Why are you better than a scout at drafting?

[Wallet Inspector]

Our scouts thought Lazar and Bowers were good picks. They are far from infallible.

 

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

If you still wanted to do this, I'd be down to share my picks that were available at the sens positions in the draft. Did you want to make a separate thread?

It'd be a cool experiment to look back at in 5-10 years, like a time capsule

I think it would be fun to and I’d participate as the wknwho has no idea WTF the these people are so Ill be the luck factor. I’m nkt at home so I’ll bump everything later.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

This is just an appeal to authority.

While the response to the picks yesterday - Tkachuk in particular - may be annoying or frustrating to some in light of the overwhelming negativity that's surrounded the team in recent weeks, I don't think fans should just shrug their shoulders and blindly defend the decisions of the scouting department either. Although the team has had a pretty good track record with mid and late round picks over the years, they have a much more checkered history with their first round picks. This is the same team that has selected Jared Cowen, Stefan Noesen, Matt Puempel, Cody Ceci, and Curtis Lazar in the first round, and Andreas Englund with their first pick in the second when the team had no first.

It's fair if you're tired of the consistent negativity, but I don't think this is a reasonable response.

No kidding. This is a fanboy thread if I've ever seen one.

Apparently if you criticize our scouting it's because you think you're better than them, and I guess our scouts have never ever made mistakes or passed over an elite player for the safe pick ever!

 

[Micklebot]

Who said anything about scouting hundreds of players? This thread undoubtedly made as a response to people criticizing the Tkachuk selection at #4 overall. I have watched far more than a few games of Tkachuk in making the determination that he was a bad pick at 4th OVR, and I'm sure most people on this forum have done the same, given that he played 7 games at the World Juniors.

Your argument would be better suited for someone trashing the scouting staff for drafting an overager from the NAHL and a kid from Minnesota high-school, not a kid who has been projected as a top 5 pick for two years now and who most people have seen plenty of.

Odd, I don't think I've seen anyone use his World Juniors performance to substantiate why he wasn't worth a 4th OA pick.

 

[BondraTime]

Nobody here is a better scout than the guys with the Sens, it's much different in real life.

No clue what they are doing in the NAHL again, they should banish all Sens personnel from that league.

Good to see them dipping into the CJHL, tons of good talent in the AJHL and BCHL (sadly, none from the SJHL as a guy who spent 2 years there)

 

[Korpse]

Our scouts thought Lazar and Bowers were good picks. They are far from infallible.

Okay Lazar didnt work out, but in what world is the jury out on Bowers?

That's wild.

 

[God Says No]

Because I play EHM.

 

[Korpse]

In terms of the Tkachuk pick, my feeling on it is that Brady Tkachuk's skillset is not as valuable in today's NHL as it was in the early 2000s, and that fans talking about him squashing an opposing star player and then scoring a dirty goal are still caught in the old Sens - Leafs playoff series. That just doesn't happen with any frequency any more.

Did you happen to catch any of the Capitals games this post season? Tom Wilson was an integral part of their success and Brady Tkachuk has a hell of alot more skill than Tom Wilson.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

Did you happen to catch any of the Capitals games this post season? Tom Wilson was an integral part of their success and Brady Tkachuk has a hell of alot more skill than Tom Wilson.

Now we just need Kuznetzov, Backstrom and Ovechkin, A couple of their D , a goalie and we're all set

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

One advantage fans have that scouts don't...no internal politics. A lot of folks underestimate just how much pressure certain agencies, organizations and leagues put on scouts during the year. A team like London has a great legacy...but they also have a ton of money and a bit of backdoor leverage to twist the arms of folks a bit. Same thing with certain agencies that represent players. Some of those sources can manufacture a lot of buzz and push to rate a guy a bit higher than otherwise deserved.

I'm not saying fans have a better view. Most fans never get to see these kids in person (which is a huge plus...you can learn a lot about character of a guy seeing how he conducts himself when the cameras aren't on him). And most fans can have a hard time with comparisons with other leagues.

But overall, I think BOTH groups (fans and scouts) are pretty decent at picking out some gems. And both fail spectacularly on occasion.

 

[Langdon Alger]

I’m not.

 

[Ice-Tray]

Dog, that line started because your homie literally said that he was better than our scouts, followed by another one of your crew saying anyone could do as good a job.

It’s a fair play in this thread.

Hard to call anyone a fanboy while rocking Zadina’s jock... just saying...

 

[DrEasy]

Wisdom of crowds! In many areas the popular pick is known to outperform experts. You need to have a damn good reason to go against the popular pick, and if you do have some kind of insider insight, you can use the popular pick to your advantage by not reaching for the guy you want, trusting that he will be available later anyway (I'm thinking of our second pick this year).

The other reason is the converse of the first: groupthink. Groupthink and echo chambers are more prevalent actually in smaller groups, so a group of scouts may quite easily have a blind spot (say, for "intangibles", or lacking knowledge about Russian players) that the bigger community will not have.

It may not be a bad strategy to just go with the popular picks early in the draft, and use scout insider knowledge later in the draft.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

Our scouts thought Lazar and Bowers were good picks. They are far from infallible.

Hundred percent not infallible. But our pick has been made. Why is there so much moaning and groaning still. Wait and see. If he’s shit. You’ll all be validated. If not. You can be wrong AND happy at the same time. Our scouts thought he was the best player available. That’s it. Now wait.

