Director of Amateur Scouting John Lilley moves to the Rangers

[67Cup]

1. It is too early to say finally how good the drafts have been since Lilley became Director.

2. Allowing for number and position of picks, the last couple of drafts seem promising to me.

3. the one organization that probably has more money than the Leafs thought highly enough of Lilley to poach him.

 

[Mickey Marner]

Another individual not hired by the current boss bites the dust. Just to be clear that he has been scouting for the Leafs in the U.S. for over 15 years. Exactly what NHL players has he found? Exactly how many U.S. born players of note have the Leafs drafted in the past 30 years? Second most NHL players are from the U.S. and the Toronto Maple Leafs' best U.S. draft pick since 1990 (other than Matthews 1st overall) is Darby Henrickson! Abysmal.

That's pretty damning. When you think about it, we seemingly never have a high profile American NCAA'er in the system. If anything, guys like Lilley sticking around so long and falling upwards is part of the problem with this organization.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Leafs head of amateur scouting joins N.Y. Rangers | Toronto Sun

The Maple Leafs have to fill an important role in their hockey department.

John Lilley, who was their director of amateur scouting the past three years and with Toronto in a scouting capacity since 2006, was named director of player personnel and amateur scouting by the New York Rangers on Tuesday. A Leafs official said a replacement has not yet been named.

Lilley goes back five general managers to John Ferguson Jr. and more than 100 draft picks for Toronto. The Massachusetts-born Lilley was the head of the Leafs’ U.S. scouting arm before becoming amateur scouting director in 2018. Kyle Dubas let him give the annual draft day assessment to media in recent years, though the job with the Rangers is a promotion Lilley was not in line for with Toronto.

The Leafs have traded a number of picks for veterans the past couple of years in an attempt to get further in playoffs.

 

[hockeywiz542]

Maple Leafs Hockey Operations Update

August 16, 2021

The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced changes to the club's hockey operations organizational structure today.

In addition to his role as Assistant Director of Player Personnel, Wes Clark will also serve as the club's Director of Amateur Scouting. Clark was hired as Assistant Director of Player Personnel in June of 2018 after two seasons as a scout with the Florida Panthers. Clark previously served as a Scout and Player Evaluation Consultant with the Maple Leafs from 2014 to 2016.

Eric Joyce, who joined the Maple Leafs organization in October of 2020 as Director of Hockey Strategy, will also serve as Director of Pro Scouting. Prior to arriving in Toronto, Joyce spent seven seasons with the Florida Panthers in various positions including Assistant General Manager.

 

[ShaneFalco]

Totally unrelated but...
Cliff Fletcher? What would you say you.... do here

 

[hotpaws]

Dubie promotes another bff from his Soo days , lol .

 

[Leaf Fans]

Dubie promotes another bff from his Soo days , lol .

Yup, Wes Clark is an excellent choice. Joyce also got a promotion from Clark's Florida days.

 

[Metroid]

You are joking right? Dubas is not some perfect GM. Don't be ridiculous. It might be his last season- who knows?

It'll be Dubas' fault forever in his mind. 20 years later leafs still havnt won a cup and this guy will be going on how it's who you knows fault and only his lol

P.s I'm one of the middle guys. Don't like dubas, don't hate dubas.

 

[Leaf Fans]

It'll be Dubas' fault forever in his mind. 20 years later leafs still havnt won a cup and this guy will be going on how it's who you knows fault and only his lol

P.s I'm one of the middle guys. Don't like dubas, don't hate dubas.

That guy thinks Dubas is a perfect GM when in reality he is human.

 

[Metroid]

That guy thinks Dubas is a perfect GM when in reality he is human.

he's either the Devil incarnate or God here, from the loud ones anyways) lol

 

[justashadowof]

Totally unrelated but...
Cliff Fletcher? What would you say you.... do here

He's making key contributions in Dubas' new Jump-To-Conclusions Department of Strategy and Hiring.

 

[egd27]

Dubie promotes another bff from his Soo days , lol .

Funny how there was rejoicing that the hiring of Dubas was breaking the trend of the cronyism, yet it seems like a high percentage of his acquisitions are just his old Soo colleagues.

 

[ShaneFalco]

He's making key contributions in Dubas' new Jump-To-Conclusions Department of Strategy and Hiring.

Must be it!

 

[All Mod Cons]

Picking on Eemeli Rasanen and falling back on the IQ and skating are some of the more obvious scouting, drafting and development tropes that we've fallen prey to over the past few years in the group think. He's definitely a wasted project pick with the obvious issues of being a poor skater and a weird frame and maybe low IQ, but on the other hand, Erik Cernak was also a second round pick and had awkward skating and leaned more towards defensive shut down potential during his draft year.

You can also strike out pretty hard looking for Kirill Kaprizov and ending up with a trio of Timashov, Dzierkals, Bracco in the same draft. Would be interested to see what the differences between those players looks like at 17-18 and how you can draft for IQ, creativity, puck skills and still get it all wrong. It's a more subtle mistake but just as bad.

So it really comes down to the quality of the scouting and whatever the secret sauce is to being able to tease out the upside in any pick you're making. A low ceiling on a "fridge" can often be as bad as a low floor on a high skill player.

Riley Stotts was a wasted pick.

 

[93LEAFS]

Funny how there was rejoicing that the hiring of Dubas was breaking the trend of the cronyism, yet it seems like a high percentage of his acquisitions are just his old Soo colleagues.

It was sort of obvious when he immediately hired Clark and Vic.

 

[Menzinger]

Totally unrelated but...
Cliff Fletcher? What would you say you.... do here

Mirtle says he just likes hanging around and people like talking to him, his "position" is essentially a thank you for his service to the team.

 

[Mess]

Funny how there was rejoicing that the hiring of Dubas was breaking the trend of the cronyism, yet it seems like a high percentage of his acquisitions are just his old Soo colleagues.

Shanahan turned Leafs hockey operations over to the Soo Greyhounds OHL management consortium with GM, Coach , Scouts, players all with no NHL experience.

 

[93LEAFS]

Mirtle says he just likes hanging around and people like talking to him, his "position" is essentially a thank you for his service to the team.

There are scouts in the NHL and likely on the Leafs who remain solely employed due to this with a hell of a lot less accomplished than Cliff. Pro-scouting in the NHL is essentially where you park your buddies since it's essentially been replaced by video scouting by coaching staffs and GMs know the league fairly well. It's why pretty much all highly-valued scouts are on the am-side and it's a much more treacherous grind.