The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 177: That Other (Entry) Draft

Episode Date: June 20, 2017

Garret Hohl and Ryan Biech join the show to unpack the NHL entry draft and all of the important discussion points surrounding it.  Topics include drafting for need vs. taking the best player available (1:46), why it's so difficult to properly evaluate young defensemen (7:16), the pros and cons of moving the age cut-off (14:05), personal preferences for certain developmental leagues (20:00), sneaky off-the-board picks vs. red flag players (39:30), and all of the layers to the debate about Kris Russell and his infamous microstats (48:45).  Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. and joining me here sitting across from me in my living room for a menager pod. It's my good buddy Ryan Beach and Garrett Hole. How's it going? Hey. So we're recording this for full disclosure on Friday afternoon,

and we're probably going to hold this show for a few days because I feel like, you know, we're going to be talking about the draft, but maybe not the one that is at the forefront of most people's minds at this point. So with that out of the way, what do you guys, where do you guys want to start this discussion about the entry draft? Because, you know, we can talk about sort of specific players. And I know Ryan, you know, you're very familiar with all these guys

considering how much work you've been doing with the prospect reports and sort of the rankings of all the guys over at Canucks Army. And we'll get into that for sure. But maybe a more sort of philosophical discussion about, what we're looking for and where we go from here with some of these younger players in terms of evaluating them is more practical for for the listeners so you know I was telling you Ryan before we started the show I felt like sort of consensus was most people had Gabriel Valardi as the third guy after you know there's still a debate between Nolan versus Nico but

after that it seemed like Valardi was the obvious third guy and you guys kind of went a different way and you had Cody Glass there. Yeah. I guess the first topic is that there's a lot of difference between what a mock draft is and what draft rankings is. You'll see a lot of people who do mock drafts and they'll have Gabe Lardy as three or Miro Heiskin and as three and people like ourselves will do more a draft ranking. I don't care where they go.

I'm doing it based on who I think are the best players and who will make the best long-term impact. Yeah. And so that's the difference between our opinion of Vilardi compared to Cody Glass. Well, I mean, in an ideal world, there'd be an overlap between those two things. Like, we think this guy's the best. He should go there. That's exactly the thing.

Like, a draft ranking is just basically best player available or in order of descending highest to lowest expected output over their career. Then the other one is the mock draft is where these people are guessing that order is also taking an account in need, which, probably is overrated because of the fact that most of these guys aren't ready for four to five years anyways. Yes. Yeah, I think that's sort of the thing people, it seems obvious, but at the same time, the way you hear sometimes media members discuss these draft picks, it's very confusing because they're like, oh, you know, the Canucks, for example, they took Oliolabee last year. Yeah.

They have a few guys that they've drafted the past few years or accrued in their system. They're set on defense according to Jim Benny. So, you know, they don't need a, they don't need another defense on a fifth over. And, you know, regardless of who you think they should take there, like, if that guy, if the best player available there from a talent perspective as a defenseman, you should probably just take that guy because you never know, you know, obviously it's good to have as many resources as possible. You can wind up trading them down the road.

But you also never know how these developmental paths will turn out or, you know, who's going to wind up actually hitting their ceilings and who's not. Well, a lot of the thing is also we're not the ones who have jobs riding on it or long-term plans to. So, like, you know, we look, we don't look at a player like Miro Heiskin and say, okay, he's the best defenseman available. This team needs a defenseman, so they're going to take him. We more view him as, you know, he's going to be the eighth most impactful player in the long run.

Obviously, a team, whoever that may be, if that's Colorado, who has a serious void of defense, they may prioritize that because that's their construction of a team and they feel as so. And it changes the way things happen. And it's all subjective based on a team's need and who falls. there and a lot of the times I think people overthink it of what's going on is like I've seen a lot of people suggesting that Philadelphia will pass on Patrick just because they need defensemen in the long run because their current defense isn't good yeah but if you look at their HL team and their their you know CHL prospects they have a lot of defensive prospects coming but nobody looks at that so they automatically assume that because current at this exact moment Philadelphia's defense isn't good they're going to take a defenseman well that's probably not going to be the case right yeah I think there's another um angle that it's not looked at often with need is there's also and I've heard this from another scout before where I was kind of talking about risk and reward and sometimes they're more willing to take a riskier player that has the higher upside depending on like how much depth they have in the

prospect coverage currently yeah so that also kind of impacts decision making which will make a mock draft theoretically different than an actual rankings but for the most part rankings and mock drafts should be basically the same if the market was perfect. Yeah. I think one of the most, you know, we've sort of all accepted the fact that goaltending is very, I'm not going to say voodoo, because I know that offends certain people in the hockey analytics industry. But it's definitely more volatile and unpredictable. And we're developing better measures to make more educated guesses,

but it's still a pretty big ways away from being an exact ion's. The technical term, it's more susceptible to random variance. Yes, exactly. It's what you said. So with that said, I feel like the discussions we have about prospect defensemen are also way off because there seems to be this kind of general belief amongst people that defensemen take longer to develop. Oh, dear. Yeah.

And it's, it's, okay, we can talk about aging curves and all that, but there is also sort of this like self-fulfilling prophecy where if you're the person in charge of that player's development or when he gets to play for your team and you are of the belief that this defenseman isn't ready yet, then you're probably sort of like stunting his, his growth as a player and pushing his developmental curve back a bit. So it's like, it's a really tough thing to have an accurate. discussion about because you can't just talk about it in sort of this controlled environment because there's so many of these variables going on. Yeah. Sorry, it's environment based entirely and it's based on decisions of people who aren't playing on the ice, right? So, you know, it could be Oliu Levy coming to the Canucks. He might be rushed in because they are going, might eventually trade Kristanaf, and that might have already happened by now. But like, then wherein if he was developed or, you know, drafted and developed in another system that he might finish his OHL.

career, do a year in the age, I'll then come up from there. And it all changes the curve of his development on what's going to, what he's going to do specifically in the environment is a huge part of that. Yeah. Basically, there's only two facts that we know for certain. One, that defensemen's performance relative to their ice time peaks around the same age as goaltenders and forwards. Defensemen enter this league on average later than forwards, although the gap has decreased over the

last 10 or 12 years when I was last looking. Right. So what does tell us is two things. They peak around the same age, but do they develop later? My theories no, but there's the chance that maybe it is. This, as we said, a lot of environmental aspects. But we do know for certain that we thought they took longer to develop, or not we, but the hockey men.

