How much of scouting/development is skill vs luck?

[raymond23]

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

It’s from listening and observing. There’s a clear difference in philosophy. Look at the new strength training for instance. Or the skills trainer they brought in.

There’s a ton of content (podcasts/articles) that reflect these types of changes going on. I particularly recommend any interviews with Draper.

I’m coming to my own conclusions based on this. There is definitely bias but I’m not just making this shit up. You can come to different conclusions, which will also include your own bias lol.

 

[TheOtherOne]

It's skill when my team's drafting succeeds and it's luck when another team's does.

On a more serious note, it's luck when a draft pick succeeds, but it's skill when all your picks' average success rate is higher than the industry average.

 

[ricky0034]

I think development doesn't get nearly enough credit in general

people talk all the time about missing out on picking a guy that ended up doing well or excusing a pick that ended up doing poorly because other guys taken after them ended up doing poorly too but I don't think it's nearly that simple

not really talking about anyone specific here but I think simply putting someone in a different teams development system would change how they turn out in the end a lot more than people like to admit

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

Luck is extremely important here because of a ton of elements. One not focused on by a lot of people or eye rolled a lot is the character it takes to be a superstar. There are a few that are that talented, but by in large there is a phenomenal amount of effort that goes into it.

How hard will that guy work everyday, will he change once it becomes a high paying job, has a family etc etc. The human element is often overlooked as is the consistency it takes to thrive. You need the skill but you need to somewhat hit on a very young persons character and they do try to drill into that but it is complex in my opinion.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

I think development doesn't get nearly enough credit in general

people talk all the time about missing out on picking a guy that ended up doing well or excusing a pick that ended up doing poorly because other guys taken after them ended up doing poorly too but I don't think it's nearly that simple

not really talking about anyone specific here but I think simply putting someone in a different teams development system would change how they turn out in the end a lot more than people like to admit

But why exactly? Is it simply a difference in opportunity?

 

[ricky0034]

But why exactly? Is it simply a difference in opportunity?

opportunity is part of it once they get to the AHL,NHL etc yeah but it goes a lot deeper than just that

from the moment these guys are drafted they are attending development camps,in contact with people associated with the team they were drafted by telling them what specific aspects of their game the team wants them to improve on during their junior seasons etc

ultimately it's impossible for obvious reasons to measure how a player would have turned out in a hypothetical where they were drafted by a different team but I think there's a lot more to for example Nashville and their Defensemen than just which guys they are picking in the draft

 

[Pavels Dog]

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.

I'm hopeful that changes means improvements but I'm not sure I necessarily see any big change in the strategy/philosophy yet. I guess I'm also just not one of those who thinks the strength and conditioning program or lack of skating coach has been the reasons we haven't produced elite talent. But if Yzerman can make incremental improvements in several areas we'll be good soon enough.

 

[Bench]

Luck is extremely important here because a ton of elements. One not focused on by a lot of people or eye rolled a lot is the character it takes to be a superstar. There are a few that are that talented, but by in large there is a phenomenal amount of effort that goes into it.

How hard will that guy work everyday, will he change once it becomes a high paying job, has a family etc etc. The human element is often overlooked as is the consistency it takes to thrive. You need the skill but you need to somewhat hit on a very young persons character and they do try to drill into that but it is complex in my opinion.

Aside from injuries, the human element is what makes it so hard. People change. They grow mentally. Or don't.

When the skill gap between players isn't immediately obvious, you're drafting the intangibles. Good luck predicting that. Maybe you know the top 15 prospects really well because they've been scouted for years... Get to round 5 and you're getting intel like, "Billy likes to drink soda."

 

[Frk It]

Aside from injuries, the human element is what makes it so hard. People change. They grow mentally. Or don't.

When the skill gap between players isn't immediately obvious, you're drafting the intangibles. Good luck predicting that. Maybe you know the top 15 prospects really well because they've been scouted for years... Get to round 5 and you're getting intel like, "Billy likes to drink soda."

