Best undrafted players (2024)

[Random schmoe]

I don't know a lot about draft eligibility, overagers, basically who is eligible and when they're eligible. My main point/question is, are there any guys who went undrafted who are now free agents and could be - good enough to maybe be - signed to a professional deal? (I guess including ATO/PTO followed by a contract.)
I'd assume some of those guys may get invited to dev camps for evaluation.

 

[BigHitter67]

Funny you are saying this right after the season where the best two Ds were indeed under 6ft

Yup .. as i said if you are under 6ft you have to be lights out offensively which Makar and Hughes obviously are ..But in general the league experiment with the small D is over! Just look at the backend of recent Cup winners and scan the list of D drafted yesterday .

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Funny you are saying this right after the season where the best two Ds were indeed under 6ft

True. For whatever reason after the middle of the fourth round (maybe earlier) it became a contest to draft tall players from around the world - many with little or no production offensively to this point.

If you go strictly by the CS rankings (by no means the definitive source but a decent measuring stick), Minnesota was able to get the 8th and 17th ranked European players in the fourth (Kiviharju) and and fifth (Soini) rounds respectively.

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

From Sweden

Zetterberg with the best overall point season ever(5th ever in PPG) in Sweden U18 national team

Bodin, 6'4 216 good skater, decent numbers

Sterner 6'3 194, good J20 numbers

tthose are biggest omissions. Also Crookes, Hesselvall

Bonus Hjalte Kruse Thomsen from Denmark. Almost PPG in J20, 6'0

For whatever reason, both Sweden and the QMJHL were somewhat ignored for the first half of the draft while the OHL and USHL did well. Could be cyclical or may be other factors (more high end Canadian players are going the college route - as are some of the top players from Europe).

 

[Jersey Fan 12]

Western Hockey League goalies Lukas Matecha and Dawson Cowan were ranked third and fifth amongst North American goalies but neither was selected.

Conversely, there was just one Russian goalie listed in the European rankings but six others were selected - including Dmitry Gamzin in the fourth round by the Islanders.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

I don't know a lot about draft eligibility, overagers, basically who is eligible and when they're eligible. My main point/question is, are there any guys who went undrafted who are now free agents and could be - good enough to maybe be - signed to a professional deal? (I guess including ATO/PTO followed by a contract.)
I'd assume some of those guys may get invited to dev camps for evaluation.

Kenta Isogai would be one who can be signed

 

[awegrzyn]

Aidan Park

Was he wearing 18 at SSM? If so, then there is a reason why he went undrafted.

 

[Kshahdoo]

I thought Schuchinov would go 100%

He didn't look great vs Demidov...

 

[SW2024]

Yup .. as i said if you are under 6ft you have to be lights out offensively which Makar and Hughes obviously are ..But in general the league experiment with the small D is over! Just look at the backend of recent Cup winners and scan the list of D drafted yesterday .

What I never understand in these discussions is that 2in can make such a huge difference. Sorry!
Not speaking about 10in, but 2 only. Come on…. Someone @6ft does not trigger any discussion, whereas as soon as 2in (!!) get deducted: “Oh, no, this guy is way too short”

 

[Hinterland]

Western Hockey League goalies Lukas Matecha and Dawson Cowan were ranked third and fifth amongst North American goalies but neither was selected.

Conversely, there was just one Russian goalie listed in the European rankings but six others were selected - including Dmitry Gamzin in the fourth round by the Islanders.

I expected nothing else. Cowan is small, a late 05 birthday and his back half of the season just wasn't very good.

Matecha is an overager and his performances (or lack thereof) since christmas are even more of a head scratcher. He was well on track to be one of the top goalies in the draft but he tanked 2024 completely and finally even stopped playing. The CHL top prospects game was a rare exception. I'm still not sure what happened but he was never gonna get drafted after that kind of 2024.

However, speaking of Czech WHL overager goalies, I'm surprised nobody took a chance on Jan Spunar. With the injury he suffered I'm not sure what more he could have done. Mature, rock solid, big, mobile goalie, similar to Harrison Meneghin. But then again, Meneghin went very late himself. Goalies are voodoo but those kind of prospects I wouldn't be shocked to see in the NHL one day.

