2016 NHL Draft First Round Results in Record Night for NCAA, USA Hockey

The first round of the 2016 NHL Draft is in the books. As usual, there were some big surprises, but the story of the night was the dominance of both American-born players and players headed to/playing NCAA hockey.

Some factoids from the first round tonight.

-11 players with NCAA connections were taken in the first round tying the for most in a first round: Clayton Keller(BU), Tyson Jost(North Dakota), Charlie McAvoy(BU), Luke Kunin(Wisconsin), Dante Fabbro(BU), Kieffer Bellows(BU), Dennis Cholowski(St. Cloud State), Henrik Borgstrom(Denver), Riley Tufte(Minnesota Duluth), Tage Thompson(UConn), Trent Frederic(Wisconsin)

-It was a historic night for two college programs as well, as Dennis Cholowski and Tage Thompson became the first ever first round draft picks for St. Cloud State and UConn respectively.

-12 American players were taken in the first round, breaking the previous record of 11. The 12 Americans drafted in the first round, also out-numbered the number of Canadians selected in the first round(11), for the first time in NHL Draft history.

-Four players--Jost, Fabbro, Cholowski, Borgstrom--were the most ever non-American NCAA recruits to be taken in the first round of the Draft.

-And finally, it was a major day for St. Louis youth hockey, as five players that grew up playing in the St. Louis Jr. Blues system were taken in the first round: Matt Tkachuk, Clayton Keller, Logan Brown, Luke Kunin, and Trent Frederic.