The 200 hockey men overstated how long it takes them to develop. originally whether or not they were corrected by their current decisions. Well, yeah, I'm willing to believe that maybe once upon a time the Ventsman developed slower, just because maybe when the game was more physical around the net, it makes sense that maybe the guy would have to spend a few years beefing up a little bit and getting stronger to be able to handle some of those forwards in front of the net. But in today's game, that's not really, much of a thing anymore.

It's like it's much more movement based and I don't understand why like a 24 year old would be more suited to do that than a 20, 21 year old. Like maybe I guess you can make, make from like a decision making perspective maybe, you could sort of make that argument. But I, I, it seems very, uh, arbitrary. And the other thing like, because you kind of talked about after or sorry, before you started talking, uh, mentioning the whole development peak and, and later entry thing.

You also kind of tossed on about how defensemen might be less than perfect market relative to forwards and drafting. One of the biggest reasons I think that is is because teams are undervaluing offense. And yes, we know, like, for example, with a lot of studies in the NHL level,

for example, with Don't Tell Me About Hart's war model, defenseman's value definitely comes from defensive impact a lot more than forwards do on average. But that offensive impact still matters a lot, especially when you're dealing with these players are playing against 90% competition that will never even see the NHL ice. And so, like, you know, there's like studies that were done long ago by Reese and studies that were done later by myself,

where you notice that there are definitely able, scouts are definitely able to figure out which defensemen are the defensemen who are more likely to make the NHL versus not. They can see the non-scoring attributes that make them something good. However, they seem to undervalue scoring relative to those attributes. Well, do you think some of it has to do with the fact that we have sort of fewer events to evaluate them on just because, like, obviously, if a guy has otherworldly point totals as a defenseman, that's generally a sign that he's doing something well and you know he's involved in the action

but we know that especially like at the n hlo for example there's a lot of uh there's a lot of flaws with just evaluating defensemen purely based on how many points they have like you know a guy like anton strawman can help drive your offense a lot by not necessarily getting a lot of points but but just moving the puck and getting you moving in the right direction and that is a part of the offensive game and you know with our junior major junior stats for example like the data is so archaic at this point still that it's like all you really have is points and I guess shots now and it's like it's it's it's it's very tough to without actually watching all of those games to know how involved the guy is actually an offense and

whether it's just you know he's kind of in the right place the right time well I do want to put a little bit of a self plug saying that that's what my company deals with for the most part but outside of that plug it only took 11 minutes for you to get there it only took 11 minutes but going on to the whole scoring and archaic data. Just using archaic data, I mean, I took Reese's studying and redid it, Reese Jessop. He looked, he made an arbitrary line, 0.6 points per game, which is, you know, like, that's bidding. But, and then looked at tops drafted guys, so guys in the first, like, 60 picks. Then the guy's 60 through 90 and then 90 plus.

Yep. And so there's, so you got six different groups. And what we found is the guys who scored, um, less than that threshold that were drafted in the first two rounds, they, they were good. They still made the NHL at a high percentage. However, um, two things. One, they were just as successful as guys drafted in the next bin. So like your rounds three and four guys who did score a lot. Right.

So they're being overvalued even though they're still good. Um, and the other thing that we noticed was. that most of those guys might have had shooting percentage deflation or whatever because they scored a lot the next year. Ryan, do you have anything that had done? No, I agree. No, I agree with what he's saying. I think that when it comes to valuing the offense, there has to be something at the junior level when you're taking them in order,

because it's not suddenly they're going to, I guess the odds of what I'm trying to say is the odds of them finding offense after being drafted are significantly lower than if you're taking someone who's put up with everything. Well, even just, if you're, like, let's look at a couple of, like, uh, examples like Vlasic. Yeah. Or handbuse. You know, those guys are, they're more defensive guys. Their values are not in their point totals in the NHL. Right. However, in junior, their value was in point totals.

Yeah. Because of the fact that if you're good enough to push the play at the NHL level against the best, I mean, there's obvious exceptions. Exceptions will always exist to every rule. But for the generality, if you're good enough to push the play at the end of the end of the NHL level and be a two-way guy, then you're going to be good enough to, you know, beat these players who, you know, some of them won't even be able to play in the ECHL. Right.

In theory, you're not just going to develop this new skill out of the know where you're like 25 playing against the league, the world's best players. The later in career that you become a shutdown defenseman, generally the longer you're, you end up going. The guys who are shut down defensemen, even good shutdown defensemen in the CHL don't necessarily translate to the next level. While that's not always the case. that is more often than not the case.

