Every off season, there are always a number of NCAA free agents available to NHL teams. They usually produce quite a bit of buzz in the media (last year’s buzz was about Jimmy Vesey, and this year it’s all about Will Butcher), but they are rarely the kind of star talents that you would find in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft.
Additionally, there’s always a handful of undrafted free agents that went through the CHL—that’s the Canadian major junior hockey leagues, the OHL, the WHL, and the QMJHL.
For Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman, the NCAA and CHL undrafted players were a well that he went to early in his tenure with the team.