What Sells a Draft Preview?

Just out of curiousity... what things in a draft preview convince you to buy it, whether it's online or at a newstand? (Hockey News, Redline, ISS, McKeen's, etc)

What types of things are missing from your version of the perfect draft preview?

Is it all rankings and brief scouting reports? Would you like to see more info on later round players, maybe guys who don't get all the attention of the top 100? How about info on what exactly a scout looks for when he's watching players? What kinds of things make a prospect good or bad, (is it all size-scoring-and skating?).

What else?

 

I only get the Hockey News.

I would like to see more about the player and how he plays. I don't care for the stories much, I want to see.

Strengths, Weaknesses, stats, and projection. I do enjoy the scoutes saying a quote here and there but they should focus more on the player.

I also think there looney with their rankings at times. Wolski at 19? Montoya at 8? huh?

overall it's my favroite Hockey news of the year, I would also like to mabey see a season recap of the top prospects, and I would love it if...

They asked each teams G.M. what he thinks about his team prospects heading into the draft. That would be great.

MORE MORE MORE!

 

I am on the road right now--but on my home pc I have a linc(forgot how I got it) but it goes to a pro scouting board that is of public domain and it usually has some good reports

google-- pro scouting NHL 2004 draft and see what happens

 

Well interesting question.

Things I like :

- scouting description but most of the time they are too positive & not much is talk about the weakness of a players. You can often read that it's as positive to draft the #1 overall than the #60.

- style comparison with a current NHLer, even if it's not always accurate, it gives you a good feel of how the guy can be perceive by a scouting team.

Things I dont like :
Players cards like Skating B+ , they are often too generous & I can't believe they can scrutinize a player that much to give A to E on 6 to 10 categories. It's a thing that I dont read.

Things I would like to see :
Why Player A is worth a 1st round pick & player B is perceive as a 2nd round pick. What make a difference between a 1st round, 2nd round, 3rd round, 4th round.

They put a rankings on their top 100-200 but they never told us why the #1-30th brings to the table than the #31-60 ? Sure it's easy #1 vs #60 but why is #22 is more worthy of a 1st round prediction than a #41. Especially this year where I feel that between #15-16 to #39-40 there's not a big difference, it's a matter of preference.

 

I like when they give an upside (with a comparison), and also a downside (worst case 4th liner, versus worst case will never make it). Helps gives some idea of the risk-reward.

I like when they talk about skills specifically, for instance, the player has a beautiful inside-outside move on the rush, or the d-man likes to throw open ice hits, or hip checks. Or specific elements of their skating that is good or bad.

I like THN, but most of the quotes from scouts are pretty weak. I'm really looking for more depth.

 

What sells it? Price.

I simply cannot justify paying $40 US etc for Red Line etc.

 

Very true...

Last year before the draft, I emailed Red Line and asked them if they'd would be willing to sell team specific reports after the draft was completed because there'd be a pretty high demand for it, assuming it was sold closer to $20. He responded basically telling me I was an idiot because I was the first to ever ask for it so, in his eyes, there's obviously no demand.

It's unfortunate that he's not bright enough to see that team specific reports are nothing but an additional revenue opportunity that would require little extra work for his company.

 

Right now, the only thing that convinces me to buy Hockey News instead of anything is else is the pricetag, plus that fact that most of the other information is available free on the internet. I have purchased some of the pricier private reports in the past, but didn't really find that they gave me any more accurate insight than just trawling around the internet would bring.

Some ideas:

- I don't care about precise rankings... tell me about the player, and I can decide for myself where I'd rank him. Instead of going 1.,2.,3., etc, more general rankings like "top 5 pick", "mid-1st round", "probable 2nd rounder", "45th to 90th", would be as helpful, although of course just by doing a ranking this is somewhat implied.

- Of course, the Hockey News blurbs are entirely too short to get any decent scouting information on a player. I like some of the anecdotal info they give, but sometimes you end up with all anecdote and no scouting content. Meanwhile, some of the private reports give too much breakdown of individual skill grades, but not enough anecdotes. I would like to see a mix of both.

- I'm not interested in hearing scouts talk about the business, or what they're looking for when watching players, etc. I just want to read about the players.

- Some ancilliary info on prospects would be good: what line were they on in junior, did they play PP or PK, who were their usual linemates/defense partners, the record of their team, their playoff stats. It would save me looking that stuff up on my own. Include all the major tournament stats, include some info on juniors about where they were picked in their respective bantam/midget drafts, on any who have signed intents with NCAA schools, etc.

