The NHL Central Scouting Service is tasked with ranking the numerous players eligible for the annual NHL Entry Draft
Last Updated on Thursday, 04 June 2015 09:52
By John Hamre
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
It is often said of the National Hockey League’s Entry Draft that it is only one set of opinions on one given day. Players who are drafted had better be training the next day because there are free agents, non-drafted players, minor league players and established veterans still training – all in pursuit of the same NHL roster spots. Yesterday’s opinions have been recorded; what have you done today?
The NHL Entry Draft is now an annual marquee event. The futures of NHL organizations, the careers and lives of young players who have dreamed of playing in the NHL, and the hopes of fans are all impacted greatly at the two-day event. Veteran players can be traded for draft picks. A team’s roster for next season can be altered via this type of player movement, or from the pick of an immediate impact player early in the first round. NHL organizations and NHL Central Scouting put tremendous time and resources into the process that leads up to recording the opinions – selecting players with draft picks – on NHL Draft Day.
This year’s 2015 NHL Entry Draft will be held June 26-27, in Sunrise, Fla. It is typically thought of as an “18-year old draft.” This year, players born between Jan. 1, 1995 and Sept. 15, 1997 are eligible. Also, players born in 1994 who are considered “non-North American,” and unsigned players drafted in 2013 who were born after June 30, 1995, are eligible for this year’s draft.
The Minnesota territory and the Upper Midwest is traditionally a hockey hotbed of talent. Central Scouting has had a tradition of excellent scouts based in Minnesota, including current full-time scout Greg Rajanen, and previously Jack Barzee and Ralph Goldhirsch.
Rajanen was a part-time scout for the Calgary Flames for six years. He has now been a full-time scout for the NHL Central Scouting staff for three years. Rajanen spoke about his scouting schedule and Central Scouting’s process to identify talented players and develop its scouting lists.
“We work for all of the NHL teams,” Rajanen said. “First, we take all the heights and weights, accurate to ¼-inch, so that there is no exaggerating. Second, we alert teams when guys are not playing. We communicate this weekly to teams on the NHL Central Scouting website. Third, we produce the NHL Central Scouting lists.”
Central Scouting produces three lists throughout the hockey season, beginning with preseason rankings. This is a list of underage kids not yet eligible for this year’s draft, but eligible in the following years.
“We try to keep this list relatively small – guys we think will go in the top three rounds,” Rajanen said.
Ongoing throughout the first half of the season, Central Scouting produces a “players to watch” list monthly for NHL teams. The monthly reports are to update individual teams of players it is following, so that there are no surprise names ranked by Central Scouting on its midterm list in January.
The second list of prospects Central Scouting produces is its midterm rankings. This is released in the second week of January. The list includes the names of 210 ranked draft-eligible players in North America. The list is developed by Central Scouting’s entire staff. They spend a week in Toronto meeting at midseason to develop this report. Also, a separate list of 10 goaltenders and a separate list of four rounds of 120 European players are produced as part of the midterm rankings.
“After the midterm list is reported, we start the process again,” Rajanen said.
Last Wednesday, Central Scouting released its third and final list of ranked draft-eligible players in preparation for the 2015 NHL Entry Draft. The final list includes a ranking of 210 North American players (30 players times seven rounds). On separate reported lists are 10 goaltenders ranked, and a European list of 120 players (four rounds of 30 players each).
Rajanen described the meeting process to arrive at Central Scouting’s final list: “At the end of the day, we rank players 1-10. What we do then is start voting. Then we adjust our list. Sometimes a guy has a lot of ranking points, but he still has to be a player. We come to a consensus as a staff. A player’s statistics better back up a ranking.”
The NHL Central Scouting staff is comprised of six full-time scouts in Canada, and two full-time scouts in the U.S. In addition, there are numerous part-time scouts in North America. There are six Central scouts based in Europe.
For Rajanen, the process of watching players begins in the fall, scouting the USHL Fall Classic, the NAHL Showcase and the Upper Midwest High School Elite League. Rajanen’s primary scouting territory is the Midwest. In a typical week of the regular hockey season in Minnesota, he will see two or three high school games during the weekdays, and three USHL or NAHL games on the weekend.
Yet, no week is typical for a scout. In a typical season of scouting, Rajanen will also make crossover scouting trips to Western Canada twice, to Ontario 3-4 times, to the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League twice, and eastern U.S. prep school and junior hockey leagues twice. Each of these crossover trips will typically last about a week, and are important for developing comparative opinions and rankings of players in different regions and leagues. Rajanen will see well over 200 games in approximately seven months of scouting, from September through the end of March.
So how much do teams value the Central Scouting rankings?
“The best way to answer is this: There is a type of player each team and each team’s general manager or director of scouting likes,” Rajanen said.
