How much of scouting/development is skill vs luck?

[Frk It]

I think this could be an interesting conversation given the state of this franchise and the task at hand.

I think of drafting Datsyuk out of Russia. I think Hakan said he was 5'9" and 150 something lbs when he first saw him. Saw the raw talent and desire to have the puck and get the puck back.

What if he maxed out at 5"10 and 170 lbs and wasn't strong enough to play center in the NHL... Just became a solid 3rd line winger... Based on what we knew at the time he was drafted, that seemed like a pretty possible outcome.

But instead he gets to almost 200 lbs and becomes an elite 2 way force in the NHL and Hakan becomes a world famous scout. (This is in no way meant to discredit Hakan or start a Datsyuk pissing contest)

Projecting these kids that are still developing and unfinished products has to be one of the hardest things to do. The more I have tracked prospects and talked to people, the more I feel like there is just a ton of luck involved. These kids all dominate their peers at 17/18. They all have things they do extremely well and some things they need to improve to continue progressing forward. How do we know who can gain 20 lbs of muscle, or gain a step or two in their skating and who won't? Then you have injuries and other uncontrollables that get thrown into the mix.

My gut says that luck plays a role in this more than we would like to think, what does everyone else think? I'd like to think that for all the $ and time that gets invested into scouting, that everything is calculated and every team gets different results because of different processes/resources. But it just doesn't seem like anyone has been able to separate themselves except for maybe us in the 90's with European players... doesn't there have to be a reason for that?

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[Henkka]

They always talk about the character, and I think that's very important thing for the later development. Are you totally dedicated sport athlete type of guy. Like Pavel Datsyuk was. He just loved it and lived it every day, because it was so fun.

Character makes the development. Every day getting better and better, be dedicated for it. Own motivation, which comes from the character. Organization can only give tools and advices, but rest is your own hard work and destiny.

You can quite well determine the character. You can also determine basic skills, and collect data, basic and advanced. Avoiding injuries is the luck part, which are really hurting a guy like Evgeny Svechnikov.

I could think Moritz Seider is the most perfect character + "everything else" -type of quy we have drafted. Skill, frame, genetic endurance level, character.

 

[ArmChairGM89]

Good topic.

I think I’d switch out the word “luck” with desire and or passion.

I think it takes an ELITE level of desire to make it in pro sports. For all your natural gifts if you don’t want it more than the next guy you aren’t going to make it.

look at a guy like Luke Glendening and then look at nail yakupov.

your skill won’t come through and you won’t progress if you don’t have a weird brain that forces you to want it more than anything in life.

I don’t think I am as passionate about anything as a low skill nhl player is about hockey. Or a high skill player that meets or exceeds expectations.

 

[Frk It]

I could think Moritz Seider is the most perfect character + "everything else" -type of quy we have drafted. Skill, frame, genetic endurance level, character.

Most perfect guy we drafted since who would you say?

 

[Henkka]

Most perfect guy we drafted since who would you say?

I don't know.

Like year after draft last player given this kind of vibes was Henrik Zetterberg.

I don't know these things on draft years and nothing from the past.

 

[MBH]

People talking about character based on third-hand knowledge. Crazy.

Scouting is first and foremost about recognizing ability.
But there's obviously way more involved.


Why does Ryan Graves go from unheralded QMJHL defenseman to unheralded AHL defenseman to stud in Colorado leading the NHL in plus-minus while scoring at a 15-goal 30-point pace?
How the f*** did the Rangers scouts not realize what he was even after nearly 3 pro seasons on the AHL season?
Why didn't Sproul or Smith or Kindl or XO turn into something?

I credit Hakan for spotting talent in Zetterberg and Datsyuk. And Holland and co for drafting him.
Obviously, luck was a huge part.

But I think you've got to give yourself a chance to be lucky. You've got to swing for the fences to hit home runs. That's why I liked the recent 19 draft and 18 draft more than the 17 draft - which looked like a bunch of sacrifice flies.

 

[PullHard]

I'd say some orgs have proven to be good at certain things.

I'd say for a good stretch of the 2000s and early 2010s the Preds were consistent at drafting and developing D and G.

I'd say St. Louis's ability to draft and develop D in the past 10+ years is pretty admirable.

We were the class of Europe for a while with Hakan, too.

I think generally there are ebbs and flows, or more like some scouts are forward thinking/ able to forecast while some scouts might fade away as the game evolves.

I generally subscribe to luck/ chance/ you're going to strikeout or maybe get walked to first base a lot more than you hit a triple or a home run being veryyyy realistic for all scouts. More picks = more darts to throw at the board.

 

[TatarTangle]

"[My name] if anyone tells you they know, for a fact, how any player is going to turn out tell them they are full of shit."

- Former Red Wing scout

And if you had / have talent and played high level in Michigan, you know him.

Look no further than Brendan Smith. AA. All the talent in the world, just can't wrap their head around the game.

