Q&A with Tod Button

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Athletic article from Cruickshank

This draft is apparently a deep one, especially up front.

It’s deep with forwards, for sure, but that’s just the top part of the draft. It evens out as it goes to 50, 60, 70 players … defence will get their say. The forwards are so good — it’s that way, more than a lack of (quality) defencemen.

Whether it’s deep or not, you still have to find players.

You guys are getting a lot of praise for your work deep in the draft, in the later rounds, from reporters, from fans, from general manager Brad Treliving. For those sixth- and seventh-rounders, is there a different approach?

Our ownership gives us a lot of resources to do the job as best we can. We have a lot of area scouts. We’ve got a full-time guy in every area. We’ve got a full-time Quebec guy. We’ve got three guys out west. We’ve got three guys in Ontario. We’ve got three guys in the U.S. The more viewings you can get on a player the better, right? Those guys are very responsible for those deep-in-the-draft picks because they know them better than anybody. That goes back to having the resources to have these guys in all the areas.

It’s hard not to notice that you guys have drafted 14 consecutive non-defencemen.

Is that what the number’s at now? (Laughs)

Treliving says it’s just a byproduct of going with the best player available, so it’s not like you guys are actively avoiding defencemen or anything.

That’s how it fell, absolutely. Organizationally, you want to take the best player available. You’re cognizant of your prospect pipeline and where you might be weak depth-wise, position-wise, whatever.

Then you sign (college free-agent) Connor Mackey or a European free agent (Johannes Kinnvall of Sweden) and (Carl-Johan) Lerby last year. And we just signed some kids (Greg Moro, Koletrane Wilson, Noah King) to AHL contracts. You’re doing it because you know there’s a gap there.

And other stuff about the draft.


https://theathletic.com/1814964/2020...rce=dailyemail