 

[Frk It]

Marcus Kearsey and Quinn Kennedy

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

These are the players I had left on my list from my top 96 and 32 HM's.

71. Alex Zetterberg-W
84. Aidan Park-C
86. Noah Lapointe-LHD
88. Tomas Galvas-LHD

32 Unordered HM’s (approximates a fourth round): Anthony Cristoforo (RHD), Daniil Anatsky (C), Felix Lacerte (C), Marcus Kearsey (LHD), Daniil Ustinkov (LHD), John Stout (LHD), (RHD), Kam Hendrickson (G), Aiden Wright (G)

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Was he wearing 18 at SSM? If so, then there is a reason why he went undrafted.

EP says so. What's the reasoning then?

 

[awegrzyn]

EP says so. What's the reasoning then?

There is a video of him doing unnecessary and stupid hit after the game this year. No one liked it. If scouts so that, I'm sure they noted.

 

[rt]

Francesco Dell'Elce & Jake Livanavage.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Francesco Dell'Elce & Jake Livanavage.

Love this. I know Livanavage doesn't fit the defenseman mold that a lot of GMs want, but he was extremely impressive in his 19 year old freshman season at North Dakota, Was definitely worth a 6th or 7th round gamble.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

I sort of expected (or maybe just would have liked) to see Dylan Hryckowian go in the mid to late rounds, even as a third year eligible. Over a point per game in his lone USHL season, then steps into the NCAA and puts up a point per game as a freshman at Northeastern - outproducing multiple drafted prospects on his own team. Obviously was an unlikely choice as a very undersized (at the time) winger out of Prep in his first year of eligibility, but I thought he did enough each of the last two years.

Yes he's undersized still at 5'10 170 but he plays with pace and smarts, plus he's skilled in traffic. Has shown he can adapt to produce quickly at each level so far. Some of these guys just figure out how to make it work.

I guess teams figured that there are similar talents available as college FAs every year. Dylan's older brother Justin signed an ELC with Dallas after three years at Northeastern, and I think younger bro is the better player.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

I sort of expected (or maybe just would have liked) to see Dylan Hryckowian go in the mid to late rounds, even as a third year eligible. Over a point per game in his lone USHL season, then steps into the NCAA and puts up a point per game as a freshman at Northeastern - outproducing multiple drafted prospects on his own team. Obviously was an unlikely choice as a very undersized (at the time) winger out of Prep in his first year of eligibility, but I thought he did enough each of the last two years.

Yes he's undersized still at 5'10 170 but he plays with pace and smarts, plus he's skilled in traffic. Has shown he can adapt to produce quickly at each level so far. Some of these guys just figure out how to make it work.

I guess teams figured that there are similar talents available as college FAs every year. Dylan's older brother Justin signed an ELC with Dallas after three years at Northeastern, and I think younger bro is the better player.

Not sure if you've seen my Hryckowian posts/comments, but I'm a big fan of him too.

 

[B17 Apricots]

In terms of Russians, aside from some of the players not mentioned yet...

Alexei Dontsov should've been a pick. I was half expecting Carolina to take him but they winded up using all those later picks on the other best Russian junior players. It's like clockwork every year now... while other organizations are going for the low hanging fruit and the scraps from the North American leagues Carolina is walking away with some of the best non-blue chip Russian players eligible later in the draft.

Yegor Graf went undrafted.

Vadim Dudorov I thought was an interesting prospect. The Loko junior team was obviously very good this year, a few older players. I think on another team he likely would've had a larger role, I'd expect him to get more minutes next year. Maybe a guy to watch for

Ilya Ivantsov and Grigori Kuzmin just aged out this draft. It's always worth keeping tabs on these players. I have zero idea why teams don't just take a 7th round flyer on these sorts of guys. You never know which KHLer could make the jump... I'd rather be ahead of the curve than have to compete with every other team to sign the next KHL free agent

Edit: I noticed Matvei Babenko went undrafted as well

 

[Hockey Duckie]

These are the players I had left on my list from my top 96 and 32 HM's.