So kind of a related topic. I'm not sure how much people have been talking about it recently, but I know in the past it was a topic of discussion, and it was sort of this idea of potentially moving the age cutoff for the draft and maybe moving it back a bit. So that we have more data or more information about the players, we basically buy ourselves an extra year of figuring out whether they're good or not before they come into the league and how that would affect the draft

and whether, you know, teams would get a lot better at it, and we'd see fewer, fewer busts taken, and, you know, the draft order would make sense? Like, where are you guys at on that? Do you think that that's something that should be explored? Or do you think that it's kind of good because it provides sort of a competitive advantage where you're kind of, you're adding this element of higher variance

because you do know a little bit less, but if you're looking at the right stuff and you're a smart team when it comes to drafting, you really are going to do better than your competition? I think there would be some improvement across the board, but I think the teams that do well currently would continue to do well because they're limiting their subjectivity and things like that that's factoring into their decisions already. So if you're applying another year, then some teams might get a little bit better. But I think a lot of teams still try to draft hockey players. They still have this picture in their head or idea of what a hockey player is and how a hockey team is going to be. And that's what's changing how they're draft.

and who they're drafting and their draft strategies, where a lot of times they're not just going for the best player available. Sometimes they're sometimes going after what people like to refer to as the fridge or the Coke machine who is big and tough and junior, but it's not going to continue that way, right? Because he's playing against 15, 16-year-olds, right? So I think there would be some improvement, but I think overall the teams that thrive currently would continue to do so.

Yeah, I definitely agree. There'll be a decrease in variance, like Dimitri said, which will mean that everyone's drafting will become more tight-knit. There'll be more parity, I guess. The marginal improvement of being a good drafting team will become less, but the best will still be the best because the processes that were the right processes are still, will stay the same. The process I?

Process I. Yeah. No, I think it's an interesting discussion. I mean, I'm all for getting it right more often than not, but it does. You know, the uncertainty is ultimately what kind of makes the draft fun. And from our perspective, if you are looking at the right things or trying to remove some of the noise, it does give you kind of a head start and everyone else. So selfishly it makes a bit more of a fun experience. Yeah, exactly.

I look at teams like Tampa Bay and they prioritize skill and speed in their later rounds. And now suddenly we're getting to a point where they're having these players like Matthew Joseph and Mitchell Stevens and players like this who, they're going to they're trending more towards being an NHL player than anything and they're going to fit somewhere in there and they can go anywhere and they give them a lot more adaptability I don't know if that's the right word for it

of going forward for their organization and so they might have two or three of the similar players but if one gets injured they have one who can step up or they can trade one to fill a need like a top defensive prospect where things like that where it's it gives them more options in the future and teams that I really like

that do similar ideas, Carolina, and they're accumulating all these assets and players and things like that, and now they're going out and getting what they need to fix their problems. So they have, you know, their loyalty towards their goldenity situation was an obvious flaw. They have a draft pick. It's no harm. They have all their top prospects. And suddenly they're going to take that next step, right? So I think it's just that difference of philosophy is what's really separating teams. Yeah, well, I wonder how much of it is, I think the philosophy is a good point because, you know, we've talked about this before in the past many times, but

you can't like you can't pigeonhole the players based on you can't draft the guy and be like this guy is going to be our you know third liner or a fourth liner because that's not like usually those those best guys are like the failed top prospects right like so when you're drafting for specific needs are trying to you know fit them into these tight roster spots like that's it seems like not the best way to approach the draft no exactly you're trying to fill a need that isn't there yes with a uncertainty well plus Yeah. I mean, what's, when people are looking for depth players from the draft, let's be honest here, how much do death players cost in terms of trade assets and signing through free agency? Generally speaking, they're not expensive to go after. So that's why, you know, go for the, go for the fences. Yeah. Swing for the fences? Swing for the fences. I was going to say go bigger, go home. And I was like, eh. Then it connotates to where it's like, go for the fences.

Go for the tall guy and I was halfway there. Go for the fridge, right? Yeah, go for the fridge. Oh my God. Stick the hockey, Gary. Go for the fences. I finally found the guy that I was looking for, though. For example, the fridge.

This is Reese Jessup's favorite example. Cameron Abney. Six foot five, drafted in the third round by the Emmington Oilers. Can anyone guess how many points he scored in his draft year? He played 48 games and it's a Ford. Like eight, probably. You doubled. Oh.

Four. Oh, man. Third round draft picks. How many penalty minutes did you have? Like 150 or something? 103. Nice. Or the plus minus a minus 17.

There we go. So where do you guys want to take the discussion next? What is like a good... I had all the points I want. I'm done. You're done? You did the hockey data plug? Yeah, I plugged in hockey data.

I talked about, you know, defensemen, which is my biggest thing because, you know, Logan Stanley. Yeah. Do you guys have like an internal preference for what league the players coming from? I seem to be, I don't want to say attracted because that sounds odd. Aroused. Players from Sweden and Finland seem to jump out at me. Right.

So someone like Eric Branson. Patterson is a perfect example. But Eric Brantzram, I think, is kind of the guy from this year that I noticed at the U-18s last summer. as someone like, okay, that looks like a really good value bet in the second third round, depending on where teams land, right? Are you falling for the U18 fallacy? No, I do not fall for that. I'm just kidding.

That's his D minus one, so that's fine. You can fall for that fall for that fallacy of it. And then he's someone that you kind of keep an eye on going throughout the year, and then suddenly now he's pushed himself into that first round. And those signs are there because he's playing the way that the NHL is playing now. He moves the puck well, and he can create that offense that we were talking about earlier. But it just seems that there's a lot of Swedish players in Finns. players that just seem to push themselves up as we get close to the draft.

Right. And they, in the second round, they seem to do extremely well. It definitely looks like a strong year for Europeans. Yeah, I'll agree with that for sure. I mean, as someone that's watched a lot of Major Junior, I would definitely prefer someone playing in a pro-style league because, uh... Because you know more. It's that fear of the unknown with Europeans. Well, I think, I think it...

I think it, even though, you know, the ice surface might be different or whatever, and it's a different playing style. Like, I do think it's, it's more translatable to what's actually going on at the NHL level. Like, you watch some of these, like, W.HL games, for example, and you're just like, what is going on out there? Like, it's like, it's a free-for-all. I mean, it's really fun to watch. And you see that every year, you know, the Memorial Cup, for example, seems to really captivate everyone's attention on Twitter because you realize that it's like this six-five game where it's just constantly, like, everything's out of control. You're like, this is amazing. It's a roller coaster ride, but I don't think that's the best sign of how the guy's going to do at the NHL level unless he's, like, truly just dominating.

