Which Countries Each NHL Team Doesn't Draft Players From?

I don't think the Sharks aren't drafting from any nation specifically, but they haven't spent a high pick on anyone outside the big 5 hockey nations in a while, and the only Finn is Halttunen. A bit ironic since their two best picks by far in the 2010's were Czech and Swiss.

I think we tend to like Swedes more than average.
 
That might be part of the reason why they have won 1 Cup since 1940... :D
I mean, it’s not even really true. Three of our best young players (Lafreniere, Schneider, Cuylle) are drafted Canadian. Then you have drafted first round pick Othmann on the verge of the league on a full time basis. And another drafted Canadian on the NHL team in Rempe.

I would say since Drury brought in John Lilley to run our draft we don’t draft many Europeans. Americans is who we draft the most. Other than that and few Europeans (and virtually nobody with any skill from Europe after the Kravtsov snafu), it’s pretty uniform in taking BPA from wherever.
 
At the moment, it seems like there is no longer a "no ____" for Buffalo's drafts. They've attempted to cast a wider net though looking it up, they haven't drafted a Slovak since Zagrapan in 2005 which was the last after 6 in 4 years. So I guess Slovakia.
 
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As is somewhat of a running joke, Montréal doesn’t take players from Quebec in the first round
 
Calgary really shys away from russian skaters in the russian league (nikolayev is the only one i remember over the last 10ish yrs, and multiple GMs in charge as well), they just pick some random russian goalie in the 7th rd. I think its because they didnt have much scouting presence there until last yr.
 
I mean, it’s not even really true. Three of our best young players (Lafreniere, Schneider, Cuylle) are drafted Canadian. Then you have drafted first round pick Othmann on the verge of the league on a full time basis. And another drafted Canadian on the NHL team in Rempe.

I would say since Drury brought in John Lilley to run our draft we don’t draft many Europeans. Americans is who we draft the most. Other than that and few Europeans (and virtually nobody with any skill from Europe after the Kravtsov snafu), it’s pretty uniform in taking BPA from wherever.
You don't appreciate an easy joke ? :fence:
 
For the longest time Colorado seemed to only draft North American players unless it was an exception talent, believe it was while under Rick Pracey.


They've pretty much completely changed that now though and seemingly will draft from anywhere if they believe the player is worth it. For instance in the last 5 years they've drafted:

- 5 Russians
- 7 Americans
- 7 Canadians
- 1 Czech
- 1 Belarusian
- 1 Kazakhs
- 2 Swedes
- 1 Slovak


Pretty much dgaf where they're born, they'll still draft them if they like them. Unfortunately for them they dont actually seem to be very good at identifying actual talent from some of the more interesting countries :laugh:
 
American and Canadian leagues tend to be well scouted but when it comes to Europe what matters is where your scouts are based and best connected. The more viewings you have, the more you know about a league or a player, the more likely you're to draft him. The big names are always gonna be well scouted with teams actively sending scouts just to watch that particular player but from ~round 3 I think it really starts to matter how good your scouting is in certain areas or countries.

Certain NHL teams have a much bigger scouting department than others and scouts often have to cover multiple countries.
 
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