Canucks to re-tool their scouting department

[Mackcanuck]

 

[Canada Hockey Place]

^ Posting the image.

 

[Rob_Zepp]

Gotta love a franchise who has six pages (and growing) about changes in scouting department.   On the Panthers or Canes boards (my two other teams), we could have obtained McDavid in exchange for picks/prospects and gotten to perhaps a page and a half in a month.

 

No question, love them or hate them, the Canucks have a LOT of people interesting in pretty much everything they do.

[baumerman77]

Let's hope they bring in some people with experience in analytics. It would be nice to have some analytics to help out our scouts.

[SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME]

13 minutes ago, baumerman77 said:

Let's hope they bring in some people with experience in analytics. It would be nice to have some analytics to help out our scouts.

We already have them on staff.

 

It's debatable how much the scouting department listened to the analytics department in the past. But apparently the Canucks have shifted their approach and they now try to incorporate more data into their overall scouting strategy:

 

For years, perception has been the Canucks use data like Alain Vigneault used Keith Ballard — as little as humanly possible.

This past draft, however, the Canucks set aside their affinity for big players who are difficult to play against, and focused on skilled players with big data instead.

Has their little analytics heart grown three sizes right before our eyes? Is there now a bigger role in this organization for data?

”I think we’ve been incorporating that this past season as well as parts of the season before,” Linden said. “I think we’re relying on Jonathan Wall and Aiden Fox more to run data and see what pops out. Then we can talk about those players. Some aren’t fits, some are.

“It’s a piece of the puzzle. It’s a tool. Maybe a guy pops up and a scout will say, ‘you know I’ve always liked him’ and the (data) can be a piece that supports it. Or maybe a guy has great data and a scout will say ‘he’s not for me.'”

http://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/long-story-short-canucks-lean-on-analytics-to-draft-pint-sized-palmu

[riffraff]

It's not a retool until Linden says it's a retool.

[-SN-]

It's not a retool until Delorme is gone. 

[flickyoursedin]

Bring on analytics specialist Jonah Hill

[aGENT]

2 hours ago, StealthNuck said:

It's not a retool until Delorme is gone. 

 

6 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

 

Hey CDC, maybe you don't know WTF you're talking about re: Delorme 

 

[mpt]

I know a scout for the WHL and he says the canucks scouts for the WHL are useless, make terrible non valuable notes and don't even usually stay at the game for more than one period.

[mpt]

6 hours ago, riffraff said:

It's not a retool until Linden says it's a retool.

Even then its not a re-tool

[-SN-]

2 hours ago, J.R. said:

 

 

[DownUndaCanuck]

Our CHL picks haven't been very good in the last few years, let's be honest. Looking at our future core, look at where they all came from. Boeser, Demko and Juolevi aren't from the WHL or OHL. We need better scouts in these departments.

 

That being said, our European, especially Swedish scouts, are probably some of the best in the league. If we just hit a home run with Dahlen and Pettersson, we'll know for sure and it'll be hard to tell until then, but a future top line star for Burrows is a steal. 

 

I'm not sure if the scouts in charge of the NCAA and college hockey are the same as those who watch the CHL closely, but obviously our American college hockey picks have been brilliant. Gaudette comes to mind in particular of course. Just about every WHL/OHL player we've drafted though hasn't worked out just yet. Horvat of course is the exception, I'm talking more later picks in particular, but Virtanen and McCann weren't the best available picks for sure.

[DeNiro]

40 minutes ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

Our CHL picks haven't been very good in the last few years, let's be honest. Looking at our future core, look at where they all came from. Boeser, Demko and Juolevi aren't from the WHL or OHL. We need better scouts in these departments.

Our OHL scouts have been pretty solid lately. Where we have been picking hasn't.

 

We've picked 5 players from the OHL in the first round since 2011. Out of those 5 picks 3 of them were drafted late in the first round. High picks like Juolevi and Horvat were both solid picks where they were taken.

 

Horvat, Juolevi, Gaunce, Subban, Gadjovich, Cassels, Candella, Mckenzie, Pettit, Dipietro, McCann, Palmu, Brassard, Liberati, Corrado, Jensen.

