Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

Will They Become Good To Great NHL Players?

10/16/2020 at 8:30am EDT

I have never understood this type of comparison except for the 'we drafted this player in this round and maybe it will happen again' theory.

from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

They are the long shots of the drafts, the players who, if they become regulars in the NHL, are referred to as "later-round gems."

Notable players drafted in rounds 4-7 by the Detroit Red Wings include Sergei Fedorov, Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk, Gustav Nyquist, Darren Helm and Petr Mrazek. In the 2020 NHL draft, general manager Steve Yzerman and his scouting staff mined the later rounds for two forwards, two defensemen and one goaltender in hopes of adding a player or two to the rebuild. Two have impeccable hockey pedigrees, and all appear determined to overcome the odds of making the NHL from their draft slots.

F Sam Stange, 4th round (No. 97 overall)
This was quite a round for the Wings. Fedorov, three-time Stanley Cup champion, was taken at 74th overall in 1989, when NHL teams were wary of drafting Russians because of the Cold War. There’s also John Ogrodnick (drafted No. 66 in 1979), who played 558 games with the Wings, and Nyquist (No. 121, 2008), who recorded 295 points in 481 games in a Wings uniform.

Stange (6 foot, 200 pounds) is in good hands, committed to play at Wisconsin, where he’ll be coached by former NHL’er and ex-Wings assistant coach Tony Granato. Stange projects as a power forward. “I’m a bigger, stronger forward who relies on my shot and my speed,” he said. “I also think I’m pretty responsible defensively, so I’d say I’m a two-way forward. One of the things I’m looking to work on is using my size and strength a little bit more, just being more physical.”

more players

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Welcome to Abel to Yzerman, a Red Wing blog since 1977. No other site on the internet has better-researched, fact-laden and better prepared discussions than A2Y. Re-phrase: we do little research, find facts and stats highly overrated and claim little to no preparation. There are 19 readers of A2Y. No more, no less. All of them, except maybe one, are juvenile in nature. Reminding them of that in the comment section will only encourage them to prove that.

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