Quote:
Originally Posted by JHikka
It's not just the Marlies...The AHL as a whole has slowly transitioned from being a B league to being a U25 league. It's good to see for development. When Saint John won the Calder in 2001 it was mostly washed up older guys who had no shot of playing at the NHL level.
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The original Manitoba Moose were definitely weighted toward older players and had a focus on winning vs. player development (although they were pretty good with the latter, a lot of players from the Canucks' most recent glory years spent time in Winnipeg). The rationale was that fans in Winnipeg wanted to see a competitive team so it wouldn't be enough just to have a bunch of prospects getting it handed to them every night. These days, not surprisingly, it's all about player development with a much younger team than before.
I wonder if there are still any of those more independent-type AHL teams that bring on a lot of veterans in an attempt to run up the Ws?
And oh yeah, congrats to the Marlies... what a season for them.