[Article] Vancouver Canucks Scouting vs. Simple Statistics

[Apple Juice]

Yeah that's true. But we could always sign free agents and acquire them through trades. We didn't draft Luongo, Hamhuis, Garrison, Ballard, Stanton, and Tanev. We'd also have a lot more trading chips if we drafted better players.

For instance, based on Sham Sharron's drafting, we would only need one of Claude Giroux, Mike Richards, Justin Williams and Brandon Dubinsky to compliment Henrik Sedin as our top two centres. Sure, we could keep them all if the salary cap allowed us to but we could also trade them for blue chip prospects or proven NHL defencemen.

I'm not hating on Canucks scouts. Obviously, they don't want to draft bad players either and I'm sure there are a lot of intangibles to consider when drafting. But it's just interesting to see the benefits of using only simple statistics to draft.

Justin Williams is a winger....

[Absent Canuck]

For comparison:

Dane Fox - 120 PIMS

Sam Bennett - 118 PIMS

Brendan Lemieux - 145 PIMS

PIMs don't always tell the whole story. Bennett collected 118 PIMS without any fighting majors, and he is expected to go top 3.

When a player is out on the ice as much as these guys and relied on by their teams as much as these guys, they're bound to take penalties. Especially in junior when almost everything is called, including all of the ridiculous embellishments.

I would like to hear the scouting explanation for this. I hope they are roughing and misconducts. Not hooking and slashing.

[Absent Canuck]

As interesting as this article is, I think that there is no way you can predit what would've happened if Canucks had drafted those players based on stats alone. For example, it's quite likely that the farm team would be overloaded with 'skill' guys who would never develop properly because they wouldn't be getting the icetime to develop. We also wouldn't have guys like Edler and Bieksa in our lineup and our D core would be really weak.

More importantly, the guy blew the canuck scouts away to the point that should just fire the scouts and hire him. It seems to me he just picked the BPA based on offensive stats. This would explain why he never drafted a high end goalie or defenseman.

[Henrik Kesler]

Wow, wonder what NHL execs would say about this, is scouting the biggest scam in the NHL? I'm assuming that most NHL teasm are aware of this info, could you imagine spending millions of dollars and countless hours on drafting and getting lesser results than some guy spending an hour on the computer. I'd be pissed if I was an owner.

They most likely don't want to admit that when you boil it down to the basics, hockey is about scoring more than that other team. Picking players who score more than their counterparts helps you score more than the competition.

This article also shows that 'intangibles', which by definition are unmeasureable, are a BS justification for acquiring a player. Intangibles don't win games, talent does.

[messier's_elbow]

I keep hearing Ritchie is the next Lucic and then people bitching about it. But who is actually saying that? Im one of the guys hoping we take Ritchie and I dont think hes that much like Lucic. More like a raw version of Shanahan.

[Dazzle]

Btw, the conclusion of this article should be that the draft is rigged.

There's a reason why Canadian teams, not just the Canucks have drafted so poorly over recent decades. It's to funnel the legit talent down south, so the game can grow in those markets.

Thefuck?

[elvis15]

if you only draft players who can get points, if that is the only aspect of hockey you are concerned with you end up with a team like the current Edmonton oilers. Tons of top end talent, no defense, no goal tending..., how is that working out for them?

But then if you have that level of quality players and prospects, it's pretty easy to trade some here and there for some top D and goaltending help. Even easier still to do so for bottom 6 players, assuming you couldn't find them in free agency.

For instance, this year we traded for Matthias and Markstrom, signed Richardson(although we would have already drafted him) and Santorelli, and picked up Stanton off the waiver wire. We found Tanev, Lack and Eriksson as undrafted free agents (there'd still be a need for scouts there), signed Hamhuis and Garrison without trading away assets in the last several years.

Then imagine we'd already have a selection of players like Richards, Talbot, Dubinsky, Gallagher, Palat, etc. as players in our top 9 and Williams, Pominville, Giroux, Parenteau in our top 6 through the draft to go along with the Sedins.

I wouldn't be that worried that we hadn't drafted a defenceman or goalie since 2000.

More importantly, the guy blew the canuck scouts away to the point that should just fire the scouts and hire him. It seems to me he just picked the BPA based on offensive stats. This would explain why he never drafted a high end goalie or defenseman.

Or, it would have already been explained by reading the criteria of how the Sham auto pick works.

Thefrack?

He's got his tin foil hat on, but I'm not sure if you have your sarcasm detector nearby.

[D-Money]

I think the better study would be what the Canucks would have had they simply take the next highest rated player on ISS?

That would be more relevant, include all positions, and fully be based on information anyone would have at the time.

[mangosteens]

Would have been more realistic if they used actual point totals as the only criteria, and didn't use only players between Vancouver picks. That's cheating, as it uses other teams scouts analyses.

Exactly. But that would have been more work and made for a potentially less interesting article. Canucks Army wrote an article to appeal to stats "nerds" and prove a point that stats are better than the human equation. Then the "nerds" quickly pointed the fatal flaw in their simulation is that it uses NHL scouting knowledge (the very thing they are trying to discredit) as a filter.

[WiDeN]

Missing out on Williams, Giroux, and Gallagher sucks.

[Sergei Shirokov]

Btw, the conclusion of this article should be that the draft is rigged.

There's a reason why Canadian teams, not just the Canucks have drafted so poorly over recent decades. It's to funnel the legit talent down south, so the game can grow in those markets.

I don't believe that for a second. Many teams in the states have had to earn their quality players through sucking for a long time. (Florida, LA, TB, Columbus, etc). In addition, many canadian teams are stacked with young talent in which they drafted themselves. Montreal, Ottawa, and Edmonton have bright futures.

Look at the Montreal canadiens...all of their key players were drafted and developed by themselves.

There are 23 US teams vs 7 canadian teams. The majority of talent is bound to go down south.