‘Pre-scouting’ integral to preparing for opponents
Players and coaches in the NHL have their own lingo. Take “pre-scouting,” for instance.
They could just say “scouting,” but scouting in the traditional sense involves going to a rink and watching specific players.
Pre-scouting is different: It’s heavily video-focused, and describes the work teams do in drilling down on opponents’ tendencies. Those findings are presented to the players as part of team preparation before every game.
At the NHL Coaches’ Association conference before the NHL Entry Draft in Vancouver in June, Canucks assistant coach Manny Malhotra made a presentation on how he and his fellow coaches pre-scout.
He highlighted a sequence from a game last January between his team and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“Pre-scouting,” he noted, is essential. In reviewing video, Malhotra said the Canucks knew the Leafs liked to run a special set play off defensive zone faceoffs to spring Mitch Marner on a quick rush.
In the audience, sitting toward the back was Maple Leafs coach
Mike Babcock. He had been taking notes when he heard his team mentioned and popped his head up, with a look that suggested him thinking “oh no, what secret is about to be revealed?”
Malhotra noted that when the Leafs have a defensive faceoff to the left of their net, they’d often have John Tavares, a right-shot centreman, take the draw.
Marner would line up in the slot, with left-shooting Ron Hainsey in a position to collect the puck from Tavares, should he win it, and then quickly shift the puck forward and to his right toward Marner, who would accelerate out of the zone.
The Canucks’ players were briefed on the play, with the coaches pointing out there was an opportunity for the Canucks’ left-winger, who would be lined up at the faceoff alongside Marner, to move into the space that Hainsey was going to pass through, where they would at worst be able to prevent his pass or at best find themselves presented with a turnover and a scoring opportunity.
“Now let’s see how we did,” Malhotra said and then played the clip.
The Canucks still couldn’t stop the Marner breakout. Malhotra grinned and there was plenty of laughter from around the room.
Sometimes you just can’t stop the best players, was the implication. He then moved on to moments of success for his team that were connected to other instances of pre-scout video.
It’s a great teaching tool, but one that requires content. Games have to have been played. So what do you do early in the season, when there’s less game video to dig into?
“We watched a couple exhibition games, we watched a game from the other night,” Malhotra’s boss, Canucks head coach Travis Green, said earlier this week.
And you also know that successful coaching staffs tend to stick with what worked for them in the past, Green pointed out.
“It might be a little different if a team has a new coach, there might be some tweaks,” he said.
Canucks defenceman Troy Stecher said it takes about 10 games of the regular season before you can really start looking at video.
“If you have the same coaching staff, a lot of the systems are going to be the same. There might be a couple tweaks, but I think you can go back to previous years and probably see what they’re doing and you’re gonna have a good idea of what they’re doing,” he said.
You can sometimes also lean on players who played for the opposition in the past. That knowledge can only take you so far, Tanner Pearson pointed out. The winger got to face the Los Angeles Kings this week. He had played for the Kings for seven years.
“Personnel wise, yeah, it can help, and how they personally play,” he said. But the Kings are now essentially two coaches removed from when he skated with them.
But at the end of the day, Stecher said the beginning of the season is about prepping yourselves, more than anything.
“I think the focus for most teams at this time of the year is just focusing on their own five-man units and what they’re executing,” he said.