NHL entry draft deep in terms of quantity of players

Gregor: Some people are saying this draft is as deep as the 2003 NHL entry draft. Do you agree with that? Conte: I think it has some promise along those lines. Do I think it’s similar? Not really. I think it may be even deeper in terms of the quantity of players that will go deeper into the draft. In terms of the glamour and glitz that came out of the 2003 draft, I’m not so sure that you’re going to see Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf and Zach Parise late in the first, or Shea Weber in the second round or players of that style or that impact come later. If anything, you might see very long-term career players come out of the third or the fourth round and more of them. So to predict it ... I’ve always looked at it like going into the ninth grade and trying to predict who is going to be the best doctor. Well, the ones who have the best grades and the ones who are the most motivated and the ones who work the hardest, they probably have the best chance. But life hasn’t factored into the equation yet, where girlfriends or injuries or family crisis or illness or other factors can come to bear that would disrupt what looks to be a rosy path to success.

So in every case, I think that everything is different, every draft is different, and it won’t matter how great this draft is if we don’t pick the right player at nine (the Devils’ have the ninth pick in the first round) because the mistakes are still there. There are landmines everywhere and everyone in the scouting department has great empathy and understands how those landmines are there for everybody. Sometimes, an opposing team will save you from those landmines by taking that player before you had a chance to make that mistake. Gregor: You’ve made some great picks in your career. Is there one you look back on and felt that you got fooled by this player and for one reason or another he just never panned out? When you look back at drafts, do you figure out why a player didn’t pan out? Conte: I think that there are a lot of factors. I could make excuses for my mistakes, because there are lots of them, just like anyone else in this business, but anyone who has been in this business for as long as I have has a graveyard of mistakes. I think that some factors, there are calculated chances that you take and calculated risk. We took a calculated risk on Adrian Foster (28th overall, 2001), who was just a brilliant talent who suffered from injuries all of the way through and never really got out of it. So that’s the excuse. Was it worth doing? Absolutely, because he could have been a special player had those factors mitigated themselves and become different. But it didn’t happen, he certainly tried his best and he certainly had an enormous amount of talent and he certainly didn’t cheat us, he did the best that he could. So was it our mistake, was it a mistake to take that risk? In hindsight yes, but at the time, absolutely not. Gregor: Do you have a strategy or philosophy on how you draft? Is it always take the best player available or after the third round is it a gut feeling or drafting for need? Conte: Well, we have a large staff and all of the people who work there are very competent and work very hard and their feelings and in-depth knowledge of their areas have a large bearing. I also have a boss and, sometimes, his feelings come in to play, not so much on who we take but the kind of player we take, whether it is a goalie or a tough guy or whether it be a goal scorer. And sometimes, I suppose if you take a player, it is for organizational need. Steve Sullivan was a great example. We wanted some talent and he was small and he was there in the ninth round and I and a number of people loved him and still do. He was the guy to take and he’s had a spectacular career, but one of the reasons was that we didn’t have that type of player and the opportunity was there for him to make a rapid ascent.

He was a healthy scratch his first game in the American Hockey League, yet he’s also played in an NHL all-star game. So, again, the predictability I would not call it so much smart as it was fortuitous. I would call it wise to put faith in that you really like things about this player and you can overlook the obvious about being five-eight or fivenine or, as Steve would think, five-11. Gregor: Give me your scouting report on Curtis Lazar (of the Edmonton Oil Kings). Conte: He is a pretty complete and interesting player. We had a very, very good interview with him. He’s what a lot of people like to think of as a good western Canadian kid: honest, strong, simple and to the point. I can’t think of anything negative I would say about him. He’s versatile, he’s played on winning teams and he possesses one of the things that we like; a player that gives things up for the team. You can’t have enough of those guys for anyone who has been watching these finals. It’s a lot more perspiration than it is inspiration. It’s a hard, hard game to play when everything is on the line, and those with the character seem to deal with it better than those who wanted to do it the pretty way. Gregor: How many times do you need to see a player either live or on tape to feel confident that you are making the right assessment of him? Conte: About the last game before he retires (laughs). It’s a tough job, I would like to see him play 50 times, but I think that your first impressions and your last impressions carry greater weight. ... It’s just kind of like a player, you just, you take it a shift at a time, a game at a time and, in this case, you take it at whatever game you see it and if someone’s been hurt and you miss them, but you see them in April and they wow you, you’ve just got to factor that in and maybe take the chance that what you saw is what he really is, and what he’s going to be. Conversely, if a guy has a bad game, I don’t think that it should destroy everything good thing he’s done. I tell that all of the time to our kids at training camp.