I used to like the talented kids that fell because of character. I thought whatever... they’re kids and they would just mature, and you could straighten them out. But I have come to understand more why sometimes those are valid concerns.

 

[Retire91]

I think the age of the player's factors for a lot of luck. 18 year olds are still developing physically and even more so mentally. I am trying to think of myself at 18, I don't even think I have the mental maturity now to be a professional athlete let alone as an 18 year old.

I think with your own NHL experience and also the right combination of intuition and raw intelligence you could make a science out of indicators that tell you if an 18 year old has the tool box. But whether or not they grow to know how to use those tools through the extraordinary leap from the minors to the pros is up to so many factors that no one can predict. On top of that your development and conditioning programs need to do the job of preparing them.

Although some of it is luck you make your own luck

 

[HisNoodliness]

Aside from injuries, the human element is what makes it so hard. People change. They grow mentally. Or don't.

When the skill gap between players isn't immediately obvious, you're drafting the intangibles. Good luck predicting that. Maybe you know the top 15 prospects really well because they've been scouted for years... Get to round 5 and you're getting intel like, "Billy likes to drink soda."

Tell me the color of Miss Slippy's car and we can get a late round scouting service going.

 

[Rzombo4 prez]

There is a ton of luck in the process but as others have said, you still need to give yourself a chance to be lucky. Drafting is a really, really hard exercise and one of those things in life where you fail far more than you suceed. Our board routinely disregards the bottom-six forward and the bottom-pair defensemen, but even drafting and developing those is statisfically a big accomplishment in most rounds. I can't really confirm this, but I suspect that the scouts who really excell are the ones with the best ability to project players. Walking into a junior rink and identifying the five best players is not that hard. Unfortunately, that isn't drafting. A big part of projecting is figuring out which of the players have the social and emotional maturity to put in the work that will allow them to hit the ceiling being projected. I don't fault the organization one bit for targeting players they think will acutally put in the work and who are genuinely selfaware enough to know that they need to get better and that to get better they will need to get uncomfortable. If that is "character" I am all about drafting character.


I am sure that some teams are probably better than others in terms of their "development" but the problem is that no one really knows how to measure development on a broad scale. Considering that only a small sliver of drafted players make the NHL, NHL games played is probably the wrong metric to use. We also probably over attribute development to the actual NHL organization. We certainly have more robust player development departments than before (and we should in such a compeative business), but the individuals interacting with our prospects on a daily basis and helping them actually put in the work to develop into professionals are the junior, college and european coaches (and primarily assistant coaches at that) and private skating and strength coaches. Nevermind the fact that it is the individual player who actually needs to put in the work. From a developmental perspective, the biggest contribution a professional organization can have on a player's development is: (i) making sure the player is playing at the level they should be, and (ii) hiring good minor-league coaches. After that it is largely on the player.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I think the more informed you are about the draft, especially with statistics work on success rates, the more you realize it's mostly luck. That's not to say skill isn't involved. There's a sort of skill floor required to identify players that are worth your time. That does a lot to minimize risk. But scouting has a very tough time picking out which of those players will succeed. There are too many non-scouting factors involved.

Plus, I'm not sure to what degree scouts take into account the idea of sampling. I've read before that some scouts only see a player 2-3 times, and that's enough. There's no way that's enough.

 

[Flowah]

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?

I've been pushing this idea for years.

Scouts might be better than a nobody pulled off the street but I do not think there's any team out there who's found a "method" to scouting that separates them from other teams. Why do I think it's luck?

1. Outside of the 1st round, you are more likely to find someone who never becomes an NHL regular player than to find one who does. That's atrocious. Anything past the 3rd round is a crapshoot. Not to mention, you're already restricting yourself to top leagues around the world for talent. It's not like you're going into some nothing barn full of 12 year olds. You already know the leagues and how they play relative to other leagues, you know the coaches, you know what these leagues are worth.

