The NHL draft brings fans amazing storylines every single year. It's many kids' dream to play in the NHL, and 223 players got to live out their dream of hearing their name called this past weekend.

The big weekend also saw some notable stats given the prospects chosen.

It was another year in which non-North American-born players saw a lot of success.

Teams drafted 97 players born outside of North America, the second-most in the NHL's last 22 drafts. The only draft in that timeframe to outdo this one was 2024, when 99 was the magic number. Nine of those players in 2024 came in the first round, highlighted by the second overall pick, Artyom Levshunov, who went to the Chicago Blackhawks and has since played 86 NHL games.

The goaltending position is always a wild card on draft weekend, but this year, it seemed as though the league loved this class of netminders. A total of 32 goalies were chosen, the most in more than two decades. The other five times at least as many goalies were chosen were in 1993 (36), 2001 (34), 2004 (33), 2002 (33) and 2000 (32).

Although there were no American-born players selected in the top five, 58 were picked overall, tying the 2019 draft for the most Americans selected in the past decade. 

Although the St. Louis Blues came into the draft with the most picks, the Los Angeles Kings ended the weekend with the most, selecting 11 players.

The Kings made the most selections for their franchise since 1993, when they had 12. The only player in their class that year to play more than 200 games was Kimmo Timonen (1,108). But here's the kicker: Timonen didn't play a single one of those games for the Kings.

Here are some more NHL draft numbers, according to #NHLStats:

Defense: 74

Center: 50

Right Wing: 35

Left Wing: 32

Goalies: 32

Although the first two picks ended up being left wingers – Gavin McKenna and Ivar Stenberg – the position still landed at the bottom of the skaters. 

The Vancouver Canucks took the first center third overall, selecting Caleb Malhotra, son of newly appointed coach Manny Malhotra. 

The first defenseman came fourth overall, where the Buffalo Sabres took Denver commit Daxon Rudolph. 

It took until the 15th pick for the first right winger to come off the board, when the Anaheim Ducks chose Nikita Klepov from the OHL's Saginaw Spirit. In last year's draft, for comparison, the Philadelphia Flyers took right winger Porter Martone sixth overall. 

The Calgary Flames selected the first goalie this year, Tobias Trejbal of the United States League's Youngstown Phantoms.

Sixteen birth countries were represented in Buffalo.

Canada led the way with 68 Canadian-born players selected. The United States followed them with 58, and Sweden just beat Russia out for third, 25 to 23.

Alexander Karmonov, who is the tallest player to be drafted in NHL history at 7-foot-1, is also the first player born in Moldova to be selected in an NHL draft. The San Jose Sharks got him 201st overall.

There were some other players who were natives of other countries despite being born elsewhere.

Simas Ignatavicius, who was born in Memphis, Tenn., is a Lithuanian national and has represented Lithuania six times on the international stage. The Florida Panthers selected him 40th overall.

Ignatiavicius became the fourth Lithuanian native to be selected in the NHL draft following Darius Kasparaitis (fifth overall in 1992), Dainius Zubrus (15th in 1996) and Andrey Pedan (63rd in 2011).

Niklas Aaram-Olsen, Vancouver's 41st selection, became the third-highest Norwegian player drafted behind only Detroit Red Wings prospect Michael Brandsegg-Nygard (15th in 2024) and Anaheim Ducks defenseman Stian Solberg (23rd in 2024). 

Doman Szongoth, who went to the Sabres 156th overall, became the fourth Hungarian player ever selected in the NHL draft and first since Janos Vas went 32nd overall to the Dallas Stars in 2002.

Six Czech goaltenders were selected, the most ever in a single NHL draft. It beat the previous record of four in 2015, which included current NHLers Dan Vladar and Karel Vejmelka.

A total of 30 leagues had prospects selected in the NHL draft, with a few dominating the selections. 

The OHL led the pack with 45 players. That league also had the most picks in the first round, with seven; the fifth round, with seven; and the sixth round, with 10. They were also tied with the USHL for the most players selected in the seventh round, with seven.

The OHL had the most players selected, despite only two of them going in the first 14 picks. Last year, six OHLers went in the first 12 selections, including Erie's Matthew Schaefer going first overall to the New York Islanders and Saginaw's Michael Misa joining the Sharks second overall. 

After finishing with 32 picks, the USHL ranked third while also leading in rounds four and seven. The son of three-time Stanley Cup champion Matt Cullen, Wyatt Cullen, was the first pick from that group when the Nashville Predators took him tenth overall.

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