- If you have info on things like the Skills Testing at the Top Prospects game, publish it. Again, it can be found elsewhere, but save us the time and put it in the draft report. You have the skating, puckhandling, shooting abilities of 40 of the top NA prospects quantified to some extent by that testing, so print the results.

- Despite the marketing pressure, wait until you can include the re-entries and the opt-outs in your issue. There's still 4 weeks remaining before the draft. If any educated guesses on the draft order can be made (i.e. estimates of compensatory picks coming) try to include that somewhere too, along with a list of all the picks currently possessed by every team, through all the rounds.

- Basically, I would like to see as much comprehensive factual information as possible collected and tabulated, for as many draft eligibles as possible.

- Subjective scouting reports should also clearly indicate the identity of the scout and which, if any, specific games formed the basis of the report. I know some scouts won't want to do this, but legitimate ones should have no problem with it. Scouts have different levels of credibility, and I want to know how many grain of salts to attach to each report I read.

- Player "style" comparisons to NHLers can be good or bad... it all depends on the knowledge and the "eye" of the beholder... if somebody with a good eye is making the comparisons, I'm all for them.

- I don't really care to hear about past drafts, and I don't want any cliche-interviews with scouting directors who say "we're going to look at all the options and take the best player available", etc. We know that already. If you want to give us something organisational, give us a detailed listing of all the scouts employed by each organisation and their regional assignments. Show us the hierarchy of an organisation's scouting department.

Just some thoughts...

 

I really liked Mizral's write ups in his thread previewing the first round. More talent analysis and future projections (not an easy task with such young players). Offensive potential is another biggy for me.

 

I like detailed scouting reports of players. Weaknesses, strengths, etc. THN has actually been getting worse at that over the past couple years IMO. The problem with Central Scouting is that they will almost never criticize a player. They'll just go on about the players strengths and not give you a full picture. Redline doesn't hesistate to criticize which obviously rubs some people the wrong way but IMO the scouting business is all about strong opinions and CSS's complimentary write ups are of little use unless combined with some other sources. Redline is still the strongest I've seen with in-depth profiles of the top 100+. Another thing I really like about Redline is they rank the players in the draft with the most character, the best pure snipers, the best skaters, etc. They also rank the reverse, the softest players, the worst hockey sense, the slowest, etc. Can give you an idea of which guys have elite skills in the category your team may favour or conversely which guys with crazy skills your team may pass on because of their weaknesses. Another thing I really like about Redline is they do schmooze with other scouts and thus will sometimes have inside information about where guys will go. For example they ranked Pierre-Marc Bouchard in the 20's but said in their draft preview that he would go top 10. THN isn't as good for that although Bob Mackenzie on the actual draft day usually has some good insider info for the latest happenings. Redline also usually has a section on re-entries and older Euro's (where they rank just the older euro's.)

 

International Scouting Service is giving away their 2003 draft guide for free, and after looking it over, it looks to me that there's nothing in there you won't find in the THN preview. And it's something like 40 or 60 dollars. Not worth anything near that, as far as I can tell.

 

Euh? THN isn't 40 or 60 dollars. WTF?

 

Where are you getting the actual scouting reports from CSS?

 

I didn't say it was. I said the ISS one is.

 

Yes but it was very confusing. You said one line before that they were giving them away for free lol.

 

They're giving the 2003 preview away for free. The 2004 one costs the money. And by looking at the 2003 one, it seems better to me to spend the $4 on THN preview instead of throwing your money away on the 2004 ISS preview.

 

ok, my bad...

I have THN Draft Preview and honestly, for the 4$ I spent, it was worth every tenth of penny. It has good information about their top60 guys. It's well done IMO and it has really kept me up to date. I found that there's always less and less free information about the drafts on the web. If I remember, the 99 draft was very well convred here. There was also about 6-7 web sites with top30-60-100 lists and short descriptions. There was also more CSB writings available. Now we have to rely more on the prospect board, and with all the respect I have for the guys, I have, sometimes, hard time that the guys have seen the player they're talking about or have seen the player enough to make an in depth description like they do...

 

i duno what sells a draft preview to me, if i see any NHL draft previews then id definitly buy it, but the only one i get around here is the hockey news one...

What id love to see inside draft previews are more comments from scouts and comparisons...