There’s a theory that American NHL teams enjoy an edge over their Canadian counterparts in attracting free agents and having few restrictions on which players will accept a trade to their teams. The well-respected Ron MacLean articulated his reasons in support of that theory in a recent piece on hometownhockey.com called The Canadian Conundrum.

MacLean’s conclusion is simple: It’s all about the draft for Canadian teams. They’re going to have to win in the draft to erase that edge in other areas of team building for the American NHL teams.