Where young talents grow

Almost all European Federation have special rules to endorse young players and give them room inside rosters. But if teams have the obligation to allign U20 players in the roster, is this really means that young players carve out a niche and play an important role? Based on the excellent research conducted by Jarosław Grabowski from Hokej.net, we tried to understand the importance of young hockey players in various European leagues, analyzing the statistics from the last season in the top 20 leagues in Europe in terms of the number of young players on the ice and their impact on the results, analyzing the number of points scored. We considered the player included in the U20 category, born in 1993 and later.

While the global average is almost 52 junior players aligned, the absolute leader in this category is the Latvian Virsliga with 142 U20 players. After Dinamo Riga has joined the KHL and Liepaja Metalurgs played in last years in the Belarusian League, Virsliga became a place for the development of young hockey players that in some clubs representing the vast majority or the entire roster as the case of SK Riga 96. Behind the Latvian League, nevertheless a singular event, two important leagues: Swedish Elitserien and Slovakian Extraliga, whose output is slightly inflated by the fact that U20 National team compete in the regular season, necessarily issuing only players from the age group of our interest. At the bottom of standing German DEL, Great Britain's EIHL and the Polish League with just 15 players in the junior age. This number is not due to lack of confidence to young players by the coaches, but rather the weakness of the organization and finances of clubs. The scenario is even worse if you consider that seven of these 15 juniors played for Zaglebie Sosnowiec, a team on the verge of bankruptcy and three for KS Toruń, who withdrawn during the season. If it were not problems in these clubs, the percentage of teenage players in the Polish league competition would be even more modest. And so the result of our league is, however, worse than those recorded in the Ukraine, and Hungary - countries where commonly complain that there is no young players ready to replace the veterans or British EIHL, a league mostly dependent of imports from North America.

Ranking	League	Number of U20 players in the rosters
1	Virsliga	142
2	Elitserien	96
3	Extraliga	88
4	Al-Bank Ligaen	68
5	Belarus Open League	59
6	SM-Liiga	58
6	Kazakhstan Vyschaya Liga	58
8	Get-Ligaen	56
9	Serie A	49
9	Magnus Ligue	49
11	KHL	46
12	NLA	44
13	EBEL	40
14	MOL Liga	39
15	PHL	32
16	Eredivisie	31
17	Extraliga	28
18	DEL	20
19	EIHL	19
20	Polska Liga Hokejowa	15

In terms of the percentage of young players among all the players aligned in the competitions, the European average is 16.69%. and of course Latvian Virsliga stands out, with almost half of the players juniors, Denmark, Sweden and Norway come after: the Danish Al-Bank Ligaen has almost 30% of U20 players, 25% in Elitserien, the European league from where comes the highest number of European players drafted in the NHL in last seven years. In this category, three top league stayed at the bottom: DEL, Czech Extraliga and the KHL, where young players constitute only a little over 5% of all hockey players. This percentage must consider that a lot of young players from Russia playing overseas in competitive and attractive North American junior leagues, and that Russian Federation created and invest a lot in MHL,  exactly a junior league where are concentrated most of U20 players. Poland is just before these leagues: “Denmark has much more imports in the league then Poland because import limits are more permissive and Danish have four times more junior players then us” analyzes Jarosław Grabowski.

Ranking	League	% of U20 players in the rosters
1	Virsliga	47,18
2	Al-Bank Ligaen	29,18
3	Elitserien	25,6
4	Get-Ligaen	20,59
5	Extraliga	20,42
6	Eredivisie	20,36
7	Serie A	20,08
8	MOL Liga	18,57
9	PHL	18,39
10	Magnus Ligue	15,86
11	Belarus Open League	15,61
12	Kazakhstan Vyschaya Liga	15,03
13	SM-Liiga	12,42
14	NLA	11,37
15	EBEL	10,09
16	EIHL	8,03
17	Polska Liga Hokejowa	7,04
18	DEL	5,83
19	Extraliga	5,77
20	KHL	5,29

