only a maximum of 30 of the 60 CHL teams would be affected each season (some teams may be affected more than once per season, but only if they agree to release the player). I'm sure they'd do a max players per team too, like 3 players per team per season.