Question to all the devout draft followers here

and you all know who you are.

I recently got a copy of THN's Draft review issue and in reading about the various kids eligible this year, one trait I that noticed that was being echoed a lot was character.

Since I've been posting here, which has been a few years now, many of you say that character isn't important as far as a reason to draft a player. I am one person who has ALWAYS believed that character (and I'd include attitude and work ethic here) was important when it came to potential selection.

So my question to everyone is why is character so unimportant to many of you and if anyone else here believes like I do that character is important as far as overall selection potential is concerned.

 

Character is very hard to judge. So us armchair GM's who likley never meet the players or see how they act in person are left to judge players on the ice or on what we read about them. IMO character is huge, but it doesnt mean the polite well spoken kid has the best chance of being a good NHLer.

 

The scouts talk to the coaches, and those coaches know who has character and who hasn't. You can also see character in a player while he's on the ice, and if he wear a letter on his jersey. Bottom line is if you want to know who has character, you can...

And IMO, character is the most important thing in a team. Look at Calgary...they were an ok team with not that many talented players, but they were able to reach the Stanley Cup final...all because of character...

 

I think one of the things is that these are 17/18 year old kids.

Character issues in a guy in the NFL draft (who can be upwards of 25 years old) is a LOT more serious as they are already older and well out of their teens as compared to a kid entering the NHL draft.

While character is very important -- you don't want a murdering rapist who is only 17 years old as a 1st round pick -- it's certainly overblown immensely before the draft.

Who would you rather take?

Player A: Gives it his all every night. Never takes a shift off. Talented as anyone else in the draft, but he had some anger issues and a few run-ins with his coaches.

Player B: Plays hard but takes shifts or even games off at times. Very talented -- just as talented as player A. Has never had a problem with coaching and is labled a class act.

I think that most around here would want to see Player A selected in place of Player B.

While Player A MIGHT have a few small red flags for his character and minor off ice incidents, he goes out there to play hard and doesn't ever take shifts off.

Player B is a real class act and a great citizen, but he takes shifts off and doesn't always play as hard as he could which can really hurt his team in the long run.

Now, both players are also 17/18 years old. Don't you think that it would be much easier for Player A to succeed given that he goes out every shift and plays like it's his last? Player B, while he might not take the stupid penalty that Player A might take every once in a while doesn't push himself as much as Player A and isn't as much of a competitor.

So, while character is a very large issue when analyzing who a team wants to be picked, it has to be weighed and really went into much deeper than nearly anything else.

These kids are young now. Again, not nearly as old as a guy in the NFL draft is. That's why NFL teams, especially as of late, have placed character up almost around actual skill level. They know that it's a MUCH bigger challenge for a team to change an older player's ways rather than a guy who is still HS age.

 

There are so many false claims about someone's character, it makes it very to judge the players on it. Ex: Angelo Esposito - many people think he has character/attitude issues, which simply isnt true. But they heard it somewhere and they stuck with it. I tend to stay away from the character unless someone is over the top aka Akim Aliu. But we gotta remember they're 17 years old and most of these kids resolve any kinds of issues like this as they mature.

 

Isn't that why GM's have the one-on-one interviews with them? To judge some aspects of character (even though it is tough to judge).

I was reading Kiril Koltsov's profile on HF, and it said Koltsov did not make it to North America for the draft interviews, hence teams passed on him, and he dropped to the second round (where the Canucks selected him with their first pick).

Or Patrick O'Sullivan, who had family issues (which I wont go into detail), and had every quality/feature/aspect to go in the first round, but teams were worried about his mentality (so he dropped).

So maybe character is that important?

 

I think that basically covers it. I think character is a significant factor for many NHL teams. But for us in the armchairs, we don't get much reliable insight into it. We don't interview the kids ourselves.

And then so much of what we do hear gets amplified and distorted to the point that I often end up tuning it out. Sometimes I feel like I have a read on a few of the OHL kids I see most often in person. But even then, it's not like I get to know about their off-ice behaviour, their family history, schooling, anything really detailed like that. And it could all matter in some way to me. On-ice character is sometimes all that we're left with. And I end up paying more attention to that than the shrill-seeming oft-repeated-but-seldom-substantiated knocks that some guys end up getting.

Cherepanov and Esposito would be two good examples in this year's draft. You certainly hear a lot. I don't know how to judge it, though. I'd love to know more. If I was making a pick for an NHL team I would *need* to know more. Just watching the guys and tuning out the "noise", however, I found Cherepanov to be doing a pretty good job of working, going to the net, playing clutch... in the WJC and U18. That's all I have. My "gut" reaction to a couple Esposito interviews on TV was quite positive. I thought he handled himself well. What does that mean? Not much. He was named captain of Team Canada by Hockey Canada. Now what does that mean? I have to think it means something... there were a lot of character kids on that team. How to reconcile it with the "noise" on the street, however? No idea. And so it goes for us in the armchairs, alas.

 

But as far as I'm concerned character has a lot to do with heart and determination and guys that play with heart and determination rarely take shifts off. This has nothing to do with being a class act, in my mind character and class are 2 completely different things (though they do often coincide).

 

Character is very important, but its also be very hard to determine when dealing with 18yr olds. I think when all skills are the same the pick usually goes to someone they liked in the interview process.

I've always considered character very important in my rankings/draft analysis because i've seen how important scouts take the interviews. However, it doesn't stop a very skilled player from being selected high in the draft, but some teams may take a pass.

 

They are two separate things. People talk of character issues and drive as completely separate things around here and in most places.

"Character issues" are usually things that happen off ice or are for guys who appear arrogant to the media and even other players.

There's a definite difference. Character flagged guys might play just as hard or even harder than the player who is a perfect gentleman but doesn't have any drive for the game.

Of course there are players with both issues, but they are definitely different.

 

Some very good points here, but then this brings up another question...

Does character necessarily = team player?

For those who don't get what I'm asking here, how much does character play in a kid being a guy who puts his team over himself FIRST AND FOREMOST? We all know that there are players out there (without naming names) who seem to put themselves over their team, regardless of level and league. Now some of these guys may be very pleasant to the fans, media, etc. but at the same token may be an absolute jerk when it comes to buying into his team's system and of course there are some who are the exact opposite.

 

Yes, IMO, good character almost directly means 'I put my team/cause before my own self.'