The NAHL Draft Has Outlived Its Purpose The Mountain Division may have accidentally exposed a flaw in the league’s roster system

When word started circulating around the rinks that four teams from the non-sanctioned United States Premier Hockey League's NCDC were preparing to move to the North American Hockey League, there were plenty of people who were unhappy about it.

The concern wasn't simply that four new organizations were entering the league. There was so much more concern about those teams participating in the NAHL Draft that a vote ahead of the draft was postponed. They were eventually admitted after the draft took place.

Then the league approved the addition of four new organizations, joining the Pueblo Peppers in what became the NAHL's newly created Mountain Division.

Then things became even more interesting.

After the new teams and division was approved and announced, others questioned how competitive those teams could possibly be without the established recruiting and scouting infrastructure of longtime NAHL organizations.

The NAHL subsequently announced a new rule concerning players coming from non-sanctioned junior leagues in the United States. Under the new policy, players who appeared in those leagues would not be permitted to move into the NAHL during the season. The league presented the change within the larger framework of USA Hockey sanctioning and player development. Around the league, however, there was also considerable discussion about what the rule meant for the value of the NAHL's own affiliated developmental structure, particularly the NA3HL.

Then came the part that really caught my attention.

According to information circulating among league operators, the new Mountain Division organizations were able to obtain a carve-out that allowed them to bring in players from the non-sanctioned junior hockey world. The reasoning was straightforward. It would have been extraordinarily difficult for organizations coming out of the NCDC to build competitive NAHL rosters if they were prohibited from using the in-season player pool from which they had been scouting.

That created an interesting experiment.

The new teams had their players. The established teams had their players. The NAHL Showcase arrived in Blaine, Minnesota, and for the first time we got to see whether all of the concerns surrounding the new organizations would actually show up on the ice.

They didn't.

At least not in the way many people expected.

The Mountain Division teams competed.

Some won. Some lost. Some surprised people. Some had difficult games. That is junior hockey. What we did not see was a collection of teams that appeared fundamentally incapable of competing because they had somehow missed the traditional NAHL roster-building process.

There was no great competitive collapse.

There was no obvious evidence that the lack of conventional NAHL draft access had crippled these organizations.

There was, in fact, remarkably little evidence that the NAHL Draft had anything to do with their ability to compete.

And I have to admit something here. I was one of the people who believed it would matter. I was wrong.

That should lead to a much bigger conversation. What exactly is the NAHL Draft accomplishing?

The league has built an elaborate system around player selection, protected lists and draft rights. The draft is treated as an important mechanism for maintaining competitive balance and giving teams an orderly method of acquiring young players.

But the Mountain Division just provided a real-world test of that theory.

If teams can enter the league, build rosters through recruiting and player movement, and immediately compete against established organizations, why does the league need to restrict where those players can go in the first place?

I would challenge the NAHL to ask twenty of its head coaches a very simple question: Would you rather continue operating under the current tender & draft system, or would you prefer a completely unrestricted player-card system?

By unrestricted, I mean truly unrestricted.

No requirement that teams must sign players from NA3HL or NAPHL organizations. No artificial restriction on where an eligible player can pursue his next opportunity.

The system could be relatively simple.

At the end of the season, a team has a 23-player roster. Six players age out. The organization can protect the 16 players team believes they want to bring back for the next season. Team then has the ability to sign and protect up to seven additional players.

Those players become the roster.

Everyone else becomes available.

A veteran who is protected knows exactly where he stands. A veteran who isn't protected knows he needs to find another opportunity. There is no mystery and no draft board determining where his career can continue.

There would obviously be concerns.

The first would be competitive balance. Wouldn't the strongest organizations simply accumulate the best players?

That problem has a relatively straightforward solution. Teams that miss the playoffs could begin their signing process 24 hours after their final game. Teams participating in the Robertson Cup Playoffs would not begin until their seasons ended. The organizations that miss the postseason would therefore have a head start on rebuilding.

The bigger objection would probably involve camps.

If teams no longer need a draft to identify and control prospective players, how do you run a system where hundreds of players are invited to pre-draft and main camps?

My answer is simple.

Stop pretending those camps are primarily about finding 23 players.

Let teams run futures camps. Let them travel around the country looking at younger players. Let them identify the 2011s and 2012s (for next season) who might eventually become legitimate NAHL prospects.

There are far more of those players than there are 19- and 20-year-olds wandering into a main camp without a realistic understanding of their chances.

And if we're being honest, there is another issue that needs to be addressed.

Camps generate money.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that. Hockey organizations have bills to pay. Ice costs money. Coaches cost money. Travel costs money. Running a junior organization is expensive.

But if the camp system is going to remain a significant source of revenue, the league should be much more transparent about what players are actually buying.

A player who knows he is genuinely being evaluated has one experience. A player who believes he has a legitimate chance to make a team when the organization already knows exactly who it wants has another.

Transparency solves much of that problem.

The player knows where he stands. The team knows what it wants. The market determines what happens next.

The Mountain Division may have unintentionally given the NAHL the opportunity to reconsider the entire system.

The new teams were supposed to demonstrate why established roster-building mechanisms were necessary. Instead, they demonstrated that organizations can find players, recruit players and build competitive teams without relying on the draft in the traditional way.

That doesn't mean every new team will succeed. It doesn't mean unrestricted player movement would magically solve every problem in the NAHL. It doesn't mean parity ceases to matter.

It means the league now has evidence that its draft may not be nearly as indispensable as everyone assumed.

And maybe that's the most valuable thing the Mountain Division brought to the NAHL.

Not five new teams.

A very large question about whether the league should still be drafting players at all.