Datsyuk and Zetterberg at the draft and as prospects

SirKillalot

Registered User
Feb 27, 2008
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Norway
And if you scouted the next russian superstar that you thought nobody else knew about, would you be talking to other scouts about him?
Nope. Not if you're any good

That's true. But I'm not talking about who they were looking at, but were they have been. There is a reason that Detroit was pretty sure that either no one saw him, or that the few that did simply didn't look at players the same way. After all, most teams do look, and still looks after big sized players.
 

RedWinger10

Registered User
Feb 11, 2013
946
2
Not true.
it sounds awesome. But it's not true.
If Detroit had any real belief that Datsyuk would be as good as he is, they wouldn't have chanced waiting until round 2, let alone round 5.

Detroit thought Barnes, Valtonen, McCracken, Hobday, Steen and Deleeuw were better picks than Datsyuk.. there might have been some gamesmanship in there... but not 5 rounds worth.

I disagree. They KNEW they were the only team that scouted him. They wouldn't miss out on Barnes valtonen, mcCracken, Hobday, Steen and Deleeuw by picking somebody that nobody else had probly even heard about. It is true that they had no idea that he would be THIS good but that's the story for everybody in the draft. But they still played the draft like I had described. They do it every year.
 

Tomas W

Registered User
Oct 23, 2007
7,097
489
Sweden
Hakan Andersson has to be the greatest judge of talent/potential professional hockey has seen. I'm wondering if the Wings have it in plans to move Rasmus Bodin back to d like they did with big E? It's paying dividends now, he's a rock in our zone/on the pk and is moving up the ice with speed/confidence that I didn't know he had.

Up until this year I thought that Ericsson was about as good as his draft pick, but this season he have been really sound. Not absolutely awsome but realible and as that very important. Though I dont know that much about Ericssons background despite the fact he played for "my" swe hockey team Södertälje (ph Soedertaelje) leaving for NA.
 

BinCookin

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Feb 15, 2012
6,160
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London, ON
By all means, give credit to Andersson and Holland for taking the chance on Datsyuk. They were the ones who drafted him.
But there's a lot of luck involved. I think Andersson just was quoted as saying scouting is 60 percent luck or something

I think there is a little bit of a comprimise here.

Does Hakan Andersson know when a prospect will actually develop well and make the NHL? I would say the answer is always NO he doesn't.

He creates a list of favorites. He also had a few things going for him. Being a european scout he knew there were few scouts overseas at that time. He probably had a good idea of who was being scouted in Russia and Sweden. He may not have talked about prospects specifically with the St.Louis scout, but he probably knew when that scout was in Russia, and what game he was going to. If you know, NO scout has ever seen a particular player play... you are in pretty good shape.

He liked Zetterberg and Datsyuk. He liked basically every swedish/finnish/russian player we have.
Did he know they would be amazing or mediocre or crap out? No
Did he think they had a chance of panning out? Yes.

He has done well no matter how you slice it :P

I hope he makes a nice salary :) (or at least is getting some sweet hindsight bonuses!)
 

Flowah

Registered User
Nov 30, 2009
10,249
547
The point is, drafting someone that late provides an indication of what you think the chances are of their potential being reached.

171 says "This is a crapshoot."

If you thought he had a 50% chance of being a perennial Selke winner, PPG player, always in the discussion for top5 player in the world... You would not wait that long. Or if you did, you are an idiot.
 

CloneHakanPlease*

Guest
Not true.
it sounds awesome. But it's not true.
If Detroit had any real belief that Datsyuk would be as good as he is, they wouldn't have chanced waiting until round 2, let alone round 5.

Detroit thought Barnes, Valtonen, McCracken, Hobday, Steen and Deleeuw were better picks than Datsyuk.. there might have been some gamesmanship in there... but not 5 rounds worth.

This
 

RedWinger10

Registered User
Feb 11, 2013
946
2
There is always luck involved in the draft. Many first round picks have even been busts and have washed out of the league after 3-4 years. It's just he way sports works. Luckily Datsyuk worked out in the most spectacular way possible.
 