NHL Central Scouting works for the league and all of the teams as a resource. NHL teams will use the Central Scouting services as a cross-check for their own scouting staff’s work. Individual teams will also rank players it likes by projected round to be drafted. If Central Scouting has a player ranked drastically higher or lower than an individual team’s staff does, then that team will then spend more time watching that player to individually determine why their opinion differs.
Rajanen described a philosophy followed by Central Scouting, he referred to as the “10-10-10 philosophy.”
“We can’t have biases on players. We figure 10 teams won’t draft this player, 10 teams will consider drafting this player and 10 teams will have no problem drafting this player. Are there surprises at the draft? Every year there are. Most teams if they really like a player will draft him. Sometimes it happens that a player gets drafted that wasn’t listed by us.”
Rajanen discussed attributes that Central scouts and NHL scouts look for when evaluating and ranking players.
“First of all, skating. It’s the old saying, ‘If you can’t skate, you can’t play.’ For me, when I rank players I like the skill guys – skating, puck skills, puck plays, hockey sense. Many guys on the staff feel you can teach defense. With the NHL, you’re projecting three to four years down the road, not for right now.”
It is a complex process trying to project how an 18-year-old player will develop at 21 or 25.
“Are smaller guys more skilled? Right now maybe,” Rajanen said. “For a big guy, it takes longer to develop his skating. A smaller guy may already be a dynamic skater. A big guy already has NHL size.”
Rajanen shared a general categorization of attributes NHL Central scouts use to evaluate players with. They include:
• Skating (including quickness, separation speed, mobility with and without the puck);
• Puck play, skill;
• Passion and compete level;
• Hockey sense, feel for the game (Rajanen indicated this is “difficult to teach, crucial for all to have”); and,
• Use of size, and strength.
On the topic of compete level, it is hard to formally measure, but carefully and closely watched for among scouts and coveted by coaches.
“Some guys just find a way to play no matter what,” Rajanen said. “They are relentless. You see them all the time in the NHL.”
On ranking the skating abilities of a player in the NHL relative to the strength and size of players in the league, Rajanen emphasized, “Skating is so important, especially with defensemen who have to get back to the puck. A smaller player has to be elusive or he’s not going to make it physically.”
We drifted into a discussion on Anders Lee of the New York Islanders, who graduated from Edina High School in 2009. Lee had 25 goals and 41 points in 76 NHL games played this regular season. His six game-winning goals scored rank 15th among all NHL players.
“In high school his skating hadn’t quite developed,” Rajanen said. “He kept working and pushing and working. He looks pretty good now.”
He continued, “My scout friends north of the border claim that in Canada they oftentimes give some of the bigger players the benefit of the doubt during youth and beyond tryouts. They are not going to eliminate the bigger guys because you need a mixture of players. Once they develop their skating, you already have a player with NHL size.”
Ultimately, all of NHL Central Scouting’s work and the work of scouts for all teams are meant to prepare for the NHL Draft at the end of June.
“Most teams will go after skill early in the draft, in the top 2-3 rounds,” Rajanen said. “A team’s director of scouting, general manager or high-end scouts will fly in to see top round draft prospects. After the top three rounds, NHL teams will typically draft assets – players that need longer time to develop in college, juniors or in Europe.
“The bottom line is we’re in the opinion business. We’re projecting three to four years down the road. When you’re in the opinion business, we don’t celebrate too much when we’re right, because sometimes we’re going to be wrong. We do see the players quite a bit, so we don’t judge just on one game. These are 18- to 20-year-old kids. You’ve got to be careful. They’re going to have a bad day, too. The body of work is about five to 10 games that you see a player.”
Rajanen described how Central Scouting’s final list ultimately projects to the actual NHL Entry Draft. While not an exact rule, Rajanen suggested that on draft day, after the top 20 players are selected, a North American player will usually drop one-half to one round from their ranked spot of the NHL Central Scouting final rannkings because goaltenders and European players also being drafted.
“We’ve had a good track record,” Rajanen said “The key with scouts is, you listen to other people’s opinions and you form your own. NHL teams and NHL Central Scouting – they hired you for your opinion. I think the one thing too is every scout is different. Some like to watch warm-ups, some don’t. I like to sit at the blue line, across from the benches, to see the interactions between kids and coaches. As a scout, I’m a writer – I spend time writing what they can do right now.”
Rajanen shared a final point of emphasis regarding what he is always on the lookout for as a scout – and what all young players should take to heart and learn from, no matter where their hockey development journey leads them to in the game: “Passionate compete level, and a love for the game. How much time you put into it – it’s a simple concept – you work hard and you get better. To play at the NHL level, you have to be passionate at the compete level.”
During a 22-year coaching career, John Hamre has coached PeeWee, Bantam, high school, NCAA Division I, Junior A and minor professional hockey. He was the video coach for the 1994 USA Men’s Olympic Team, coached within the USA Hockey NTDP, and at many USA Hockey festivals. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.
