We've all heard the argument that the lockout has a positive impact on development for prospects who would other wise be playing depth/limited minutes in the NHL this season. But what impact, if any, does it have on future draft classes (2013, 2014, and 2015 in particular) for their development as their potential minutes are being eaten up by the Sheifele and Huberdeau's of the world?

Minimal, if any.

Most eligible players are playing in the AHL, where they probably should be anyway. This has no effect on undrafted players.

Because of this, there are very few players (essentially just the under-20s) playing in Major Junior who would otherwise be playing in the NHL. The 2014 and 2015 eligible players still have year(s) of Major Junior left, and likely wouldn't be playing top line minutes regardless (being 17 and under).

There may be some 2013 guys who are seeing less minutes because of the few U20 MJ players who might otherwise be in the NHL - but most of these guys would be more depth players anyway. The high-end 2013 players will be benefiting from playing with the skilled guys like Huberdeau instead.

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12 Team H2H League - Keep 6 (+5 under 23yrs)
G / A / +/- / PIM / PPP / SHP / SOG / W / GAA / SV% / SO
C - Thornton, Tavares, Laich(L), J.Staal(L), Smith, Adam
LW - D.Sedin, Gagne, Dubinsky(C), Doan(R)
RW - Malkin(C), Perry, Hemsky, Vrbata, Read
D - Keith, Karlsson, Carlson, Girodano, Girardi, White, Larsson
G - Rinne, Varlamov, Sanford, Elliott

Setting up the play.

Well we have recent history to test this theory. How did the 2005, 2006, and 2007 draft classes fare?

2007 was a little weak.....was that because some players got lost in the shuffle as 15-16 year olds on their teams in 2004-05? At that age 90% of players aren't making an impact (or even playing) anyway, so it's hard to say.

Beyond that, I had a big long post written out that said a whole lot of nothing. The 2005 draft (the easiest to compare) had a ton of CHL players drafted, but a pretty high percent busted. But from what I've gathered, it wasn't due to NHL caliber prospects being returned and taking away ice time.

Gilbert Brule has been an NHL bust, but no high-end players were returned to his WHL team during the lockout. Same story with Benoit Pouliot. And Ryan O'Marra. And Alex Bourret. And Kenndal McArdle. Jakub Kindl and Matt Lashoff had Mike Richards return to Kitchener, but they're defensemen so that wouldn't have affected their ice time.

I didn't go through the later rounds, I skimmed over the 2nd and glanced at the 3rd, but there isn't going to be much conclusive evidence from those rounds anyway. But from what I've found, the lockout didn't have a ton of influence over the 2005 draft class, at least the 1st round.

As you get into 2006 it becomes a little harder to gauge without actually being in those towns watching those players actually play. They were 16 or 17 in 2004-05 so they most likely wouldn't have had a big role on their team anyway. But looking over 2006, the first round CHL busts (Sheppard, Sanguinetti, Wishart, Corrente) had 0 players returned to their teams in 2004-05.

So it's hard to say how much players that would normally be in the NHL returning to their CHL team affected younger players. It just doesn't look like it was all that common. But then the question becomes, was it not that common in the first round or two, because the players that were affected by it ended up dropping into the later rounds?

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20 Team Dynasty (points per) - G (25, 50 for defense) A (25) PIM (3) +/- (5) PPG (15) SHG (25) OTG (15) GWG (25) HTr (50) GP (2) HIT (1) BLK (1) Use actual NHL salary

F: Malkin, Tavares, E. Kane, Parenteau, Havlat, Tarasenko, Galchenyuk, Brunner, Boyes, Kruger, Helm, M. Martin, Bergenheim, Carcillo, Stajan

D: Green, Ehrhoff, Ekman-Larsson, Coburn, Daley, Postma

G: Fleury, Mason, Montoya

Farm: Grigorenko, Grimaldi, Kucherov, D. Shore, Hartikainen, Stransky, Kerdiles, Joensuu, Pageau, Murphy, Ceci, Klefbom, Thrower, Donovan, Ekholm, Lehner, Dansk, Poulin, Nilsson, Andersen

The first thing that stood out for me was that a lot of players will miss the chance to represent their country at the WJC because of the players returning.

This is probably the only real impact the lockout has on upcoming draft eligible players.

There are really not that many prospects who are in the CHL who would have been in the NHL, so not much impact on the future classes. Pretty much just Huberdeau, Hamilton, maybe Strome, Scheifele, maybe Grigorenko.