The Zetterberg Era

Ball Hockey Sucks
Nov 8, 2011
40,957
11,577
Ft. Myers, FL
Zetterberg started generating by the December of his draft.
But the hype picked up after Datsyuik joined the Red Wings in 2001.
Wings fans were so excited to have their first offensively talented player since--Kozlov, perhaps... so the story was, "And there's more than Datsyuk, young Henrik Zetterberg is tearing up Sweden.

Zetterberg really started getting attention in 2001 when they began talking about him for the Swedish Olympic team.

Datsyuk was basically out of leftfield
I remember the first time watching a game and thinking, who is this guy they call Duck Soup.
I think he played on Russia's World Championship team. In today's world, he would have generated some buzz.
But back then, there wasn't much of it.

I remember knowing about Datsyuk and being a little excited. The most hyped overseas prospect in the early 2000's was Grigorenko, which a lot of people forget now.

Z was a low round pick that played a puck possession game while being tiny and not the greatest skater.

Datsyuk himself wanted to be a soccer star for a while growing up. He had a pretty sad story as far as family tragedy if I remember right and I think it just took him longer to get going.

Really the big thing with both of these guys is they bought into what the Wings sell. They started staying after, they put Z's locker next to Yzerman and Pavel got to start out with the Professor looking on. They constantly talk about the team leaders being the hardest workers both mention Lidstrom a lot on this trait. These guys embraced the culture that had made the Wings successful. They are both very talented players but I really do believe they reached their max potential because they were Wings players and it would have been tougher to do anywhere else.

While I think they thought they could wait somewhat to The Fading Captains point I doubt it was that long. Lets put it this way they drafted what a 23 year old Franzen in the third because that is who they thought at that point was best. I have my doubts people were creaping on that decision, I guess I could be wrong though and they knew someone else was out there.

They could have put something like don't bring him up until the fourth or so, they did let Lidstrom slide a round if I remember right being pretty sure nobody else knew that much about him. I just don't think they knew either of these guys were that good. They had homerun potential, but yeah they would picked them earlier if it was more certain they would reach it.
 
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Alpha190

Registered User
Feb 3, 2007
391
0
What is not often said about Datsyuk, especially him is that he was brought up and matured around the right players.

Datsyuk would never been the player he is today without Larionov's help and especially Brett Hull. Had he been brought up in lets say Dallas. There's no way he'd be the player he is today.

This is the part I think that lacks in the current Detroit system and what Scotty and Dave Lewis implemented. It was the mentoring system, I'm sorry but I can't see it now in today's Detroit. Sure you have hard workers in Pavel and Z, but those planned locker room stalls and who you're sharing a room on the road with. Dave Lewis no matter how bad of a head coach he was here, was mostly responsible for the mentoring system and it worked great. I've not seen anything like that with Babs. Lidstrom would for example always share a room with Homer, but to be honest it would have been better suited to have Kronwall for example to share his room. Dave Lewis even went around Universities giving lectures about the mentoring system Detroit used to have.
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,078
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Tampere, Finland
They were small Europeans.

That was part of the reason. On that time when they were drafted, Eric Lindros was the prototype for NHL star.

And the reason they went late well there are many factors in the draft that determine the order. One of the biggest is, who is on other teams' radar. Teams know what other teams have looked at and scouted who. Lets say its the draft and one of the players you want is player X. You know player X isn't on anyone else's radar because they barely scouted him or havn't at all. Players A-W are on everyone's radar you aren't going to draft player X right away and miss out (give away) your chance on 1 or 2 of those A-W players. then when the time is right you draft player X. Player X turns out to be Pavel Datsyuk. Detroit knew they were the only ones who scouted him hard. When Hakan Andersson went to scout the team Datsyuk's team was playing the plane was grounded due to bad weather. To be on that plane was Andersson and a scout for St.Louis Blues. The Blues scout went and scouted a different game of theirs but Hakan caught the next flight out and saw the game where he noticed "this little guy on the other team." That ."little guy" was Pavel Datsyuk. He knew he was the only NHL scout to see him play prior to the 1998 entry draft. So there was no point in drafting him with the first pick in the draft it would have been a waste. The draft is a strategy and smart franchises know how to play it. THAT is why he was 171st overall.

