Colorado Avalanche: 5 Late Rounders who Might have NHL Careers

The Colorado Avalanche, like all NHL teams, do their research before making draft selections. That means even late rounders have a shot at making pro careers.

Colorado Avalanche late-round draft picks are going to have a hard time making it to the NHL. The NHL is the best hockey league in the world.

And it’s incredibly difficult to even get a shot at playing in that league. According to ESPN, only about 5% of players in the major juniors or college hockey make it to the NHL. Now, naturally, that percentage goes up when you get drafted.

When you get drafted in the first round, you’re far more likely to get a shot — ThoughtCo puts their odds at 63% chance of making a career (at least 200 games) in the NHL. Second rounders have about a 25% chance of making the NHL. Drafted lower than the second round — odds are at 12%.

Scouts do their homework, and they advise teams to only select players who have a legitimate chance of actually cracking an NHL roster. However, roughly 200 players are selected every year. And an NHL roster only has space for 23 players with up to 50 signed to a contract.

Late rounders don’t have a huge opportunity. However, their chances are exponentially better than players who didn’t get drafted.

I wrote an article previously about some Avalanche late-round draft picks who went on to have successful NHL careers:

For purposes of this post, let’s consider players drafted in the fifth round or later. And we’ll look at players both who have their entry-level contracts and do not. And I’ll consider players who have a chance to even crack the roster, much less play 200 games.

I will not talk about fifth-rounder Anton Lindholm, though, because he’s already played 60 NHL games with the Avalanche.

So, let’s look at these five players who might crack the Avs roster and make it into the big time.