71. Alex Zetterberg-W
84. Aidan Park-C
86. Noah Lapointe-LHD
88. Tomas Galvas-LHD

32 Unordered HM’s (approximates a fourth round): Anthony Cristoforo (RHD), Daniil Anatsky (C), Felix Lacerte (C), Marcus Kearsey (LHD), Daniil Ustinkov (LHD), John Stout (LHD), (RHD), Kam Hendrickson (G), Aiden Wright (G)

G Hendrickson outproduced G Yegorov this year in the USHL, but a small sample of 7 games. Did great in high school prior to joining the USHL team. EP has him listed at 6'2 and 185 lbs, but Lancers.com and Central Scouting have him listed shorter as well as lighter at 6'0 and 170 lbs.

Yegorov's CS bio is 6'4.5 and 179 lbs. It's gotta be Hendrickson's lack of height that probably had him passed over in this draft. TBF, CS had him listed as #32 NA goalie, so the chances of getting drafted were already slim.

 

[forever1922]

Noa Vali, 19, back up goalie for TPS last season, appearing in 19 games.

I thought he was the best finnish goalie at the 2023 U18s and verh suprised he didn't get drafted the first time around. He has since then shown adequate progression.

Finland U20, 2 games and a very rare undrafted player in that team.

Size is the issue for him as a goalie at 6'1" and I think teams don't draft goalies like that but instead they have to play themselves in to the NHL. He could be in the discussion after a good Liiga year.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

G Hendrickson outproduced G Yegorov this year in the USHL, but a small sample of 7 games. Did great in high school prior to joining the USHL team. EP has him listed at 6'2 and 185 lbs, but Lancers.com and Central Scouting have him listed shorter as well as lighter at 6'0 and 170 lbs.

Yegorov's CS bio is 6'4.5 and 179 lbs. It's gotta be Hendrickson's lack of height that probably had him passed over in this draft. TBF, CS had him listed as #32 NA goalie, so the chances of getting drafted were already slim.

Probably height and lack of exposure.

 

[forever1922]

What about Mitja Jokinen?

Good call. He will have a chance to play against men in Liiga next season. Therefore, he is primed for a big boost.

The thing with TPS, these players get a lot of attention and the team clearly wants them to move to the NHL. Where some teams want to ice the best roster, TPS has embraced the role as a team that raises it's youth to leading roles in hopes they return in case they fall short or retire from higher levels.

Most teams must have seen Mitja play the U20 Liiga as he was teammates with Hemming, Pikkarainen and Koivu but still passed on him. And again for Finland U18 where he was generally better than Aron Kiviharju, who performed with the excuses though, so we'll see.

 

[Kshahdoo]

In terms of Russians, aside from some of the players not mentioned yet...

Alexei Dontsov should've been a pick. I was half expecting Carolina to take him but they winded up using all those later picks on the other best Russian junior players. It's like clockwork every year now... while other organizations are going for the low hanging fruit and the scraps from the North American leagues Carolina is walking away with some of the best non-blue chip Russian players eligible later in the draft.

Yegor Graf went undrafted.

Vadim Dudorov I thought was an interesting prospect. The Loko junior team was obviously very good this year, a few older players. I think on another team he likely would've had a larger role, I'd expect him to get more minutes next year. Maybe a guy to watch for

Ilya Ivantsov and Grigori Kuzmin just aged out this draft. It's always worth keeping tabs on these players. I have zero idea why teams don't just take a 7th round flyer on these sorts of guys. You never know which KHLer could make the jump... I'd rather be ahead of the curve than have to compete with every other team to sign the next KHL free agent

Yeah, NHL teams ignored Atanasov in the previous drafts, and I'm pretty sure when his KHL contract is over quite a few NHL clubs will be after him. And I'm pretty sure the same situation will happen again and again with younger kids just because scouts prefer to spend their picks on some NA players who mostly won't be good enough even for ECHL...

 

[Michael Farkas]

I had a pretty short draftable list for the U.S. this year. Only about 25 names did I have a draftable grade on...only a few later "C" players didn't get picked I think...

Will Felicio	LD	RD	Waterloo
Justin Solovey	LW	RW	Muskegon
Caeden Herrington	RD		Holderness
Andrew O'Sullivan	RD		Kimball Union