Good post. There's no need to take these long-shots higher, when you are 100% sure nobody else hasn't scouted him.
 

Flowah

Registered User
Nov 30, 2009
10,249
547
Good post. There's no need to take these long-shots higher, when you are 100% sure nobody else hasn't scouted him.

If you think you have the next Crosby, Malkin, Datsyuk, Stamkos, it doesn't matter what you think about other scout, you do not wait that long to pull the trigger. You don't take that risk.
 

The Zetterberg Era

Ball Hockey Sucks
Nov 8, 2011
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Ft. Myers, FL
Good post. There's no need to take these long-shots higher, when you are 100% sure nobody else hasn't scouted him.



While true, you need to be careful. Andersson and the Wings were pretty sure Edler was not scouted properly. Turns out Vancouver had heard their interest and figured out exactly who he was. Instead of trading up a couple slots Detroit sat there confident nobody knew.

I think the shock led them to picking Franzen that round, something they were probably planning on doing in the fourth round and something I have a hard time believing wouldn't have still been around to happen given Franzen's age. Which was to the larger point having watched that happen, they didn't play games on Johan Franzen, they selected him right away.

I think they thought Datsyuk and Zetterberg had very high ceilings, but lets not kid ourselves, they didn't know they were these two guys and if they did it is silly they left them exposed this long, great that it worked out. But I hope they weren't doing that with Jamie Benn and Joe Pavelski and got burned. You can play games for a round and be confident taking that chance, it is still a risk, but you shouldn't do that over the course of 100 picks.
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,078
12,078
Tampere, Finland
If you think you have the next Crosby, Malkin, Datsyuk, Stamkos, it doesn't matter what you think about other scout, you do not wait that long to pull the trigger. You don't take that risk.

When did I said they thought he is the next Crosby?

I wrote about a long-shot prospect.
 

Forsse90

Registered User
Oct 15, 2012
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0
Trollhättan
While true, you need to be careful. Andersson and the Wings were pretty sure Edler was not scouted properly. Turns out Vancouver had heard their interest and figured out exactly who he was. Instead of trading up a couple slots Detroit sat there confident nobody knew.

Incorrect. The only thing Detroit was confident about was the fact that Vancouver didn't have a pick, but once it was announced a trade was gonna happen Andersson knew Vancouver was gonna take him.
"The second time I went to see him, I called the coach first, just to make sure [Edler] was playing," Andersson says. "It turned out the coach was friends with an agent, and the agent starts sending e-mails to scouts, saying you should come and see this kid.

"When I think back -- and this has been on my mind many times -- I think that was my mistake. I never should have phoned the coach. It was just me being a little lazy."

Gradin says a friend of his called him about that time to tout Edler. Whether it was Andersson's phone call that trickled down far enough to eventually alert Gradin to the Red Wings' interest may never be known, but the timing is right.

Because of Jamtland's unexpectedly quick exit from the playoffs, nobody but the Canucks and Red Wings saw Edler play. There was no video from Ostersund, no scouting combine. NHL Central Scouting had never heard of him. But the Canucks and Wings knew about Edler, and knew about each other. Edler told them.

Fifteen minutes before the Dallas Stars were to choose 91st, former general manager Doug Armstrong agreed to give Nonis his third-round selection in exchange for the Canucks' third-rounder in 2005, which was to be a stronger draft class.

"As soon as the Canucks got that pick," Andersson says, "I told everyone at our table I'd eat everything on it if Vancouver didn't take Edler. We drafted Johan Franzen, so we still got a good prospect with our pick. But I still think about that phone call I made. The fun part in all this is seeing how well Alex is playing."

Here's the full Edler article and here's one with more of Andersson's scout stories.
 

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