So, so, by such a wide margin that you're like, okay, well, even if he falls back a bit relative to his peers, he's still going to be looking pretty good. I mean, there's advantages and disadvantages. I mean, the CHL you have their, and now the USHL, because let's be honest, that level is basically catching up, if not almost already caught up. terms of quality. You know, you get a lot of games, you get a lot of looks, you have a large data pool. So it's not just, it's not just a better league for the I-test, but it's also a better league for the numbers. So there's a lot more confidence in, you know, what a player will be and how you project.

There's definitely a lot more issues with Europe because, you know, you got the issues of whether the playing style will translate, but you also have the issue that, you know, these kids are not playing the same type of roles. Usually, you know, like when we look at like, for example, scoring in the CHL, it's not just whether or not the player was, you know, the highest score, but it was also the fact that the player was good enough that the coach gave them the opportunities to be the highest score. And when you deal with Europe, you know, these are not development leagues.

These kids are the younger players, not the older players. And they're not the guys who are usually driving the bus for their team. So, you know, there's a lot, they're not quite making the minutes to give substantial samples. So, again, you have that higher variance. Yeah, I got a lot of points to top up here. Okay, let's go. Okay, so, yeah, your point about the major junior in CHL is a bit of a scramble is, can be a bit of an understatement. For an example, like I went to the Winterhawks and Vancouver Giants game this year.

And the Giants, hopefully they're not listening, but they are not very good. I don't think Benson was injured, and I think Ronning was out with a minor ailment, so they were just not good. I think they got out shot like 55 to 18 by Portland, and I think the shot count, they just stopped trying to keep adding. But you'll look at someone like Cody Glass, and he's this dominant player, he's dominated throughout the league, and then you could tell by the third period he just stopped taking that extra step. Right. So something like that will create people to be like, oh, he's not trying, because this is people's first views or whatever like that. So you got to, that's a lot of the vetting processes that you have to get those multiple looks, which is very fair to separate the elite from there. Yes.

The other point is that we use analytics to help our scouting and things like that, but there's nothing you can, nothing can replace seeing these players live. Like I look at someone like Morgan Frost with the Sue St. Marie Greyhounds. He played a depth, like, middle six role for the Greyhounds because they had Sinition and Kuch and stuff like that. And he's someone who did very well in that role. And next year when these players graduate, then he's going to be the next step up. And he could be a very good bet. The next poo? The next poo.

Cliff Pooh. Yeah. So he could be a very good bet in the second third round for a team because he's going to take that step up. And then people will be like, oh, where did he come from? Yeah. Where he didn't. He wasn't a point per game player. Thirdly, Cam Lawrence and Josh Wisebuck found the 51% rule in the Swedish hockey league,

which is any 18-year-old or younger player in the Swedish Hockey League who plays regular minutes and scores at a 0.09 point per game rate. Which means basically they were given enough ice time to somehow, some way, get a point. Exactly. That theoretically 51% of those players become successful. And if you look at this year's crop that met that requirements and some of them exceeded it a lot, you have yes for Goyclist who is now suddenly pushing into the first round,

and Timothy Lilligrin, who, despite people knocking him down, is going to be a very good player. Lano. Yep. Lias Anderson, Christian Vesalinen, Marcus Davidson, Eric Bansom. So those are your top big six. And right away, like everyone knows who these players are. And then you have, like, Ricard Hogg, Philip Westerland and Oliver Jolstrom. All of these players are, they have, they've played regular minutes in the, a pro league.

And automatically, that I should put, you know, a huge sign to be like, this is someone who, is already showing success at this level and is going to take the next step up. So I think that's part of the reason why that your point of these players playing against men is something you have to keep track up. It has to be something that vaults these players over

junior players who are playing against 15 and 16 year olds at times. I'm very curious about this idea of drafting versus development, right? And you know, we'd like to think that every we do most of our analysis

pre-draft based on how they've done up until that point with the information we have. But then once they enter a player's system, do you guys agree it's fair to say that how that player's developmental path will continue to go might be subject to which team drafts him? Oh yeah. And also the individual themselves. I mean, there's development curves are, you know, averages. And some players are going to be, I mean, Mark Scheifley was a, guy that a lot of us analytics people and also the scouting community both were kind of a little

hesitant on but you know mark shrifly's risen to one of the best centers in the n-h-l and a huge reason for that is the fact that the guy is obsessed with hockey he's followed unfollowed me multiple times as he's checking out stuff um i know for a fact you might be just obsessed with you not just is that why you like him yeah maybe no uh i'm surprised that he likes me uh if he does. I was going to say if anyone follows you, they probably know why people unfollow you. So, I don't mean to cut you off,

but on the point of Mark Schifley, you know, you're mentioning how people didn't really seem to like him as a prospect, maybe as much as how high he went in the draft. And the numbers are one thing, but you also mentioned that maybe like the more traditional scouting also wasn't really in favor with him. I wonder how much of that is the fact that, you know,

it's like Ryan Johansson is the best example of this, where sometimes these guys that are kind of like just like big and lanky sometimes look like they're not necessarily exerting as much effort. And then it leads a traditional scout to say that he's not trying really hard. Whereas these like small undersized guys just look like they're constantly moving. But they're really actually doing the same thing and covering the same amount of ground. We used to call Shifley Bambi because of the fact that his lower body strength was terrible. And he would like fall all over the place.

