Why the NHL is Awesome

I'm a fan of every sport. And therefore, I'm involved in several fantasy leagues a year. Right now, I am in 3 different fantasy hockey leagues and throughout each draft, I noticed something. While in other fantasy sports, it wasn't such a tough decision on a first round pick after the first few selections (e.g. who wouldn't pick Chris Johnson over Rashard Mendenhall?). There's a bit of a difference in hockcey. There are a lot better players in the NHL versus the amount of better players in other sports (we'll use football for the examples). I realized that it took until the middle of the 3rd round in fantasy hockey for lesser superstar players to be picked while Roddy White is a usual 2nd round pick in most NFL drafts (with all due respect to Roddy White who IS an exceptional player. I'm referring to legit superstars). 

I've said in the past that it was fantastic for the NHL to have more stars come up into the league. Crosby and Ovechkin were fantastic players to get us back from the lockout. But right now, there are plenty of superstars to choose from. I considered it a steal in my league by drafting Pekka Rinne in the third round of my most recent draft. Pekka Rinne is legitimately in the top 3 goaltenders in the league. And it wasn't that other participants in the league were just passing over him. They were drafting excellent players of their own. 

As I'm writing this, I'm imagining the responses I'll receive. The fans of other sport leagues will just assume I'm overrating the players in my favorite sport and downgrading the players in the other ones. Hockey fans might blindly agree with what I'm saying without even thinking twice about it. All I'm asking is that you take a second to think about this. The 2005 lockout was so destructible to the NHL and it's truly unbelievable to what we've accomplished just 6 seasons later. Now go through just a few teams in the NHL and think of their top 3 players. Like for the Devils you'd have Zach Parise, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Martin Brodeur. The Rangers you'd have Brad Richards, Marian Gaborik, and Henrik Lundqvist. Now do the same for a few teams in the NFL. You'll realize the difference in star power.

Now I'm not trying to brag about how hockey is better. I'm just trying to reiterate the point that the NHL bounced back very strongly from their 2005 break. It came from a sport that's ignored almost completely to a sport that any given game you'll see an amazing goal, save, or hit (but still ignored by ESPN). This drastic change isn't just gonna stop. In a few years, I'm hopeful that my 3rd round draft pick will be even better than my 1st round draft pick of this year.

Keep growing NHL.