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

Hundred percent not infallible. But our pick has been made. Why is there so much moaning and groaning still. Wait and see. If he’s ****. You’ll all be validated. If not. You can be wrong AND happy at the same time. Our scouts thought he was the best player available. That’s it. Now wait.

What was your reaction to when the Sens drafted Ceci

 

[R2010]

Our scouts thought Lazar and Bowers were good picks. They are far from infallible.

Lazar didn't work out - fair. I don't think he was developed well and I think that hurt his potential a little. But Bowers? There were a lot of good picks around where the sens picked but Bowers doesn't look particularly out of place outside of compared to Tolvanen. He had a really good year for a first year NCAA player. We would be pretty happy to have him in our prospect pool right now.

 

[Burrowsaurus]

What was your reaction to when the Sens drafted Ceci

Didn’t have much of a reaction. I didn’t watch him every game. I saw some games. People that watched him much more than me said it was a good pick. Others told me he couldnt crack it at the next level. So I waited. And I saw. And here I am.

 

[Polansky]

Draisaitl going 3rd overall shows the weakness in this draft.

We could have had Nick Ritchie if we had our pick. Too bad.

If we are trading with the blues, we have to add to Spezza to make it interesting

Spezza + Stone + Wiercioch for Shwartz + 1st + Rattie

Snow really feels like he's growing into the job. Really like the job he's been doing lately.

Arizona is killing this draft, just got Mayo.

Perlini
MacInnis
Dvorak
Karlsson
Bunting
Mayo

From the 2014 Draft thread.

 

[Cat Herder]

I think scouts end up building emotional attachments to some players and it hampers their objectivity.

And posters here dont?

If what you say is true then Bode Wilde would not have fallen to where he did after scouts/teams heard there may be some issue with his character.. their "emotional attachment" would not allow them to pass him

 

[NyQuil]

And posters here dont?

No.

 

[Icelevel]

Now we just need Kuznetzov, Backstrom and Ovechkin, A couple of their D , a goalie and we're all set

And Barry trotz

 

[Icelevel]

What was your reaction to when the Sens drafted Ceci

That we probably should have taken maatta

 

[BonkTastic]

From the 2014 Draft thread.

Oh man, yeah.

I HATED Draisaitl that year. Not because he wasn't skilled, he clearly was/is, I just thought he was a lazy player with motivation issues.

I'll never refuse to own up to my mistakes or bad takes. That was a bad one, for sure.

 

[lancepitlick]

As the other poster said, groupthink is stronger in smaller groups and communities. The scouting community is tiny. If "everyone" thinks Player X is a hotdog goofball soon to be washout, but you like him, are you willing to speak your mind? Conversely if everyone likes Cody Ceci are you going to be the guy that says you think he's mediocre? How many fallacies like this do teams fall into and are they sophisticated enough to have practices in place to mitigate against them? I'd think not since most the people involved have a high school education, at best, with no real training in psychology or predictive analytics. Even scouts don't watch all games/teams are susceptible to biases against certain leagues, can have blind spots etc. I'd wager that an intelligent poster that was given the time/money to watch just as much hockey would fare as well as most scouts. Wasn't Randy Lee just a guy off the street?

 

[aragorn]

Well, I've never been accused of following what the majority of the group thinks on here, that's for sure.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

As the other poster said, groupthink is stronger in smaller groups and communities. The scouting community is tiny. If "everyone" thinks Player X is a hotdog goofball soon to be washout, but you like him, are you willing to speak your mind? Conversely if everyone likes Cody Ceci are you going to be the guy that says you think he's mediocre? How many fallacies like this do teams fall into and are they sophisticated enough to have practices in place to mitigate against them? I'd think not since most the people involved have a high school education, at best, with no real training in psychology or predictive analytics. Even scouts don't watch all games/teams are susceptible to biases against certain leagues, can have blind spots etc. I'd wager that an intelligent poster that was given the time/money to watch just as much hockey would fare as well as most scouts. Wasn't Randy Lee just a guy off the street?

Its a perspective. Another one would be where a scout believes in himself and wants to distinguish himself from the status quo

 

[Burrowsaurus]

From the 2014 Draft thread.

Yes. People can be wrong.

 

[DrEasy]

Again, I think you could do ok just using an aggregate ranking from different sources for your top 2 rounds, and that's something anybody in his/her mom's basement can do. The scouts pay off for later rounds, where insider info can be helpful and it's less risky to reach for someone you like.

 

[swiftwin]

The same reason redneck f***s think they have the solution to Middle East peace. The Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

[swiftwin]

This appeal to authority argument is absurd. This isn't rocket science. You don't have to have a PhD in amateur scouting to watch these draft eligibles and have your own opinion regarding their potential.

The Sens scouting scouting staff is, for the most part, excellent in identifying talent. They are one of the best scouting staffs in the league, but this doesn't mean they are excellent in every regard. They have blind spots just like everyone else.

One of those blind spots is their tendency to draft "safe", low-upside players with good intangibles and mature defensive games in the 1st round, passing on players with more potential to do so. They did this with Cowen in 2009, Lazar in 2013, White in 2015, Bowers in 2017 and now Tkachuk in 2017. I'd prefer they take players with higher offensive upside and focus less on their defensive game, intangibles, etc... like when they selected Karlsson in 2008, Zibanejad/Puempel in 2011, Chabot in 2015 and Brown in 2016.

I disagree. The later rounds is when you should be taking shots at higher risk higher upside players. Especially for a small budget team, being able to fill out the roster with sure-fire, almost NHL ready players with ELC contracts is important. Why waste a good pick on a player with a lower probability of making the NHL?