Are True Rookies Going Extinct?

Over the last few months I noticed what I thought was somewhat of a trend within the SHL. To me it seemd like fewer and fewer draftees stayed up with the SHL team that drafted them after their junior season. I remembered that when I joined the league there were lots of those so called "true rookies" and deep into the teen years of the league, the top-picks and often lots of the later picks as well decided to enter the SHL right away. I wasn't sure though if this was just my subjective impression or if it was actually the case, so I decided to look into the numbers a bit and anaylze the developments over the last few seasons, starting with Season 19. I thought the results were pretty interesting so I would like to share them with you!

For each season I determind the number of players who didn't get send down again after they were drafted and I list those players in this article as well. I did not count players who were left on their teams roster but didn't actually play as well as inactives who only served as filler. If I missed anyone who is active then let me know. Since draft classes can vary in size and quality I decided to also take into account the percentage of true rookies among players in their draft class, so this number is included in this analysis as well. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Season 19: 9 Players

Ryan Sullivan, Zallerras Szlercheck, Jonathan Kane, Dymo Ranjan, Aboud Chamas, Nate Mercer, Connor LeMeul II, Tyler Hartman, Kayl Kuzie

In a relatively weak draft class where hardly anyone after the first fifteen picks panned out we still saw nine draftees stay up with the big club which is a pretty respectable number. It's interesting to note that of these nine players almost half (Mercer, LeMeul, Hartman, Kuzie) were second rounders that never amounted to much in the SHL, yet still showed enough as a rookie to earn a spot on the roster for their post-draft season. This was actually pretty common in earlier seasons too, but S19 seemed to mark the last time this happened.

Percentage: 25% (9/36)

Season 20: 17 Players

Bojo Biscuit, Benjamin Reid, Friedrich Müller, Niklas Wikstrom, Nathan Russell, Sam Samsinov, Sachimo Zoidberg, Jed Lloren, Pedro Sarantez, Valtteri Bottas, Dean Colt, Aviad Ratzon, Le Scucker, Jed Hackert, Alexander Kjaerberg, Jakob Tanner (backup), Kari Kekkonen

Of course the Season 20 Draft was the famed "Super Draft" so the numbers are somewhat inflated, never since the very early stages of its existence did the league see so many draftees in one class and therefore the number of players staying up was higher than usual as well. Seventeen "true rookies" in a season is a magnificient number for sure, but the percentage of players staying up actually dropped compared to the previous season, with only 22,4% of the players in a class staying up compared to 25% in the year before.

Percentage: 22,4% (17/76)

Season 21: 7 Players

Tommy Creller, Alonzo Garbanzo, Hunter Wong (backup), Theo Kane, Rider Clitsome, Marek Martinek, Yoezer Ben-Zercharia (24 games)

Unsurprisingly the total number of true rookies took a big drop in the draft that had to follow the super draft, only seven players stayed up with their SHL-teams and of these seven, two only did so in a rather limited role. Season 21 was a relatively weak draft class though with only 37 players picked in the entire draft and lots of busts in round two already, so the drop in the percentage wasn't nearly as steep, yet still noticeable. Interestingly enough the first six picks in the draft all stayed up but only one of the players picked afterwards did and he (Yoezer Ben-Zercharia) only played 24 games in the SHL that season.

Percentage: 18,9% (7/37)

Season 22: 6 Players

Mariusz Kwik, Pierre-Luc Laflamme, Chernika Banananov, Trill (17 games), Moosejaw Boudreau, Danny Sexbang

The total number of players who stayed up after the draft dropped again in Season 22, although by only one player. The S22 Draft had only slightly more players than the S21 one, but this time the depth was much better with quality players being picked until the third round. So both the absolute number and the percentage of players staying up took a dip for the second consecutive year, and that was in a draft that was actually stronger than it might look at first.

Percentage: 15% (6/40)

Season 23: 1 Player

Viktor Svensson

And then we have Season 23... The season where the whole "rookies staying up with their SHL-team after being drafted" thing seemed to die out completely. Only one player out of thirty-five drafted dared to test himself against the veterans of the SHL as a true rookie, second overall selection Viktor Svensson. All the other rookies, including almost all of the top-picks, decided to play a second season in juniors, a phenomenon never before seen in the SHL.

Percentage: 2,9% (1/35)

Season 24: 0 Players

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If you think things couldn't become any more extreme after Season 23 then, well, surprise! In our current season, S24, not a single true rookie is currently playing in the SHL! Every single player of the Season 24 class, be it big name recreates such as Beau Ballard and Chris McZehrl or highly touted first generationers such as Randy Randleman and Damien Wert, were sent back down to the SMJHL for more seasoning. In a league where true rookies once put up 40 or more points in their first year in the league, we seemed to have reached the point where nobody wants to enter the SHL right after being drafted anymore.

Percentage: 0% (0/39)

A quick look into the future

Now obviously the last two seasons could have been an anomaly and I actually think it is unlikely that we will see another season without a single true rookie anytime soon. With Robb Wind and Evandrus Jesster the SHL seems to have their own version of McDavid and Eichel in the upcoming Season 25 Entry Draft, two players with such high TPE-counts already that they should be ineligible for the SMJHL next season unless they decide to abstain from earning TPE soon in order to stay under the cap. With the recent changes that allow players who created after the deadline to not enter the draft until next year, we might see more players who are basically forced to play in the SHL right away due to the cap and their TPE-counts being higher than those of previous rookies. And who knows, maybe the GMs decide to keep up some more players next year even if they don't have to...

There still is an obvious trend though.. Over the last five season both the total number and the percentage of players who stayed up in the SHL with the team that picked them has fallen dramatically, from up to 25% of a class or 17 players in total to no players at all. While I expect the numbers to see a slight rise again over the next few seasons, we will most likely never get back to the amount of true rookies we had in the past.

Now the question is: Is this a good thing or does it potentially show us some problems that the league might have? Is this something we should analyze further and where we maybe should look into possible ways to integrate more young players into SHL-rosters, or is this nothing the league should get involved with? What do you guys think, both rookies and veteran members? And directed at the GMs, especially those that have held the position for a while: What is it that led to you changing your approach towards true rookies? Are they not good enough anymore because of the higher depth within rosters/TPE-inflation? Do they have a deeper connection to their SMJHL-teams than rookies of earlier seasons which led to them wanting to stay down out of loyalty? Or is it something completely different?