The 2021 National Hockey League (NHL) Entry Draft is set to take place July 23-24 and 37 Canadian Sports School Hockey League (CSSHL) alumni are named to Central Scouting’s Final Rankings ahead of Friday’s draft.
Last year a record 21 CSSHL alumni were drafted including Jake Sanderson, Seth Jarvis, Kaiden Guhle and Jake Neighbours who were all selected in the first round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. The other 17 athletes were Day 2 picks, selected in the second to seventh round.
In 2019 seven CSSHL alumni were selected, with Bowen Byram and Dylan Cozens being drafted in the first round. As a fourth overall pick, Byram holds the honour of the highest ever selected CSSHL alum. Gianni Fairbrother, Layton Ahac, Max Crozier, Harrison Blaisdell, and Massimo Rizzo rounded out the other five picks.
At the conclusion of the 2020/21 NHL season, 15 CSSHL alumni have played in an NHL game . Edge School alum Matt Dumba holds the honour of being the first ever CSSHL student-athlete drafted to the NHL when the Minnesota Wild took him seventh overall in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft.
13 CSSHL alumni have been selected in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft:
Matt Dumba (2012)
Curtis Lazar (2013)
Jake Bean (2016)
Dennis Cholowski (2016)
Michael Rasmussen (2017)
Ty Smith (2018)
Jacob Bernard-Docker (2018)
Bowen Byram (2019)
Dylan Cozens (2019)
Jake Sanderson (2020)
Seth Jarvis (2020)
Kaiden Guhle (2020)
Jake Neighbours (2020)
While CSSHL alumni have had lots of success with the NHL draft, both Joe Hicketts (Okanagan Hockey Academy) and Taro Hirose (Edge School) went undrafted but have managed to make the jump and play games at the NHL level.