Tod Button on the 2024 draft

[Reggie Dunlop]

Russia is a pretty big place. Should maybe have a half dozen scouts.

[AustinL_NHL]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

Russia is a pretty big place. Should maybe have a half dozen scouts.

Yea, really.

Having no Russian scouts prior was ridiculous, but still only having 1 seems pretty silly.

[TimSJ]

Originally Posted by fotze2

That Instat thing he mention is nuts, no idea how it works. My bantam kid gets an instat report an hour or two after every game where you get corsi and a bunch of advanced stats.

Better, they have parsed clips of every shift, goal, shot, assist, penalty separated out.

Scouts have access to it. I didn't think the big leagues used it.

I've heard it actually goes to a Russian outfit that breaks down the game, not sure though.

I agree its pretty remarkable. It's a great and the data accessible to the kids is crazy. Makes it very easy for the team to do video work as well.

I'll find my son quite often in looking at clips from his games.

its one of the few things that paying the crazy fees for AAA hockey that actually adds some value.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

How can a team only have 1 Russian scout ? ( previously none )

The ROI on scouting feels like it should be massive .

Don’t use the cap room and sign more scouts for the next few years

You could probably hire 10 scouts for a minimum NHL player salary.

[devo22]

yeah that's one area in which saving money seems pretty silly to me. An NHL franchise having a single Russian scout sounds unbelievable, let alone not even having one in the first place. In a salary cap era in which it is paramount to build through the draft, especially in a smaller market, you'd expect franchises to devote more money to hiring scouts everywhere.

[Jason14h]

https://www.comparably.com/salaries/...r-hockey-scout

So ~100$k average for a scout . Add in travel expenses , etc and maybe all in $200k a year scout including benefits, etc.

Sure “feels” like have 20 extra scouts would provide more value then one 3rd line winger or 5/6 D on the UFA market for a rebuilding team

[Flames1217]

Originally Posted by AustinL_NHL

Yea, really.

Having no Russian scouts prior was ridiculous, but still only having 1 seems pretty silly.

Is there any way to know whether other teams have multiple scouts in Russia.

Seems like a no brainer to me personally but if the norm is having one scout in Russia then maybe it isn't as bad as it seems.

[BaconGuy]

Originally Posted by Sandman

I bet we take a swing at Andrei Krutov with one of our later picks. He’s a winger in the MHL that has polarized scouts, but has put up points. Many say he’s a product of his linemates, and can’t create offense on his own without high-end players to feed him, and do the heavy lifting.

Im okay with a new Lindholm as well

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

To be fair, until recently a Euro scout could travel around, they could see kids at tournaments, etc. Things changed.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

https://www.comparably.com/salaries/...r-hockey-scout

So ~100$k average for a scout . Add in travel expenses , etc and maybe all in $200k a year scout including benefits, etc.

Sure “feels” like have 20 extra scouts would provide more value then one 3rd line winger or 5/6 D on the UFA market for a rebuilding team

I suspect there is a law of diminishing returns that goes on here. Very rare is the player who no one knows about that some scout 'finds'.

Even those 6th round picks who become stars - you can say the Flames scout missed the guy, but the scouts on the 31 other teams missed him as well.

Where you could get the advantage if you had a million scouts is using AI to scan their reports to find the 'keywords' that match with guys who ended up being stars. So you can sort of tie the individual 'scouts' lingo to which guys succeed and see if there is a correlation.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

I suspect there is a law of diminishing returns that goes on here. Very rare is the player who no one knows about that some scout 'finds'.

Even those 6th round picks who become stars - you can say the Flames scout missed the guy, but the scouts on the 31 other teams missed him as well.

Where you could get the advantage if you had a million scouts is using AI to scan their reports to find the 'keywords' that match with guys who ended up being stars. So you can sort of tie the individual 'scouts' lingo to which guys succeed and see if there is a correlation.

