Detroit Hockey Now’s Nate Brown analyzes the Red Wings’ drafting tendencies over the past 3 seasons in the first 2 rounds of the draft today, kicking off a series of articles which promise to explain the “Anatomy of the Yzerplan.” Here’s his take on the second round selections:
Prospects in the first and second round of the draft according to Dobber Prospects have a 37.3% and 17.2% chance respectively of making it to the NHL. The drop off is steep from the first to second round, but it goes without saying that when 54.5% of NHL bound prospects are in the top two rounds, choosing well is crucial.
In the first round, 80% of Yzerman’s selections came from an international league. In the second round, five of the nine picks came from international rinks. Until the Hanas pick in 2020, Yzerman had almost exclusively gone international, with seven of the eight picks (87.5%) in the first and second round being from either the Finnish or Swedish leagues.
Positionally, it’s pretty split between wings and defensemen with the lone center being Niederbach in 2020. To no one’s surprise, the bulk of Detroit’s picks in the first two rounds came from the Swedish League, both professionally and in J20.