 

Out of these 15 OHL selections only one of them was taken in the second round. Gadjovich projects to be a solid powerfoward who has been invited to the world junior camp. Solid pick if you ask me.

 

In the third round we've taken two players (Cassels and Dipietro). Both were considered good picks at the time. Cassels may have fallen out of favor with fans but at one point he looked poised to be a third line center. Still not out of the question.

 

The rest are 4th round picks and later where success rates go way down. Still they've managed to find a few interesting project players in Subban and Palmu. Both have high end skill but need more development. Corrado was another great find in the 5th. Any pick taken here that reaches the NHL has to be considered a good pick. The rest are late round picks that are always long shot picks.

 

So the problem hasn't been that we're not picking good players from the OHL, it's that we don't have enough good picks in the 2nd and 3rd round to get good players from there.

 

This also ignores other solid pickups of undrafted players like McEneny, Chatfield, and Archibald.

[oldnews]

11 hours ago, baumerman77 said:

Let's hope they bring in some people with experience in analytics. It would be nice to have some analytics to help out our scouts.

Erm, why didn't dem simple Canucks think o' dat?

 

[Ghostsof1915]

14 hours ago, baumerman77 said:

Let's hope they bring in some people with experience in analytics. It would be nice to have some analytics to help out our scouts.

So that we can be like Arizona?

 

The biggest change needs to be Delorme. Perhaps even Weisbrod. 

[oldnews]

6 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

So that we can be like Arizona?

 

The biggest change needs to be Delorme. Perhaps even Weisbrod. 

Adding "some analytics" is comical - and regardless, analytics are only as good as the analyst.

The Canucks already have Jonathan Wall and an analytics department - and have for years.

Wadr to that poster, they're light years more informed than the hero-chart and delta-corsi baumermann types around here.

 

[baumerman77]

13 hours ago, Ghostsof1915 said:

So that we can be like Arizona?

 

The biggest change needs to be Delorme. Perhaps even Weisbrod. 

I agree with getting rid of Weisbrod.

 

Having a difference of opinion is a good thing within scouting departments - that's why I would like to see more use of analytics. Further to that point is why I don't mind too much of the old - pre-Benning - scouts staying there. I don't want a bunch of yes men promoting group-think within our scouting department like what happened with management. That being said, Benning has been doing better lately; he's finally recognizing the importance of speed and skill ahead of grit and size. Let's hope that trend continues for the rest of his tenure. 

[Hairy Kneel]

21 hours ago, mpt said:

I know a scout for the WHL and he says the canucks scouts for the WHL are useless, make terrible non valuable notes and don't even usually stay at the game for more than one period.

All show no go

[The Lock]

23 hours ago, baumerman77 said:

I agree with getting rid of Weisbrod.

 

Having a difference of opinion is a good thing within scouting departments - that's why I would like to see more use of analytics. Further to that point is why I don't mind too much of the old - pre-Benning - scouts staying there. I don't want a bunch of yes men promoting group-think within our scouting department like what happened with management. That being said, Benning has been doing better lately; he's finally recognizing the importance of speed and skill ahead of grit and size. Let's hope that trend continues for the rest of his tenure. 

I don't think there's a "pre-Benning". While Benning could have picked players like Ehlers or Nylander instead of Virtanen, he also picked up players like McCann and Forsling in the same draft. Benning then picked up Boeser the next year (skill and leadership) and Juolevi the year after that (not exactly what you might consider tough). I think people perhaps like to categorize things like that, but 1 draft doesn't mean he's going after certain player types. There's even more evidence of this when he picked Gadjovich this year, who arguably could be considered another Virtanen-like player.

 

There's just not enough evidence to point to there being a "pre" and a "current" Benning. The evidence actually depicts the opposite if you think about it.

 

Now, if we look at Gillis, we actually have evidence there. He even self-admitted that his thought process changed from going to smarts in people like Hodgson, to going for more size and grit in Jensen. Evidently, he finally he started going the right direction when he picked Gaunce.