But the guy is a huge student of the game. Like recently Corey Schneider was tweeting out, some zone entry stuff and Mark Shifley just has ridiculous zone entries not just in efficiency but also in terms of generating passes off of entries and I said I guarantee you he's read some of your stuff and so he understands why like these stuff matters and so like there's these variables that no one really can completely understand but then on top of that like to keep with the Mark Shifley's thing there was the guy that everyone wanted was Sean Couture and Sean Caturieres turned out to be an excellent, excellent defensive center,

but his offense is not at all what people expected, given those point production and how elite that was in the QMJHL. And as soon as he was drafted, he went to go to play the NHL the very next year by the Flyers, and he was put in a defensive shutdown role with pylons for the next three years. How much of that affected his upside and his sealing him? I'm sure quite a bit. I mean, the reason why I brought up this idea of development is because I'm always sort of intrigued by,

and I don't think there's a necessarily right answer, but it's like what you do with the prospect where you necessarily don't want to really expose him to the NHL level because you think he might not be ready, but he's probably done everything he can with his major junior team. And like a great example of that is a guy like Mikhail Sergatchev coming up this year because, you know, he just got traded to the lightning. And there's this clause in place where if he plays under 40 games, they basically swap like a sixth or seventh round pick into a second rounder. And they also avoid burning a year of his UFA.

They basically push back his clock for his UFA years, right? So they're incentivized to make sure that he plays less than 40 games next season for them. Even though, you know, that might be a moot point if he plays really well and they're back to contending and he might stick in their lineup. But he can't play. I'm pretty sure he can't get sent down to the HL still Correct yeah unless so and but like

I feel like at this point He's done everything he really can with Windsor Like what is he gonna go back like I So I'm always fascinated like do you send him back there Will he really I don't mean I kind of like psychoanalyze the guy But what is what does he have to prove at that level still Well yeah there's the whole idea of overload

My my my uh I guess I always always do a powerlifting reference when I'm on your show. Always, every time. You're good for that. Like, you know, the only way that you grow is by increasing difficulty and creating more stressors. And, you know, if the junior is way too easy, you know, what development other than, you know,

giving them skating practice and, you know, maybe going to the weight room and eating in another year of age development, there's not really much specific skill set development of playing against tough players. And that is definitely a problem with the CHL. the fact that you have these players who the CHL wants to keep because that's their money. But at the same time, they're too good for the CHL. They're not good enough for the NHL, maybe. And you can't throw them in the AHL.

Yeah, well, I mean, you mentioned a guy like Cliff Poo, for example. Like, he's playing sort of a lower role on his team. And then as the top guys, as the top guys get phased out and go on to, the next chapter of their careers, he takes a step up and it makes sense that he'd benefit from being the top guy on his team now all of a sudden. Whereas with Sergeatsch, if you're already eating up all those minutes and being relied upon to do everything at a certain point, you do sort of maybe look for other challenges and they might not be present at that current level. You might need to fail at the NHL level to, as you said, get better at those certain

parts of your game. I think the only way you can improve is he played both defensive positions because his normal partner chat field has to graduate. So it just puts Stradtiv back there on his own. That's probably the only way he can develop something in the CHL. There's not much left. Or just groom him to... Or play him with Logan Stanley, because that'll be hard enough. We don't want to totally bury the guy.

I'm just kidding. Okay, so let's talk about some specific names in this draft. And, you know, earlier in the show, I mentioned how Ryan, you guys had, Cody Glass as your third ranked prospect on your list. And I hadn't really, you know, I still haven't totally done my own like full research on which guys I like and don't like. I'm like, I'm viewing. I'm viewing.

I'm really waiting until, I'm going to be waiting until like Thursday night before the draft until I really dive into everything. But, you know, you guys made some good points in that piece. And one of them was he had the most five on five points, I believe, of any first year draft eligible player in Major Junior. And, you know, that's something that we've come to understand is probably going to be a better indicator of future success. And that's a big reason why we don't like a guy like Michael Rasmussen, for example.

Yeah, the Michael Rasmussen. I was talking to someone a scout today about the same thing. And he said that he had Michael Rasmussen out of the first round. And we're like, yeah, okay. We know this. But, yeah, Cody Glass, if I'm not mistaken, only trailed Yamamoto. And I think Patrick had just enough more points per game than him. But all the indicators of success.

And there's someone who compared him to Ryan Johansson during his draft year. And everything was higher for Cody Glass. He just kind of does everything, right? And that's kind of why, you know, the scouting eye comes into it as well. So we had Gabe Vlari at fourth, where the general consensus seems to be third because there's concerns about Gabe Vilardi skating. Right. So that's not something that's going to come through the analytical output of it.

But by us watching the games, we can see, okay, that he doesn't quite have the same step Cody Glass does. So you compare the two, and there's that eye test that will put Cody Glass ahead. Right. And I will say, there's a lot of things that Cody Glass does well, speaking from my job, that does well that, like... You realize we're just going to edit this out of the show. Damn. Every time you plot Rocky Dad, it is.

It'll be like two-minute show. Garrett didn't speak on that show. You guys said he was on, but he didn't really say anything. He is, like, you know what? people talk about some players who just derive a huge ton of shots close to the net and...

He's mastered shot baller. The primary is. Glass is that guy. Yeah. Glass... Would you say he's broken the glass ceiling? Oh, no. I thought the glass... Listen, I was I was going for the fences with that one. As the ex-Kinnock blogger, wasn't the glass ceiling something else?

