Detroit Hockey Now’s Nate Brown examined the Red Wings’ 1st and 2nd round draft tendencies under GM Steve Yzerman, and, this morning, Brown continues his analysis of the “Yzerplan” by viewing the Wings’ 3rd through 7th round picks over the past three seasons:
The [Moritz] Seider pick set the tone for the Yzerman era as he’s chosen defensemen nearly 38% of the time. Left wings follow with a quarter of the 40 selections. Both Seider and [Lucas] Raymond are in the NHL, and seem like shoe-ins to blow past the aforementioned 99 games at the NHL level.
Of those 40 picks, where did they choose from? The results really shouldn’t be surprising. (Note, I folded in the SHL J20 selections into the SHL category simply because they’re likely feeding into the SHL parent club.
Interestingly, the SHL and USHL make up more than half of the Red Wings picks during that four-year time frame. The Canadian Hockey League, if brought together, make up eight of those selections. Cumulatively, the CHL, USHL, and SHL make up nearly 75% of the Red Wings draft over the last four seasons.
The main takeaway here is that while it feels like the Red Wings are certainly targeting more players from the SHL, it’s actually quite close when factoring in prospects from both the USHL and CHL. Make no mistake, however, that the strong returns already from Seider, Raymond, Soderblom, Edvinsson and Johansson certainly makes a strong point.
Simply put: the Swedish League produces talent.
Continued with some really solid round-by-round analysis…