2. As I said, no team has separated themselves from the rest of the league on this. When I looked at 10 years worth of data since the lockout and tracked how many "elite" players each team found, which I determined by a minimum number of games played and PPG, was about the same between all teams. It was the difference of 2-4 players in 10 years. Obviously that can be huge in hockey, especially if you get the timing right and they hit their prime together. It's just not something I look at and go "wow that team's got something!" I know that points aren't everything, but they're a lot of it. Pretty much every elite player you name puts up some damn good numbers.

I think the key to get as many bites at the apple as you can, and to give them all the tools they need to succeed. That's all you can do. Draft a ton of guys, give them good coaches, trainers, nutritionists. Stay on them.

To that end if I were a scout I'd be focusing on hockey IQ. I think there's enough small guys in the league who kick ass to say size is nice to have but not as important as it might have been in previous eras. I also think hockey IQ is just harder to teach. I'm pretty confident you can get most guys up to a minimum decent level of shooting, stickhandling, skating, conditioning. I'm not convinced you can teach hockey IQ that well if at all. The game is so fast and it's only getting faster. I think the best players are going off instinct. No time to think. It's just their their instincts are so good and so innate that they make the right decisions naturally, faster.

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

Mostly luck. All those late gems we got over the years, if we knew how good they were why would we wait that long into the draft and risk losing them?

 

[Shaman464]

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.

No, AA is not an example of great scouting. Every team in the league knew he had skill. But his major character flaws were such a negative people were willing to pass on him. All leagues have these guys. Aaron Hernandez is a great example of it, the whole NFL knew he had top half of the first round talent, yet he was drafted 4th round.

 

[Shaman464]

To people arguing luck as the overriding driver, I wonder how you account for teams that have a long track record of drafting a developing at certain positions? Tampa at Forward, Nashville at goalie and D, St Louis at D, etc?

 

[Flowah]

Mostly luck. All those late gems we got over the years, if we knew how good they were why would we wait that long into the draft and risk losing them?

Absolutely.

If there's even a 1% chance another team takes Datsyuk or Zetterberg before the 5th/6th round, you don't take that chance. These are Hall of Fame/borderline Hall of Fame, franchise, elite, two way centers. And you definitely don't take that chance to draft some nobodies that will never play a full season in the NHL. If anyone is suggesting we took that chance, whoever made the decision on that needs to be fired. It makes no sense to take that chance. And how would we even know no one else is gonna draft them? What did we do? Call every other team's scouting department and ask "Hey, were you planning on taking this Datsyuk kid this draft?"

It was luck. Luck + work. Gotta put in the work to get lucky. If Hakan never saw him we'd never have gotten lucky. But still, luck is playing a huge role there.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

To people arguing luck as the overriding driver, I wonder how you account for teams that have a long track record of drafting a developing at certain positions? Tampa at Forward, Nashville at goalie and D, St Louis at D, etc?

We had a long track record until we didn't... There are ebbs and flows. I think it is more than luck, but you're doing a lot of projecting and hoping. To be fair it is one of the reasons I love following prospects and have opinions that I post here a lot about. Some of them are good and some of them are bad, it happens.

To be great in any of these sports leagues you have to be ready to pounce on an opportunity, but that opportunity does need to exist. I think smart people are rewarded, but I don't think you can outrun how the sport is setup and the cyclical nature it is designed to have in North America.

I think development with organizational support is really important, I think a certain talent level is really important and I think a strong character is really important. They are all a part of that puzzle. There is a real nature and nurture element to this question in my opinion where both must exist for me.

 

[Voodoo Glow Skulls]

Identifying talent is the first part. You have to have scouts that can do that, while being able to collect enough data on the person.

 

[Retire91]

The reason that the wings had an edge in Europe is because of the scouting system they put in place. Other teams were not as serious about Eropeans and remember the 90s was still the infancy of data being available globablly. You couldn't go on the internet in 1991 and download stats on every single hockey leauge in the entire world. Scouting was boots on the ground and Detroit sent people to Europe and Russia.