 

[golffuul]

Scouting is about assessing the potential, or ceiling, of a player based on their performance and their skill set. Once you draft them, though, each player determines whether their past is a good predictor of their future or if they want to surpass it. The ability to do something always works hand in hand with the effort it takes from the individual to understand what it takes to be the kind of player they want to be and then put in the effort to do it.

Development is a tricky thing, because you can physically develop players in a way that allows them to achieve their "maximum potential", but if you can never get a player to think the game at a high level in one or more areas, it's more than likely that that player will, with limited exceptions, never usually be more than a bottom 6 forward/bottom 4 defenceman kind of player. Add on top of that the professional work ethic that needs to be developed in terms of conditioning, nutrition, and skill practice/development.

The one thing that can't be taught, though, is the internal desire to perform and succeed both on a yearly basis, but also on a night-to-night basis. And that can only be seen by a large sample size of watching the player and talking to them. As well, sometimes it's difficult to know if a player's ceiling is higher or lower than they show from their performance, because you don't always know the coaching that they've received at every level, and whether that has played a significant role in them being, possibly, a late bloomer or even a 1st-round bust.

 

[Claypool]

Combination of both luck and skill. First and foremost you draft a guy because you think he has a chance at playing in the NHL. The rest is up to the player development program to make sure they are preparing physically and mentally to play in the NHL and put in the best possible situation to succeed.

 

[MBH]

"[My name] if anyone tells you they know, for a fact, how any player is going to turn out tell them they are full of ****."

- Former Red Wing scout

And if you had / have talent and played high level in Michigan, you know him.

Look no further than Brendan Smith. AA. All the talent in the world, just can't wrap their head around the game.

AA is an example of great scouting.
Recognizing speed and skill.
If you get a player at all in round 4, you've done well. If you get a 30-goal man, that's a homerun.

 

[Oddbob]

My thoughts have always been that scouting and developing is 75% or more luck and 25% or less in skill. There are just too many factors in both categories for it to be mainly skill.

 

[KillerMillerTime]

I'd say some orgs have proven to be good at certain things.

I'd say for a good stretch of the 2000s and early 2010s the Preds were consistent at drafting and developing D and G.

I'd say St. Louis's ability to draft and develop D in the past 10+ years is pretty admirable.

We were the class of Europe for a while with Hakan, too.

I think generally there are ebbs and flows, or more like some scouts are forward thinking/ able to forecast while some scouts might fade away as the game evolves.

I generally subscribe to luck/ chance/ you're going to strikeout or maybe get walked to first base a lot more than you hit a triple or a home run being veryyyy realistic for all scouts. More picks = more darts to throw at the board.

Anyone you draft after the 3rd round that hits it
close like Zettetberg and Datysuk is 99% luck. Detroit
bypassed them several times in their draft years.
Detroit got close to New England Tom Brady type luck
when you consider it happened twice to Detroit.

 

[Pavels Dog]

I'd say some orgs have proven to be good at certain things.

I'd say for a good stretch of the 2000s and early 2010s the Preds were consistent at drafting and developing D and G.

I'd say St. Louis's ability to draft and develop D in the past 10+ years is pretty admirable.

We were the class of Europe for a while with Hakan, too.

I think generally there are ebbs and flows, or more like some scouts are forward thinking/ able to forecast while some scouts might fade away as the game evolves.

I generally subscribe to luck/ chance/ you're going to strikeout or maybe get walked to first base a lot more than you hit a triple or a home run being veryyyy realistic for all scouts. More picks = more darts to throw at the board.

More picks is one of the most important factors of draft success imo. Almost everytime a team is hailed as being a great drafting team, one of the reasons you can trace it to is that they had more opportunities at the draft table.

Nashville?
Had 11 picks the year they found Rinne, with their 10th pick.
Shea Weber was their 4th pick in the top 50
Josi was their 3rd pick in the top 40 (and they missed on Erik Karlsson TWICE that draft)
Ekholm was found with their 7th out of 8 picks in the first 4 rounds

St Louis has been a very consistent drafting team though. Not a ton of huge hits, but they seem to always get at least 1 or 2 players from every draft. Good model to try and follow imo, and shows how you can definitely build a great team even if you're not able to draft 3-4 superstars. Just keep consistently adding players, very rarely striking out completely, and you have a lot to work with and will likely eventually find a gem or two (like Tarasenko and Parayko).

So what can you say? Most boring answer is 33% luck, 33% skill, 33% having the picks.

 

[HisNoodliness]

I won't dig it up now, but a few years ago there was an article that showed NHL teams would draft slightly better than they do if they picked forwards solely on points. All of this projecting skills and assessing a players drive etc makes them slightly worse than a guy who has the stats page from chl.com.

I don't know the exact luck to skill ratio, but I'm willing to say that it is heavily skewed towards luck.

 

[SirloinUB]

Luck is everything. That’s not say skill isn’t involved but without luck you have nothing.

