Flames scouts ready for any draft outcome
At the moment, Friday’s live coverage of the Calgary Flames’ draft table at American Airlines Center in Dallas will likely consist of a lot of team brass in their suits, playing Candy Crush on their phones.
With zero picks in the first, second and third rounds and only four selections in total, common sense would dictate the Flames can sit back and relax Friday as most other NHL teams do business at the NHL draft.
That is simply not the case, according to Flames head scout Tod Button.
“We’ll just do what happens at the Oscars — we’ll get seat fillers,” Button said jokingly. “You know what? If it stays the same, we’ll check off our lists, monitor the draft, monitor the trades, monitor the moves. It’ll be a long night, but everything we do is in preparation for Saturday.
“Our process doesn’t change at all.”
He’s not kidding. Everything as far as the Flames scouting staff was concerned went identical to years past. They evaluated talent. They hunkered down in scouting meetings and discussed player projections. They created player profiles. They ranked players. They interviewed potential prospects.
“That way, when we get to the draft floor, there’s no surprises if we traded up into the second round or we get picks … we’re ready to go no matter what,” Button said. “We don’t hope we get picks. We just plan as if we have picks as normal. It was different knowing we didn’t have picks … but we didn’t do anything different, process-wise.”
The scenario, however, is unprecedented in Flames franchise history.
With only four picks, this could be the lightest haul ever. Unless Flames general manager Brad Treliving strikes a deal to regain a draft selection or flips one of their defensive prospects for a depth winger, the Flames will be on the clock with the 105th pick. Also in the fourth round, they select 108th thanks to the Jiri Hudler deal with Florida in 2016. Then they won’t pick again until the sixth round (167th overall) and seventh round (198th overall).
The last time they had a situation similar to this was in 2010 during Darryl Sutter’s tenure, when their first-round pick was property of the Coyotes after a 2009 deal that also sent Matthew Lombardi and Brandon Prust to Phoenix for Olli Jokinen and a 2009 third-round pick.
At that time, they didn’t pick until the third round when they selected Max Reinhart 64th overall, a pick that was made available because of a trade that sent Anton Stralman to Columbus. (That draft only harvested one everyday NHLer, Micheal Ferland, but we digress). A quiet summer, no doubt.
On the other hand, Button and his crew had to alter their plans at the last minute in 2015 when Treliving struck a deal to acquire Dougie Hamilton from the Boston Bruins in exchange for the 15th overall pick, limiting their haul that year to five players, including two of their top blue-line prospects in Rasmus Andersson and Oliver Kylington.
“We couldn’t have done that if we hadn’t done our work,” Button said. “The fact we didn’t have the pick didn’t matter.
“We just worked off our list like we always do.”
Things happen, moves are made and the scouting staff has to be on its toes.
“We plan for two days in June,” Button said. “If we don’t have any information from Tree (about potential moves or draft-pick acquisitions), we have to do the same job.
“We just do it the same way, every year. If you have picks, you have picks. If you don’t, you don’t.”