It was a much lower ceiling. Very little lower. Yes, yes. Some might have called it a basement. no so here's here's something you know when you look at how you know

we've definitely grown in terms of looking at just point production and you sort of segment and you break it down by how much it was a 515 and sort of how much it was primary points and all that stuff and then you look at you know a guy like Owen Tippett

for example such a large percentage of his production is goal-based. And while obviously it's great to have a guy that scores goals because they're very important, I've heard, on the scoreboard. And, you know, I do believe that goal scoring is a legitimate skill. You know, some guys will, certain guys with certain skills will score more goals than others. Like, where are you guys at in terms of how a guy like that profiles and how much you're willing

to believe that's going to carry over versus maybe a guy who's more of a traditional playmaker? When I look at Tippett, I think of Jake Fretan, a little bit less physical, but same kind of skills, fast skater, big body, shoots the puck really well. The problem is that he just doesn't use his teammates as well. And a lot of the times that when you start progressing up the ladder, your space between you and your opponent is going to be much smaller. And suddenly you don't have that time to create that shot. So you see someone like Jake Fertanan who might struggle with that to get his shots off or he just doesn't read the play very well. And so then those transferable skills that he's doing really well in junior are not going to go to the next level. So that's usually the first red flag when I see someone who is like the Salyang winner who has a lot more goals and a lot lower assists.

Jeff Carter from a few years ago. Exactly. Yeah. That's the red flag that I see. So that's where you want to find out like how is he scoring his goals and is it going to be a difference going forward. And just kind of loop around to something like Kail McCarr. If you watched the Alberta Junior Hockey League, it is an absolute train wreck when it comes. to defensive structure.

Yes. Respectfully, of course. Yes. But so you watch these things and, like, there's no denying that the kid as a skilled kid, but is he going to be able to do that at the NCAA? Is he going to be able to do those same things at the HL and then the NHL? Right. So, um...

Was it you that sent me the screen, uh, clipping of him being at the blue line when there's a puck battle behind his goalie? Yeah. So, ready for the breakout? Yeah. So Brooks played a very... He needs to go in the Rangers. Yeah, pretty much.

Yes. Brooks played like man-to-man coverage on steroids. So it was like the face off happened and his man covered the point as the other defenseman went in. I can't remember who they were playing. So he followed the guy to there. Right. So, you know, there's two of his forwards, his other defensemen battling in his own corner as he's hanging out at his blue line with the winger. Yeah.

And so like I make the argument of why that's a concern is that if they, if the bandits get that puck out and it rings around, Suddenly McCar is against a Ford in the Elder Junior Hockey League who is going to get annihilated by whoever has skill. Yes. Where that's not going to happen because it's different structures, different systems, and he's not going to be there, right? So, yeah. Yeah, that was me. Who sent that picture? Yeah, I thought so.

Because when we were tracking for him, like, honestly, there were so many times where all the plays, like, the plays that he's a beautiful skater and, like, the things he would do is amazing. but so many times his the people that he was targeting would all fall down for like no reason they would they wouldn't even fall down at that point in the CHL yeah like I'm not saying like oh these he's not playing against guys for a future angel he's like these are guys who wouldn't cut it in the CHL yeah yeah okay well let's get into some specific uh some specific names and in terms of maybe guys you might like that are a bit off the radar give a give some interesting little nuggets to the listeners that have managed to uh to hang on up until this point of the show. Are there any guys that you feel like based on, you know, discourse you've

seen online or a different mock drafts from different websites that you might like a lot more than, you know, the public seems to, or even in the inverse, guys that you're down on that people seem to love for whatever reason. And you're not allowed to say Michael Rasmussen on this one. Or how about guys that, like, I'm completely confused about and I'm not. Yeah, let's go with those. Let's start with those. That's a good one. Let's start off with Libra female, also known as Vecanin. I was like, I don't recognize that name. Back in A9N if you use, if your computer auto-translate stuff, it translates to Libra female. Okay.

All right. So whenever I'm on the Ligo website, all of a sudden I have to like control F, Vac-Nan, and it's like, no, can't find him. Control F, Libra, Feud. Oh, there he is. Yes. That's like, that's like Cali Iron Hook. Yeah. Yes.

He's a guy that's been watched for a very long while. He came in as a 16-year-old and a 15-year-old, he was a guy that scouts were really high on because he scored a whole bunch. He was one of the best performing 16-year-olds in the Liga in his D-minus one year. Now, this year was his D-year. There's a lot of expectations. People are looking at him mid-first round, I think, was what Bob McKenzie had him. And when I asked him, I think there was September or October, I asked McKenzie whether any of the 10 scouts he asked had Vaccanine. in the top 10.

He said, yes, some did. You just didn't cut the top 10. And he's completely fallen off the map because he's had absolutely no production in the Liga. But the interesting thing is he's also one of the best coursey defenders in the Liga. So you have this guy who has a history of scoring, who's not scoring this year,

but it's well respected for his defensive game and his skating and smarts and has one of the best coursey percentages both last year and this year. this year. Sounds like a guy that might be gaming scorcing. Maybe. But like that guy, he's tough to read. You know, whether he'll bounce back or whatnot. I mean, the one thing that's going to be interesting is that team's losing a couple

players next year, two are moving over to North America and whatnot, and they play a very four-forward one defenseman system from PowerPlay. So he'll start getting PowerPlay opportunities. And he's a guy that I would say is a bit of a dark horse for late for his early second. I like it. Libra female. Libra female. Ryan, you got any guys?

There's some players that, you know, mainstream, scouting, things like that are kind of undervalued where the analytics community more are on the wagons. Right. So I mentioned BoyQuist as someone who we kind of identified early as an intriguing player. And now I've started to see him in hovering around the 25 to 40 range, which is kind of ideally where it is. Robin Salo, who plays as a defenseman in the league. I'm sure Garrett has more data than I have available. but basically I'mockedata.com I didn't even want to do that

he scored just under the same rate as high skin in right um there's a like the only concern is that he's not as adeptive skater as high skin in but otherwise like almost identical production and player and thing like that so I think that's another player that comes there right um for like players that kind of get overvalued um you know players like pop a guy off um i have a lot of concerns of watching his game compared to He fell off of a cliff once he got Prince George in a lesser role. So that's definitely someone who I think is probably going to go higher than should just because he's big and they like big.

