Cameron Hubscher, Nick Wattie

considerable resources are used to identify and develop athletes to reach the National Hockey League (NHL) (Farah & Baker, 2021). Within certain athlete development models, there is evidence that development can be non-linear, suggesting there are multiple pathways to elite sport (J. Gulbin et al., 2013). However, by definition, generalized models lack specificity, limiting their ecological validity and usefulness for understanding athlete development in specific sports (McCue et al., 2019). The purpose of this study was to explore and quantify developmental pathways to the NHL. Pathway data beginning the season prior to being eligible for the NHL draft and ending 8 seasons after being draft eligible was collected for 2765 players from the 2005 to 2017 NHL drafts via eliteprospects.com. Player pathways were created based on 6 league types and their quality: minor hockey (M), junior (J1-2), college (C1-2), USports (U), international (I), professional (P1-4), and retired (R). This resulted in 497 unique pathways with a total of 528 players representing 55 unique pathways that ended in the NHL. There was a statistically significant relationship between pathway complexity (i.e., number of unique pathway steps) and draft round (F (6, 521) = 15.71, p < .001), with gradual increases in the average number of pathway steps as draft rounds increased. Understanding how different leagues and pathways influence development trajectories and career success may help inform identification and selection practices.