Understanding the hockey drafting process
With Canadian Hockey League drafts wrapped up and the 2011 NHL Entry Draft on the horizon, The Good Point had a chance to sit down with three influential figures within the hockey community.
Former general manager and head coach of the OHL’s Guelph Storm, Jason Brooks, along with former Detroit Red Wings scout and current head scout and director of player personnel for the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye, Ed Burkholder, have provided their insight on how scouts, coaches and management work hand in hand to carefully select and develop their future stars. Co-host of Hockey Prospect Radio on Sirius XM Home Ice and author of The Art of Scouting, Shane Malloy, also weighs in on the importance of the craft.
The Right Pedigree
A substantial amount of work goes into narrowing down a team’s draft choices, with countless hours spent traveling to various arenas, studying video and attending showcase tournaments.
Each step is completed in order to find players who have the potential to be a perfect fit for their organization.
“The scouting staff is huge. You have to rely on them to give you more detail on the players,” explained Brooks. “They are the ones watching the games in the small arenas, grinding it out and becoming experts on the players.
“If you’re a coach or GM, you might only get to see that player a few times so it’s usually not enough to form a decision on a pick.”
Decisions are not made solely based on a player’s statistics. Also taken into consideration is his personality, growth potential, skill level, compete level, size, speed, skating ability and willingness to win.
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“There’s a lot to look at, but personality is a huge category,” said Burkholder. “When I send in a report on a player, one of the first things any coach or general manager I’ve worked with asks me, ‘What’s he like as a kid? Is he a good guy and what does his coach say about him?'”
Burkholder said that a player who identifies his own faults and is willing to “grow and listen” stands out in a crowd. He stated that if a kid couples a positive attitude with an above-average work ethic, he’ll shine in a dressing room.
In addition, Burkholder noted how crucial it is to find a coachable player that will buy into a team’s system and carry out any role the coach requires of him.
“There are such players in hockey we call ‘coach killers’ and that goes from novice to the NHL,” he said. “There’s players that are selfish and that don’t buy into a coach’s system, and that can have a negative effect on the whole team – so you always have to be mindful of that when you’re looking at a player as well.”
Fitting the Mold
Teams must decide which type of players are required to either fill holes or add a missing pieces to their rosters.
Brooks said that pinpointing weak spots in a club’s roll call often determines whether a skilled center or puck-moving defenceman is chosen over the most popular choice across the board. Instead of selecting the best player available, occasionally teams bite the bullet and go for the right fit.
At the same time, as Brooks emphasized, it is difficult to pass on a premier pick.
“A lot of times — especially in the first-round — you might need that skilled center, but then there’s a stud on defense that’s right in front of you and sometimes you end up just going with the best player available.”
Burkholder agreed with Brooks’ strategy.
“The draft is about getting the best possible players available at that time, then you let the chips fall.”
An Effective Scout Always Keeps His Eyes Open
Searching too hard for a certain player tends to reduce a team’s chances at affirmative results down the road. Clubs look into different tips or leads, but every so often players will give scouts no choice but to notice them.
Burkholder, like all successful scouts, trusts his instincts and is aware that he has to change his focus sometimes if a player comes out of nowhere. In fact, he said that the biggest thing he has learned as a scout is that the player has to find you — not the other way around.
He also shared a few typical questions he ponders while viewing a prospect from the stands.
“If a player is continuously excelling at the major junior level, what’s going to happen when he’s on the ice with NHL stars?” he asks. “Will he rise to that level or is his ceiling of potential cement?”
Shane Malloy, who has been studying the craft of scouting over the past 11 years, agrees that an open mind is a key component of any successful scout’s arsenal.
“The traits in scouts I admire and a scout’s greatest assets are the ability to be open-minded and logical with a relentless work ethic, while treating people with respect,” he added.
The Presentation Stage
Once a scout gathers enough information to form a detailed report, he must present that information to the management and coaching staff, which only has a limited number of opportunities to view a player themselves.
“As a coach and GM, I would try to keep up on the top 150 players in the draft as best I could, but I was lucky to have a great scouting staff during my time with Guelph and they do play a big part in helping identify a player’s strengths and weaknesses and it would be a very difficult job to do without them,” explained Brooks.
Burkholder adds that scouts are the lifeblood of each organization. Their amassing of information, thinning of lists and educated opinions are extremely crucial to a team’s success. He continued to note that scouts are often at the draft table with coaches and GMs for that very reason.
With various opinions coming from scouts and management alike, plenty of discussion and debate occurs when narrowing down the potential choices.
“You could be sitting in the draft war room with your scouting staff and each of you could have different opinions on a certain player and it doesn’t mean you don’t like the player, it just means you see him differently,” Brooks said.
“That’s when debate and dialogue occurs and ultimately it should lead to making the right pick for your team.”
Avoiding Busts
Every now and then what’s determined to be the right pick could turn into a complete bust — even in the first round.
Because it is perhaps the most infamous draft blunder in NHL history, the picking of Alexandre Daigle serves as a drafter’s example.
Like many others before and after him, the Ottawa Senators draft pick was perceived as a worthy first overall selection based on a remarkable junior career.
“A lot of times the guys who have great junior careers but don’t make it to the NHL are guys who might have had it too easy coming up,” Brooks said.
“It’s the guys who work the hardest, face adversity and go the extra length to improve their games that will make it in the end,” he added. “And it’s not just going to the gym every day; it’s narrowing down the weak areas of their game and doing specific things to improve on those weaknesses.”
Building Through the Draft
Whether a franchise believes in risk and reward, structure or specifics, each organization has a different way of building a team.
“Some teams, like the Detroit Red Wings for example, draft players based on how they will fit into the system and how they will compliment the team,” explained Brooks. “Others may see a big 6’5″ defenseman and figure, ‘you can’t teach that’ and draft them solely based on that philosophy. It all depends on how your staff works and what your team needs at the time.”
As a former scout of the Red Wings, Burkholder has first-hand experience of how one of the most successful draft clubs molds their team.
“Detroit is an organization committed to excellence,” he said. “They draft well past the first-round and take time developing their players, which is why the Red Wings scouting is known to be second to none in the NHL and has been for many years.”
Use Your Resources
As previously mentioned, The Art of Scouting by Shane Malloy is a useful book that, through expert interviews, allows readers to understand and appreciate what scouts do, how they do it, what it really takes to make it to the NHL and how to watch the game like a scout.
“I honestly think that scouting is the most difficult profession in hockey and that the people that scout are the life blood of the NHL,” Malloy said. “The game is only as good as they are.”
Another must-read is Mike MacPherson’s column for the Hockey News, entitled The Art of Scouting a Prospect.
To close out, take a gander into a journalist’s perspective. New England Hockey Journal andNew York Hockey Journal writer, Kirk Luedeke, who moonlights as a scout, provides in-depth coverage of draft eligible players.
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