But I saw him get checked by a 5-10-4 defenseman get pushed off the puck and he's like seven feet tall. So that's definitely someone who will probably go higher. So when you said earlier, you know, there's guys that your analytics might like more than more traditional. thinking or scouting. Like what, give me like a rough profile of what certain, um, you know,

landmarks or what certain points you're looking for, uh, that would make you kind of be on a guy or, or as like a flyer or a guy you're intrigued by. So at Knoch's Army, we use the prospect graduation probability system, which is the PGPS. PCS rip off.

I'm just kidding. Fair enough. So we look at their production based on their size and things like that and then combine them. Right. It's way over my head. I just take it. and analyze it.

Yes. There. So the first thing that I usually do is we have a giant list and then it's sort by best probabilities and then it's get rid of the names that don't, that shouldn't be or should be there, right? Can I interject? It's not just sorted by best probabilities. We have gone a little bit further in creating an expected value.

So, I mean, the safest player is not necessarily the best player because let's say you have a player who's 80% likely to go in the NHL, but his peak. is a fourth liner. And then you have a guy who's got a 40% chance, but his peak is an all-star NHLer. Well, you know, the expected value of that is both the probability and also the upside, both being compared together. Yeah. Well, here's a question, though, that I'm sure listeners that are still listening would have

if they were listening to what you just said. What are you using as a benchmark to qualify a guy as a regular NHLer? Well, it kind of depends on whose system. I mean, your guy's system. was dealing with a 200 game minimum, I believe, for cohorts, right? Yeah, it was 200. It's been bumped down to 100, 100 plays into it now. Yeah, slightly weighted too.

Yes, yeah. And the 200 was just basically kind of the consensus that we had gotten from speaking with people as what is a successful draft pick is 200 games because that's two and a half seasons. Now the obvious, and I'm not sure I necessarily have a better solution, but the obvious flaw with using games played as an indicator of an NHL level, talent is that you're sort of going under the assumption that the people giving him those games are always right yeah there's and i mean that's in part why expected values added in there because you're looking also at their ceiling because most because sometimes what you get is you get like

the keaton ellorby's or whatever they're the players that you know we said we said that probably shouldn't have been drafted where he was drafted um but he ended up passing the 200 game mark right reason why is because every he kept him going from team to team to team. I think he started in the Panthers. The Cam Barker. Because everyone wanted to, you know, give him a shot because he had his, there was a self-fulfilling prophecy there where they viewed him as good at one point.

And so everyone said, well, they viewed him as good as one point. So let's just give him a shot since he's cheaper free now. Right. And then on top of it, there's also the, the whole bias spectrum part when PCS was first coming out in or even pre-PCS actually cam was talking about you know how size mattered and i pointed out um because he noticed that size was an identifier of whether or not a player was successful um so that scouts were being correct with that but one thing i pointed out was you know if let's say a junior uh an amateur scout is biased towards a player because of a size then it's also likely that a pro scout

or the GM or the coach might also be biased towards that even if it's not justified. And there was one interesting thing that even though size was an identifier of whether or not a player was likely to play, it wasn't an identifier on how good that player would be if he was a player that made the NHL. Right. And then once you actually get into the allotment of ice time and stuff, you do see the problems with just kind of taking those leaps of leaps of faith because, Like, I remember when the Flyers traded for Andrew McDonald, for example,

there was this pro-Andrew McDonald argument that was like, well, look how much he's playing for the Islanders? Like, how could he be bad if he's playing like 24 minutes a night? 24 minutes against top quality competition. And people do sometimes make the assumption that because an NHL coach is giving a player a certain amount of ice time, that he actually optimally, like, deserves that ice time. And that's not necessarily the case.

And to be fair, coaches and GMs are generally good. The hockey has a way lower or way lesser rate of low hanging fruit than, for example, NBA did before like the analytics revolution and stuff like that. I mean, when you look at, you know, performance per minute, whether that's points for 60 or coursey or war, there's a very solid R squared with that and time and ice per game. So for the general part, GMs and coaches know on average, this. This guy is really good. This guy is really terrible. It's in the margins that they, it's the big area.

But of course, yes, you get your random Andrew McDonald's, which just make no sense and no one can really understand it because that guy didn't even look good by the eye test. So I have no idea what's going on. I mean, we got Russell who's the next Andrew McDonald's going on right now. Oh, my God. Do you want to talk about Chris Russell a little bit? You know what? He is a decent number five.

And he did a really, really, like, he was a really good number five. for St. Louis in Columbus. So you know what's interesting? Chris Russell, well, a lot of stuff. I'm glad you asked. No, when you watch him play, like, the thing about him is he's not good. No, I actually think it's the opposite

because he has discernible skills. Like, he can actually skate. He is a guy. And sometimes you watch him pass the puck and he's not just like flinging it off the boards and out of Dan Girardi style. He actually has hockey skills And if he was used in sort of more of that third pairing

Like 15 minutes a night And I think that's why he used to be He was awesome And then he went to Calgary And Bob Hartley for whatever reason Like mine tricked him to thinking he was this Shutdown defenseman that needed to just block every single shot And then you can like see how his game

Philosophically and structurally changed And the results obviously dipped dramatically But I don't necessarily That's the problem with player analysis and how we need to factor in coaching because I don't necessarily think that reflects on Chris Russell as a player it might be more on the way he's been used

or been told to play. Yeah, I mean, this is a bit of give and take there. I mean, part of it is the fact that, you know, maybe it's just not a player that can take that stress load. Part of that is maybe the fact that he's been developed and changed his game for the worst. I mean, Chris Russell's still an NHL player. Yeah.

Well, he might be. getting a four years, four million per season. Which is an NHL player salary. Yes. A little bit more. A little bit more. Yeah. There are larger mistakes that you can make.

