Is the NHL a development league?

A look at one of the key questions around hockey and the evolution of how things are handled.

Skill-wise, the NHL has never been better.

Players on average are faster, stronger, have quicker hands, better shots, etc… than any generation before them.

It makes sense, players are better trained and have typically had skill-specific coaches since they were close to 10-years-old. Specific skating coaches and skills coaches, have made it easier for players to accumulate the 10,000 hours needed to be an expert on something even before they enter the NHL.

It’s made the NHL more exciting and much faster, but the same time, average Hockey IQ has never been lower.

“The hockey sense was higher when I came into the league,” Red Wings forward Patrick Kane said. “I think guys now are definitely more skilled and they can probably skate themselves out of problems or bad positioning or anything like that. But they use their physical skills to make up for mistakes, the Hockey IQ was higher, guys on average understood game better overall.”

It’s similar to the comments that Philadelphia Flyers coach John Tortorella delivered a couple weeks earlier, when his team visited Detroit.

“I think it’s the dumbness of the game,” Tortorella said. “I think it’s a league full of skill. Full of skill and speed. The game has changed, a tremendous amount of skill and speed … but there are so many more mistakes made.” 

Tortorella can be a lightning rod for controversy, but he tends to be right on this topic. It’s sentiment several others have echoed to me, usually in private or anonymously, while Tortorella simply has the chutzpah to say it out loud.

Which brings us to the key question that’s been rattling around in my head for a couple weeks now: is the NHL a development league?