Friday, June 20, 2008

2008 draft: Early and late birthdays

A few months ago I posted a link to an article about birth month in sports and how the cutoff for playing years in youth sports can over and underrate players born near the deadline. The argument is that physical development helps those born earlier in the year gain an advantage. The NHL draft deadline for each draft year is Sept. 15. A player must be 18 by that date to be drafted in that year's draft. Why that draft? Because that's the time that NHL camps start, and the league doesn't want anyone who is a minor signing contracts and playing a dangerous sport. You'll never see on-ice workouts start earlier than Sept. 15, and that's linked to the draft.

Anyway, I had a look through some draft-eligible players today and picked out the players on both sides of the magic date. It will be interesting to look back years later and see if they were in fact under or overrated.


Potentially underrated due to their late birthday

Zach Bogosian 7/15/90
Jake Gardiner 7/4/90
Daultan Leveille 8/10/90
Patrick Wiercioch 9/12/90
Andre Petersson 9/11/90
Jared Staal 8/21/90
Ilmari Pitkanen 7/18/90
Travis Hamonic 8/16/90
Marek Viedensky 8/18/90
Maxim Trunev 9/7/90
Dennis Bozic 8/2/90
Pekka Jormakka 9/14/90
Wacey Hamilton 9/10/90
Steven Spinnell 9/9/90
Michael D’Orazio 8/16/90
Colin South 8/9/90
Taylor Stefishen 8/15/90
Michael Lomas 8/16/90


Potentially overrated due to early birthday

Colin Wilson 10/20/89
Josh Bailey 10/2/89
Zac Boychuk 10/4/89
Tyler Ennis 10/6/89
Johan Motin 10/10/89
Emil Bejmo 10/10/89
Julien Demers 9/25/89
Jared Festler 10/14/89
Nicklas Lasu 9/16/89
Michael Pelech 10/6/89
Matt Delahey 9/25/89
Kory Nagy 10/12/89
Marc-Andre Bergeron 9/17/89
Zach Harnden 9/23/89
Roman Szturc 9/25/89
Petr Strapac 10/11/89
Joni Liljeblad 9/17/89
Eric Louis-Seize 10/12/89
Dustin Toharski 9/16/89
Braden Holtby 9/16/89
Jaroslav Janus 9/21/89

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