For sure - But the scouts entering the keywords would be proprietary (some) so more scouts/better scouts would still benefit the teams.

Unless all teams just go off central scouting which would seem ..... to be an area to exploit with better in house analytics and scouting

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

It's great that they're looking more at Russians. Never understood why they never really considered that region under previous management groups. So many skilled players over there.

For a while the "russian factor" was a legit thing, similar to the US College thing being a "thing". Even considering the geopolitical situation, I think the russian factor is mostly in the past. There are a f-ton of good skilled players there wanting to play over here. Just have to trust the scouts and management to do their due diligence to make sure they want to be here.

[Enoch Root]

I don't think tracking words makes sense, I think you track the scouts' records. And you can break it down quite specifically: this scout has a good record with offensive defensemen, this scout is good with scoring wingers, etc

Players that excel at 16, but lose ground at 17 tend to trend like this... players with growth spurts after the age of 17 are better bets than their rankings...

etc, etc

[Enoch Root]

As for Russian scouts, diminishing returns for sure. How many Russians are there in the NHL? How many leagues/teams do you have to follow to find another one?

I would spend my resources learning more about the scouts I have, what works, what doesn't, and how do we leverage that information. Spending resources to have more guys driving around Siberia seems like deployment with low upside to me.

[Calgary4LIfe]

I guess there are two types of "Russian Factor", and I do believe one type will continue to be a thing.


For instance, the Flames drafted Rushan Rafikov, and he was looking like a really good prospect. Never showed interest in coming over, and didn't even bother to attend a single camp. More famously, Kovalchuk wanted to play in Russia for a while. Datsyuk retired from the NHL in part because he wanted to finish his career in Russia. There will be players who prefer to play in their homeland. I would think that the Russian scouts or other people in the organization will have a better handle on who does and who doesn't want to play in the NHL in the future. Rafikov seemed genuinely happy to be drafted though, so maybe this part will continue to be a bit of a crapshoot.



However, what has been famously labelled as the Russian Factor back then was Russian players leveraging their NHL teams with the KHL in order to get bigger contracts. I do agree that this has mostly gone by the wayside. I can't remember the last player to have a contract dispute and go to the KHL. Radulov? It seems they either want to specifically play in their homeland for the entirety of their careers, or perhaps for the tail end of their careers, or they just want to play in the NHL and stay here. I wouldn't be scared of drafting Russians in the future, but you do have to gauge their interest in coming over.



Having a few Russians around the team will certainly make it more conducive to attracting more Russians to play here, as well as being helping them get settled here (especially if there is a language barrier).

[Tbull8]

Would love to see them lean on the Russian scout for the later rounds. Take some home run swings rather than the “ahl tweener” picks that seems to be taken. It still baffles me how late Kaprizov was drafted

[Arsenal14]

The thing with scouting Russia is that there really aren't that many leagues or players of interest. For instance NHL Central Scouting has 10 Russian players in the top 50 international players and another 16 ranked 51-100. So being generous and saying you'd want to cover all of those it's only 26 players across 2 leagues with many of them on the same teams. One dedicated scout for Russia with a head European scout that does cross-checking seems reasonable.

[Macindoc]

Also, seriously, what citizen of a liberal democracy wants to live in Russia right now (aside from Steven Seagal)?

[Canada 02]

part two of the interview

“I think we have a way more experienced staff than we did in those years,” Button said from outside a junior rink earlier this week. “And to be honest, sometimes, at that time there was a lot of management influx, a lot of changes. You’re getting pulled and pushed in a lot of different directions. That’s no excuse, that’s how it was, but we’re confident things will be way different than it was in years-past.

https://calgaryherald.com/sports/hoc...o-hit-on-picks

[Jiri Hrdina]

This is encouraging

And with Craig Conroy in charge as general manager, there seems to be a clearly articulated vision. The scouting staff is bigger and has more sophisticated tools at its disposal, too.