The art and science of hockey scouting
In an era of analytics, choosing players remains a very imprecise business
In the rich 2003 draft, there was a highly rated defenceman who ticked every box on the scouting checklist except one.
He was seen as an average to belowaverage skater.
Now, the generally held belief in scouting circles is, if skating is an issue with an 18-year-old, it will be an issue with a 26-year-old. The player in question fell to the latter stages of the second round where the Nashville Predators took him, largely because they were trying to fill an organizational need on their blue line.
And that’s how they ended up with Norris Trophy finalist Shea Weber, the team’s captain and the face of the franchise.
“We went into that draft trying to build up our defence,” says Predators assistant general manager Paul Fenton. “It’s the only time we’ve ever used that strategy.”
So was it luck or skill that led to drafting Weber?
“We think we’re good,” says Fenton. “But we know we’ve been lucky.”
Which is a feeling shared by every scout in the game. In this age of analytics and measurables, there remains something refreshingly imprecise about scouting; it’s something which resists the cold science and rewards the art.
There is still no substitute for experience, intuition and instinct in the scouting game. But those are human traits, which means scouting is subject to human error.
You need only look at any draft from any year, in fact, to appreciate the random, serendipitous nature of selecting teenage hockey players. One year, the first-overall pick might be Brian Lawton, who never develops, and the fourth pick might be Steve Yzerman, who changes your franchise.
One year, the team ahead of you might take Ben Maxwell in the second round and you decide to take a chance on this big kid named Milan Lucic, who isn’t much of a skater but has a big heart.
“How do you know?” says Al Murray, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s director of amateur scouting. “You don’t. You just try to play the odds.”
“If you compare us to football, a (college) football player is a ready-made product,” says Fenton. “That means you can draft for position. You can draft for need. We’re drafting a raw piece of clay. He does most of his developing after we draft him.”
That helps explain why teams like Detroit are universally respected in the NHL for their ability to mould their raw pieces of clay. The Wings’ philosophy is simple enough: Draft skilled players, place them in the minors where they learn how to compete, and promote them when they’re ready to play in the NHL. But if that’s simple, why doesn’t every NHL team do it?
“Their players get put in an environment to succeed,” says one scout, of the Red Wings. “I don’t know if they draft better than anyone else. They just have that culture that enables them to become pros.”
Virtually every team, in fact, says it prizes skill and competitiveness over other qualities. But, as Murray says, that just improves the odds. Former Edmonton first-rounder Robbie Schremp had jaw-dropping skill and looked for all the world like a front-line NHLer. He would play seven games with the Oilers over three seasons. This year he played in the KHL.
“I get asked the token question, ‘What do you look for?’,” says Oilers scout Brad Davis. “My response is, ‘Who’s the boy?’ Until you know that, you don’t know who you’re drafting.” But even that’s an inexact science. In the watershed 2003 draft, the Anaheim Ducks had two late first-rounders, who they turned into Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, still the cornerstones of that franchise. Getzlaf, in his draft year, was reportedly living in downtown Calgary with a twentysomething woman and that, according to one scout, “sent up some red flags.”
Perry, meanwhile, was a gifted scorer but an average skater with a me-first attitude who was prone to taking “fiveminute shifts.”
In the NHL, however, both grew up in a hurry. “Think of what you were like when you were 18,” says another scout. “Now throw in a million dollars and all that fame. It affects people in different ways.”
With so much riding on each draft pick, teams have started to explore ways to minimize risk by utilizing analytics and metrics. Those tools are an integral part of scouting in baseball but one scout says his organization has looked at a number of ways to get an edge, and they keep coming back to the same place.
“The two sports are totally different,” he says. “(In baseball), everything can be measured and put into a computer. Our sport is a flowing thing. Even plus-minus can be misleading. We’re all looking for it. We all have a stats guy in our office. But as far as scouting, it’s impossible.”
Which, theoretically, means there’s no substitute for experience in the scouting game. Still, if they’ve been in the game for more than five minutes, every scout can brag about the diamond they found in the fourth round, or the bust they recommended in the first round.
The Oilers’ Davis is the son of longtime scout Lorne Davis, a beloved figure in the hockey world who passed away six years ago. One day, the son was in his father’s basement, reading his old handwritten reports. At the time, a one-to-nine scoring system was used to rate prospects, and Brad Davis found two players his father had given a nine-rating.
One was Mark Woolf, a winger from Medicine Hat who never played a game in the NHL. He got a nine for his shot. The other was Bobby Clarke, a centre from the Flin Flon Bombers. He got a nine for his work ethic and desire. You can find him in the Hockey Hall of Fame.