Also posted early is part of the ‘back to school’ series featuring interviews on Hurricanes prospect Max Zimmer.

Friday marks day 2 of a short ‘back to school’ series that profiles 2016 Carolina Hurricanes draftees who will be playing NCAA hockey for the 2016-17 season.

First up was Matt Filipe who played for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders in the USHL in 2015-16 and will be playing for Northeastern University this fall.

Second was Max Zimmer who also played in the USHL for the Chicago Steel and will be playing for the University of Wisconsin this fall.

With the volume of leagues that NHL prospects come from and return to, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the whereabouts the recent Canes draftees or prospects obtained via trades.

 

Back to 2013 NHL draft

Arbitrarily picking the 2013 draft class as the starting point and making a best guess for which players make the NHL team this season, the players currently break down like this:

NHL – 4 players.

AHL – 12 players.

Canadian juniors – 11 players.

NCAA – 7 players.

Overseas – 1 player.

No longer with organization – 2 players.

What jumps out here is the gradual decline in age of the AHL roster. About half of the roster is players drafted within the past 4 years.

 

Only looking at 2015 and 2016 NHL drafts

When you then look at the 2 youngest draft classes (2015 and 2016) in more detail, it breaks down like this:

NHL – 2

Canadian juniors – 10 with OHL

NCAA –  5

Overseas – 1

What jumps out here is the volume of players included. Because of trades for draft picks and an actual player (2015 Rangers draftee Aleksi Saarela), the Hurricanes have added 18 players to their prospect pool from the past 2 drafts compared to the normal 14 (2 years X 7 draft picks per year).

 

The youth movement is underway and starting to arrive in Raleigh!

 

Go Canes!