Finally, examining the importance of young hockey players in European leagues, we took into account the number of points registered (goals and assists). The absolute record again belong to the Latvian League, where youngsters have collected 1 041 points, which is almost three times better result than the runner-up, the Finnish SM-Liiga. However it’s worth to consider that Virsliga has virtually no imports and it’s specifically devoted and focused on the development of young players, which is hard to imagine in all the Top Leagues, where the pressure to achieve results is incomparably greater. Denmark, Slovakia (the percentage again overestimated by U20 National team presence), and Sweden following. The European average in this category totalize 174 points throughout the season. DEL, with 25 points scored by U20 players, is the last one: young players haven’t an important role in the DEL.

Poland is one position better the DEL: “Few Polish young players has chances of getting into the league, and when happened, they have so few icetime that it’s impossible to collect many points". says Grabowski. DEL and Polish League were the only analyzed leagues where no junior player reached double-digit points. The most effective in Poland was Kacper Guzik, which recorded 9 points (3 goals and one assists with GKS Katowice and 2 goals and 3 assists after the transfer to GKS Tychy in December), while Düsseldorfer EG Daniel Fischbuch is the U20 "Top-Scorer" in DEL with just 5 points(3 goals, 2 assists), in a world where 18-year-old Alexander Barkov scores 48 points in the Finnish league, and Skellefteå, the club champion of Sweden, wins the title with thirteen players born in the 90s in the roster.

“How the issue of young players playing in Polish League is regulated is somewhat detached from reality, sometimes I hear the comment: "young, talented" in relation to 26-year-olds player. If clubs are not too much interested in the development of young hockey players and coaches do not want to give them a chance, maybe forcing them through a clear rule decided by the Federation is a good idea, but as the report shows, the existing rules have been completely ineffective. For the new season Polish Ice Hockey Federation, after talks with clubs, proposes reducing the limit to 21 years to mandatory register in the game sheet (now is 23).” stressed Grabowski.

Ranking	League	Points recorded by U20 players	U20 Top Scorer (Club)	Points (G+A)
1	Virsliga	1.041	Kirils Galoha (SK Riga 96)	36 (11+25)
2	SM-Liiga	366	Aleksander Barkov (Tappara)	48 (21+27)
3	AL-Bank Ligaen	249	Jonas Sass (Herlev)	27 (11+16)
4	Extraliga	239	Mario Lunter (HC Banska Bystrica)	24 (9+15)
5	Elitserien	211	Elias Lindholm (Brynäs)	30 (11+19)
6	Belarus Open League	203	Arturs Kuzmenkovs (Metalurgs Liepaja)	35 (12+23)
7	GET-Ligaen	175	Erik de la Rose (Lillehammer)	26 (10+16)
8	Kazakhstan Vyschaya Liga	150	Semyon Koshelev (Kazzinc-Torpedo-2)	28 (12+16)
9	MOL Liga	136	Daniel Tranca (SC Miercurea Ciuc)	23 (10+13)
10	KHL	110	Nail Yakupov (Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk)	18 (9+9)
11	Serie A	103	Martin Castlunger (Fassa)	21 (9+12)
12	Eredivisie	85	Tom Marx (Eindhoven Kemphanen)	16 (6+10)
13	NLA	81	Lino Martschini (EV Zug)	30 (17+13)
14	PHL	76	Evgeny Nikiforov (Donbass Donets'k-2)	13 (8+5)
15	Magnus Ligue	60	Joris Bedin (Grenoble BDL)	9 (2+7)
16	EBEL	52	Petr Beranek (Orli Znojmo)	20 (7+13)
17	Extraliga	51	Tomas Hertl (HC Slavia Praha)	30 (18+12)
18	EIHL	39	James Griffin (Coventry Blaze)	13 (4+9)
19	Polska Liga Hokejowa	28	Kacper Guzik (Katowice/Tychy)	9 (5+4)
20	DEL	25	Daniel Fischbuch (Düsseldorfer E)	5 (3+2)

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