Best Later Round Picks of the Carolina Hurricanes

One of the best barometers for the skill of a scouting staff is finding gems in the later rounds of the draft.  The Carolina Hurricanes have consistently improved in this area, landing key contributors in the third round and beyond.

In my previous article, I took a look at some first-round picks that failed to pan out.  Today, we’re going a different route and looking at players taken later in the draft that became NHL regulars with the Hurricanes.

For the sake of this list, here are a few ground rules:

• Players taken in the 3rd round or later
• Players drafted by the Hurricanes; no later round picks from other teams that joined the team via trade, free agency, or waivers
• Players who were (or currently are) regulars in the lineup
• Points and games played listed will only include their career with the Hurricanes

Based on that, players like Warren Foegele and Lucas Wallmark will not be on the list.  While it’s likely they could make a future incarnation of such a list, their current sample size is too small.  Also, since this list is a mix of former and current players, there’s no particular order to my selections.

Now that all that is out of the way, let’s get started.