It’s like when some CEO or tech billionaire say’s his success is a result of hard work. Do you really think he was the only one working hard? Or is he working that much harder than everyone else? Nah, he just got lucky.

 

[Frk It]

I won't dig it up now, but a few years ago there was an article that showed NHL teams would draft slightly better than they do if they picked forwards solely on points. All of this projecting skills and assessing a players drive etc makes them slightly worse than a guy who has the stats page from chl.com.

I don't know the exact luck to skill ratio, but I'm willing to say that it is heavily skewed towards luck.

This is part of what I wanted to talk about too.

I think that there are so many leagues these kids play in makes it very hard to implement a strategy like this. Then you have situations where the scoring overall is way up in one league like we are seeing with the OHL this year. How do you compare that production to the other leagues?

I generally don’t like betting that a player who has always been productive will all of a sudden become unproductive unless there is a good reason. But not everyone who puts up 1 ppg or better in their draft season is equal.

 

[SuperScript29]

I think I’d switch out the word “luck” with desire and or passion.

There's definitely a luck element involved (Injuries are a good example).

 

[HisNoodliness]

This is part of what I wanted to talk about too.

I think that there are so many leagues these kids play in makes it very hard to implement a strategy like this. Then you have situations where the scoring overall is way up in one league like we are seeing with the OHL this year. How do you compare that production to the other leagues?

I generally don’t like betting that a player who has always been productive will all of a sudden become unproductive unless there is a good reason. But not everyone who puts up 1 ppg or better in their draft season is equal.

Honestly I can understand why scouts have a hard time. If your first thought (as I assume it would be) is to take the guy with the most points; then I assume your first few corrections would be for league (using some weighted average of this year's g/game and maybe last 2 years g/game), last year's production and how well you think their style would translate.

And then you start to develop these rules like "it's okay to be small but you have to be able to skate fast" and then you have Braden Point, a slightly small, slowish big producer. He doesn't check the size or speed boxes and thus Tampa picks him in the 3rd round. Turns out to be a huge steal when Barb Underhill transforms his skating and he becomes a star. Sometimes that just doesn't work though and scouts are right to be skeptical of the small, slow player. It's not like every Tampa developed player is a great skater.

If we drafted on points alone today, Marco Rossi would tie Lafreniere and they'd go 1 and 2... He suffers from many of the same perceptions as Point did; Rossi will go much earlier. To be honest if Yzerman stepped onto the stage at 2 OA and says Marco Rossi, I'd be flabbergasted and somewhat disappointed, but I would totally understand the reasoning. I have no clue if it's actually the best thing to do or not.

 

[raymond23]

Really good question and a fun topic to discuss with the new regime in place. Here are my amateur thoughts...

It's undeniable that a huge foundation of scouting/development is luck based, that's the reality of humans lol. You're drafting kids when they are 18 years old and the vast majority of them require monumental leaps in development to even begin to make an impact in pros. It's just the nature of things.

That being said, organizations still have full control on who they draft and how they develop. There are definitely organizational philosophies and characteristics that tend to breed more talented players than others. The transition from Holland to Yzerman has been a great example for us.

The difference in player development philosophy between the regimes is pretty apparent already. I was never very pleased with Holland's approach in terms of development whereas Yzerman appears to be way more progressive. Still hard to quantify until we see actual results.

 

[Frk It]

If we drafted on points alone today, Marco Rossi would tie Lafreniere and they'd go 1 and 2... He suffers from many of the same perceptions as Point did; Rossi will go much earlier. To be honest if Yzerman stepped onto the stage at 2 OA and says Marco Rossi, I'd be flabbergasted and somewhat disappointed, but I would totally understand the reasoning. I have no clue if it's actually the best thing to do or not.

Where would Holtz and Raymond go based on points alone? I'd wager it would be far later than they should.

Where would Hronek have gone while playing 8 min a night in the Czech men's league in his draft year? How about Seider?

 

[Pavels Dog]

That being said, organizations still have full control on who they draft and how they develop. There are definitely organizational philosophies and characteristics that tend to breed more talented players than others. The transition from Holland to Yzerman has been a great example for us.

The difference in player development philosophy between the regimes is pretty apparent already. I was never very pleased with Holland's approach in terms of development whereas Yzerman appears to be way more progressive. Still hard to quantify until we see actual results.

I think this is insanely premature.

 

[raymond23]

I think this is insanely premature.

Still hard to quantify until we see actual results.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Still hard to quantify until we see actual results.

"Yzerman appears to be way more progressive", I see no way of coming to any such conclusion unless it's just confirmation bias.

 

[Frk It]

"Yzerman appears to be way more progressive", I see no way of coming to any such conclusion unless it's just confirmation bias.

The first thing he did after being hired was totally revamp our strength and conditioning program. We have yet to see the results, but it does seem like something important to him. Seems like they were pretty good at developing players in Tampa Bay, especially that skating coach they utilized.