By Kevin Durso, Sports Talk Philly editor 
Right now, the hype around the Flyers is all about the second overall pick. The Flyers are preparing to add a potential game-changer to the organization in just over two weeks.
But for every game-changer taken at the top of the NHL Draft, players like Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid, there are players with a much more challenging road to the NHL that find a way to make a difference when their teams are playing in June.
So as important as adding a Nolan Patrick or Nico Hischier will be later this month, don’t overlook the importance of a lot of other prospects from later rounds already in the system.
Look at the first few games of the Stanley Cup Final. The player with the most goals? That’s Pittsburgh’s Jake Guentzel, taken in the third round of the 2013 NHL Draft. The player with the most goals for Nashville? That’s undrafted free agent Frederick Gaudreau.
The Penguins tout players like Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, all high draft picks in their respective draft years, but it’s more about the players they have drafted in later rounds.
The Penguins have hit a gold mine of sorts with their under-the-radar signings of players better known in the AHL coming up or making the best of players who were part of blockbuster deals.
In all, 11 players currently playing for the Penguins were drafted by Pittsburgh, including both goaltenders Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray and injured defenseman Kris Letang. The other eight players are Crosby, Malkin, Guentzel, Scott Wilson, Bryan Rust, Olli Maatta, Tom Kuhnhackl and Josh Archibald.
But look at some of their key contributors, albeit from trades and free-agent signings, to find some draft finds. Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin were sixth-round picks. Patric Hornqvist was the last pick in the seventh round of the 2005 NHL Draft, the same draft where Crosby went first overall. Chris Kunitz, Conor Sheary, Chad Ruhwedel and Carter Rowney were undrafted.
On the Nashville side, it’s the same, only with a lot more building from within the draft. The Predators have 12 players on the roster that were drafted by Nashville.
Viktor Arvidsson, Mattias Ekholm and Craig Smith were drafted in the fourth round. Pekka Rinne was drafted in the eighth round (258th overall) in the 2004 NHL Draft. Vern Fiddler, Cody McLeod, Matt Irwin and Gaudreau were undrafted.
For the Flyers, getting success from first-round picks is essential to progress. All organizations need to try to hit on their first-round picks in every year. The Flyers appear to be well on their way on that front, with Claude Giroux now well-established as a veteran in the NHL, Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny breaking in full time last season, Sam Morin and Travis Sanheim knocking on the door and German Rubtsov making the move to Canadian juniors with a bright future ahead.
But it’s also about doing your homework on the mid-to-late rounds of the draft and finding a player there too. Hornqvist is a good example. The Predators originally drafted him, then flipped him to Pittsburgh for James Neal. Both have been vital to their team’s success in the playoffs.
For the Flyers, some of those later picks are Oskar Lindblom, a fifth-round pick with hopes of making the roster next season, Mikhail Vorobyov, a fourth-round pick three years ago, and Philippe Myers, who could be one of the undrafted finds for the Flyers.
That's where the excitement over these prospects originates. The Flyers have built up a tremendous pipeline over the years, but a lot of the highlighted players were the top picks. Now, some sleepers are starting to shine as well. For the Flyers to potentially have a fifth-round pick or undrafted free agent with the potential to make the roster next season at the ripe age of 20 is something that has been a rarity for the last couple of decades.
Success is not guaranteed in late-round draft picks, but when those players start to show potential and move closer to completing the journey to being NHL contributors, it is the ultimate success, more so than having a top pick with a higher probability of being a star player fall into your lap.
Ultimately, the Flyers have a wave of talent coming that spans across the board. It’s been a running trend among teams making runs at the Stanley Cup in past years. Soon, that could be the Flyers, who have started to add a few late-round players to the pipeline that could be closer to the NHL than you think.
