When Teens Transition to the NHL

Hockey is set up much the same way, the exception being – and this is really what’s driving a lot of the misconception about “bust” picks — all drafted players are typically 18 years old. Some don’t get drafted their first year of eligibility and occasionally do get taken the following summer at age 19.

But just like baseball, they are also competing against grown men at the NHL level and that’s very tough to do for reasons both physical and mental. An 18-year-old player can have all the “hockey sense” in the universe, but their body is still not fully developed physically compared to players in their early to late 20s.

Sure, a handful of truly gifted players have entered the league at 18. Kraken president Ron Francis was one of them, stepping in with the Hartford Whalers for a 68-point season in 59 games the fall after being taken fourth overall in 1981.

But Francis played at a solid 6-foot-3, 200 pounds in an era where players weren’t as big or quick as today’s.

When I was a teenager growing up in the Montreal suburb of Laval, Quebec, our local junior team, the Voisins, featured a guy named Mario Lemieux. We used to take the bus across town to the arena next to a penitentiary, buy standing room tickets for right up at the ice level glass and watch Super Mario in action.

His draft year in 1984, Lemieux stood 6-foot-4 and weighed 230 pounds. That season, he scored 133 goals and added 149 assists in 70 games. For those who like math, that’s a four-point-per-game average.

He was a giant among boys and watching him from ice level emphasized the size part. I was standing by the glass the Monday night in March 1984 when he broke Guy Lafleur’s single-season junior goals record of 130, finishing that game with six goals and five assists against the league’s second-best team from Longueuil. It was 11-0 by the eight-minute mark of the second period and wound up a 16-4 final.

His team clinched the league title that season with a 17-1 victory over the same squad.

When you think of surefire, NHL-ready 18-year-olds, that’s a good place to start. Merely putting up 100 points in a major junior hockey season doesn’t guarantee you’ll withstand the next level.

And that’s just from a physical standpoint. Lemieux, clearly, was a gifted playmaker with hockey sense streaming out of him that was wise beyond his years.

Put that whole package together, that’s a candidate for an 18-year-old NHL debut.

Now, not every 18-year-old has to be a towering future Hall of Famer to make the NHL full-time. But it sure helps. A teenage body often must grow into a man to play into a men’s league.