Teams have eyes everywhere and it’s hard for players to fly under the radar. But every once in a while, a player comes out of nowhere to surprise rival teams and scouts with a long and productive career.

This piece in our draft analysis series will highlight which teams have best-identified players in the later rounds of the draft. Players taken in Rounds 3-7 enter the NHL with much less fanfare and sometimes don’t even travel to the draft to avoid disappointment. But once the pick is in these players begin working toward the same goal as prospects taken ahead of them: Cracking the big league roster and making an impact.

From 2010-2019, there were 1,312 skaters selected in Rounds 3-7 but only 137 have reached the 200-game mark to date. That’s just 10.44 per cent, compared to the nearly 50 per cent of first and second-round picks who hit that milestone in the same timeframe.

Here is a look at how each team stacks up in finding late-round gems.

Tier 1: Above 20%

The Blue Jackets lead the way but as you can see, even the best team has hit on less than a quarter of their late-round picks. Columbus’s biggest success in this group is all-star winger Oliver Bjorkstrand (third-round, 2013), who has 338 points in 545 career games. He notched 20 goals and a career-high 59 points with Seattle last season.

Tier 2: Above 15%

The Kings finished last in the early-round rankings but jump all the way up to No. 2 here. They have had some success on the blue line in the later rounds, including landing Matt Roy in the seventh round and Drew Doughty’s partner Mikey Anderson in the fourth.

The Penguins and Lightning both found some star scorers in the later rounds that made big contributions to Stanley Cup wins. Pittsburgh landed Jake Guentzel and Bryan Rust with third-round picks but not many teams can top the Lightning using third-round picks on Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli in back-to-back years.

Tier 3: Above 12%

The Panthers and Maple Leafs accumulated a lot of draft picks during this period and made the most of them, each graduating seven players to the league full-time. Toronto’s gems are mostly players slotted into the bottom of the lineup to help under a tight cap, such as Pierre Engvall, Connor Brown and Andreas Johnsson. But Florida’s group includes some bigger stars such as 50-goal man Zach Hyman in the fifth round and top-pair defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the seventh.

The Hurricanes built one of the league’s deepest blue lines with a pair of late-round picks in Jaccob Slavin (fourth round) and Brett Pesce (third round). Slavin is a two-time winner of the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct, with just 86 penalty minutes in his nine-year career.

Half of Edmonton’s success can be pinpointed to the 2015 draft when, after taking Connor McDavid at No. 1, they waited until the fourth round to make their next selection. That was defenceman Caleb Jones, followed by Ethan Bear in the fifth and John Marino in the sixth.

The Senators, Flames and Blues all didn’t make many picks during this window but they each landed one star. The Blues grabbed Colton Parayko in the third round and he developed into an important defenceman during their run to the Stanley Cup.

The Senators took Mark Stone in the sixth, a four-time finalist for the Selke Trophy who went on to captain a Stanley Cup champion in Vegas.

The Flames selected Johnny Gaudreau in the fourth round in 2011. He is second in scoring for the 2011 Draft class behind only Nikita Kucherov and fifth on the franchise’s all-time scoring list.

Tier 4: Above 10%

The Blackhawks made more late selections than any other team despite winning three Cups in the first half of this decade. The Devils weren’t far behind and both teams show that making more picks doesn’t necessarily produce more NHL players. However, the Devils grabbing top-line winger Jesper Bratt in the 2016 sixth round gave them a finisher to play alongside future first-overall picks Nico Hischer and Jack Hughes. For the Blackhawks, tough guy Andrew Shaw appeared in 544 NHL games and recorded 573 penalty minutes after being a fifth-round pick in 2011.

Anaheim, San Jose and Boston were contenders for much of the decade and had fewer roster spots available. Of these three teams, the best late-round picks were the Ducks taking all-star Troy Terry in the fifth round and the Sharks landing Dylan DeMelo in the sixth. DeMelo developed from a long-shot prospect into a piece San Jose was able to include in the Erik Karlsson trade and he’s gone on to have a steady career.

Tier 5: Above 5%

One thing that stands out when looking at late-round picks who turned into full-time NHLers is the fact that so many of the forwards are short.

Kirill Kaprizov, a fifth-round draft pick by the Wild in 2015, is five-foot-10. So is Conor Garland (fifth-round, 2015 by Arizona) and Viktor Arvidsson (fourth-round, 2014 by Nashville). Brendan Gallagher (fifth-round, 2010 by the Canadiens) is five-foot-nine while Victor Olofsson (seventh-round, 2014 by the Sabres) and Anthony Duclair (third-round, 2013 by the Rangers) are five-foot-11. 

In all of these cases, the players showed their size wasn’t an obstacle.

Other notable players taken by teams in this tier include John Klingberg (fifth-round, 2010), who was an all-star for the Stars and has scored more than 400 points from the blue line. Also on the list are power-forward Pavel Buchnevich, who the Rangers took five picks ahead of Duclair in 2013, and Gustav Forsling, a fifth-round pick by the Canucks in 2014 who played a pivotal role for the Panthers on the way to the Cup.

Tier 6: Above 1%

Three teams stand out as the least successful at identifying talent late in the draft.

The Islanders did find two key blue-liners, though, in Adam Pelech, a leader on the penalty kill, and Devon Toews, who has three 50-point seasons on his resume. The most impactful late-round pick they made overall, however, was goalie Ilya Sorokin, who plays a position we will discuss separately in a piece over the weekend.

The Red Wings are tied with the Panthers for the third-most late-round picks made in this time, but have almost nothing to show for it. Their two players are depth-winger Mattias Janmark (third-round, 2013) and 30-goal scorer Andreas Athanasiou (fourth-round, 2012). Both players were selected before the club’s rebuild began in 2017.

Finally, the Avalanche sit alone at the bottom with just one late-round pick who established himself as an NHLer. That player is defenceman Will Butcher, a fifth-round pick in 2013 who spent four seasons at the University of Denver before opting not to sign with the NHL team in that same city. Butcher became a free agent in 2017 and spent most of his career with the Devils, but is currently playing in the KHL.