Since Yzerman took over in Tampa there are very few teams that have a better player development system in place and Detroit is not one of those teams. Yzerman was named GM of the Botls on May 25th, 2010 and IIRC he had little to no impact on the draft selections in that season. His first real draft was 2011 where he found 3 NHLers, Namestinkov, Kucherov, and Palat; in 2012 he drafted 2 more NHLers, Vasilevskiy and Paquette; in 2013 he draft 2 more, Drouin and Erne; 2014 he drafted 2 more, Point and DeAneglo; and 2015 there have been at least 2 more NHLers, Cirelli and Joesph, with upwards of 3 or 4 being the final. The other drafts are a little to early to judge but 2016, 2017, and 2018 appear to have at least 1 NHLer in each draft as well. Over the same period we really just have Mantha, Bertuzzi, Larkin, Janmark, and AA; though you may be able to add Hronek, Svechnikov, Cholowski, Rasmussen, and others from the 2018 draft to that list in the coming years.
The thing I find most impressive was that TB was able to be successful in both the early rounds as well as the later rounds and they were able to sign good UDFA such as Gourde, Johnson, Marchessault, and Barre-Boulet. All have developed into top 6 players or look like they will be that type of player.