Remember in the 90's you heard first European this First Russain that. Because no one systemically drafted Europeans and Russians until the 90's. If the Russian 5 did not defect the wings would have wasted all those picks.

The European boat that docked in Detroit was not system of statistical evaluative methodology it was just boots on the ground when no one else was doing it and risking picks when you didn't know players would come over.

That advantage died when other teams caught on, and then even more so when the internet made any 15 year old in the world with talent global knowledge.

 

[Mlotek]

I've read before that some scouts only see a player 2-3 times, and that's enough. There's no way that's enough.

The logic was watching a player only a handful of times is you can grow affection to a player which can cloud your judgement.

Over focus on a handful of things that you like/dislike about the player.

I forgot what scout did the interview, may have been Hakan but I can't recall.

 

[The Zetterberg Era]

The reason that the wings had an edge in Europe is because of the scouting system they put in place. Other teams were not as serious about Eropeans and remember the 90s was still the infancy of data being available globablly. You couldn't go on the internet in 1991 and download stats on every single hockey leauge in the entire world. Scouting was boots on the ground and Detroit sent people to Europe and Russia.

Remember in the 90's you heard first European this First Russain that. Because no one systemically drafted Europeans and Russians until the 90's. If the Russian 5 did not defect the wings would have wasted all those picks.

The European boat that docked in Detroit was not system of statistical evaluative methodology it was just boots on the ground when no one else was doing it and risking picks when you didn't know players would come over.

That advantage died when other teams caught on, and then even more so when the internet made any 15 year old in the world with talent global knowledge.

Team's target undervalued regions. There is a reason we have been more into the Czech Republic and Slovakia while others have dialed back their presence. That our Euro scouts had seen Seider a lot. We at the same time as the Lightning really went hard after the Q. Some of that is deferring to where you find your biggest strengths on your scouting staff but there are still advantages to be gained. We knew who Hronek was when he wasn't playing minutes, the Tuomisto pick last year is a similar feel in terms of mining a league that might not get quite as many views.

I agree that teams are taking this more seriously and have invested a lot more money. But finding undervalued markets will always be a part of sports with a drafting setup. That has always been a tenant of Devellano and Holland teams, it is something I have seen out of Yzerman as well, I think it is an important strategy.

I always thought this was a part of Hakan's strategy in terms of not overwatching a prospect. Think it has multiple benefits he could see more prospects that way, get to some of the under-served areas and also the one he talks about more in terms of it keeps him from nitpicking a prospect too much.

Detroit was more successful at it than the other teams. They weren't alone, heck the league accidentally stole Bure from them for Vancouver. Lou was in on this movement in Jersey, the Rangers stole our head scout and initial European scout only to see us install Andersson. I think what made us a lot different at the time was we actually sent Neil Smith on these recruiting trips on full company dime too. They didn't cheat a system, the hired good people to do a good job. We need to find those gains, it is a part of the regime change in Yzerman where he is trying to find little areas to get better at. A part of those picks was also the Wings being extremely aggressive in the mid-80's to late 80's with College talent which at the time was another under-served market in terms of finding NHL talent. Turning over every stone is a part of the process, I am not sure every team does, even in the internet era I think there are gaps to be exploited for sure.

 

[MBH]

No, AA is not an example of great scouting. Every team in the league knew he had skill. But his major character flaws were such a negative people were willing to pass on him. All leagues have these guys. Aaron Hernandez is a great example of it, the whole NFL knew he had top half of the first round talent, yet he was drafted 4th round.

You think teams knew AA would score 30 goals but overlooked him because of character flaws?
When those things happen, players slide to the end of round 1 or round 2, not Round 4.

 

[deca guard]

eliminate the aspect of guessing wether a small guy shall grow enough by not drafting small guys