There are worst mistakes that you can make. Yep. But in the end, it's not optimal. Well, so, you know, as a podcasting professional, the reason why I brought up Chris Russell is because the whole debate has been about his micro stats and how the oilers are actually tracking stuff that we're not and have access to all the stuff. And you've brought up. I work for you.

You brought up your, yes, your company. And today you announced your retirement from the blogosphere. So I wanted to give you this platform in a few minutes if you want to. I know you necessarily can't talk about specifics of what you're doing and stuff like that. But, you know, if you can talk a little bit about it, I'm open to listening. Yeah, sure. The one thing I should point out is that there's still a lot going on with micro statistics that even. any company, not just myself, still are trying to learn and develop.

Like, I mean, it's... What are micro statistics? Microstistics are us tracking the events that are not so much the end results. For example, the shots and the goals and whatnot. It's looking more at the individual plays that lead up to that. So that's your zone entries, your zone exits and all that, whatnot. But there's a difference between tracking something, which is statistics. and analytics, which is analyzing stuff and looking at what's the value of it,

how does it work out in the big picture, and understanding that in the end results matter. So when you look at Chris Russell, I know, like, for a big thing, was that a lot of the Emmington Media leaked out or whatever was saying that, you know, they really like Chris Russell's zone exits. Which is patently falls. He was not good at zone exits, by the way. Which was, well, it depends on what's your definition of zone exits.

Well, he can get the puck out of his zone, but not to anyone in particular. For example, like, okay, so let's say you have a high zone exit rate. Yes. Like, you get the puck out often. Right. Well, why is that? Maybe it's just because the fact that you have more opportunities to get the puck out often because you're always in the defensive zone. You're always letting them come back in.

Exactly. Like, you might have a high efficiency rating. So that just means, you know, most of your zone exits are carry-ins or carry-outs and, sorry, carry-outs. passes as opposed to off the glass, which is preferred, but it doesn't necessarily make you the better exiting defensemen. So there's a lot of factors that go in. And so how do you weight all these different things together? Well, you look at how does it improve results?

And so what's that saying is these micro statistics are merely a means. They're a means to an end and that ends as the end results, which is, you know, you're expected goal differential. So if a player is good in certain areas in micro statistics, but bad in overall results, that tells you a couple of things. One, it could tell you that there's some things that you can improve upon the player because he has weaknesses that are making up for what he's strong at. Two, it might also tell you that how you're waiting these micro statistics might be erroneous. You might be looking at someone and saying his zone X are good, but because of the way that you are, measuring these zone exits, it's actually not good.

It might not even, it might be bad. It might not be bad. It's just you might be waiting these things differently. I think the best way, and you've put it before, I know you and Mike failed at a graphic on this for hockey graphs, it's like zone exits is, like a zone exit is an input. Yeah.

And obviously you'd rather be good at zone exits than not in an ideal world. But if you're good at zone exits but suck at everything else, it doesn't really matter, right? It's, it's so, but that's where I do think some of these microsatts can be very useful because I do think that if you, you know, work on some of these inputs all of a sudden you can get a better end result. And that's, that's, that ties into coaching and sort of philosophy and how you want the player to play. And that's where I think we're, that's where I think the NHL's headed more so than just looking at a guy's zone exits and being like, oh, well, he's a good player or he's not just purely based on this one one one metric. Because like when you're, when you're looking at, you know, course these statistics are expected. goal models. This is our attempt to measure a player's overall efficiency. Right. When you're looking at micro statistics, you're not looking at a player's overall efficiency. What you're looking at is the reasonings why he's as efficient as he is. So when you have someone that's good in certain areas and bad in other areas, you have to measure

that out towards the results. Right. I'm with you. I agree. So is there anything else you wanted to say on hockey data? I mean, I won't even say about a hockey data. I'll say like I wrote an article called Behind the Numbers, Results Matter in the end. And that's, it basically summarizes this whole argument about, you know, why micros statistics are very important. They're great for, the great developmental tool. Yeah.

Looking at, you know, why a player, um, might be good in certain areas. So, you know when to deploy them and when not to deploy them. It's great for, um, improving players. So you know what to coach and what to fix. Um, but in terms of generate, and it's also can be used as an input into models. So, I mean, like, let's look at our expected goal models that a lot of the public hockey sphere uses.

It's mostly shot information. Now, what happens if you can input also other more granular data, like passing data and zone entries and zone exits, while you have a greater, more precise expected goal model? How many NHL teams are you guys working with? I cannot say. Other than the Washington Capitals. Everyone knows about the Washington Capitals. How come that was the only one that was leaked?

You guys gave people a little taste? No, well... Yes. People can't see, but you're smiling devilishly right there. No. I didn't leak it. Let's man, just go for the fences. I didn't even know that it was...

I didn't even know that it was going out, so it was actually a surprise to me. I had no idea. But it kind of depends on, like, how we're working with teams, because there's many ways that we work with teams. There's some teams that we work with regularly. There are some teams that we work with regularly. are some teams that we work just on a contract basis. Like they've just requested something and so we give them that information. And then there's also, there's a company that we work with that they're actually

the company that the NHL teams are working with and we're just assisting them. So because of that, there is no, the reason why I'm kind of smiling is because there is no real defined answer. There's no like four, eight. Yeah, I mean, like, I'm not. I probably estimated, like, as a 6.5. Fair enough. So, yeah, between 6 and 7.

All right. Very definitive. Well, it depends. Like, what month are we talking about? And, like, how do you talk about people that were the third party for, like, were subcontracted? I mean, it's difficult. I like it.

But you're still, you're still going to be on Twitter. People can find you at a careful. Yeah, yeah. I'll still be on Twitter. I might be a little less abrasive to those who disagree with me. A lot of powerlifting discussions. There might be some more powerlifting. As this goes out, everyone will notice that I don't have any more tweets.

And I really regret saving the plus minus one. That one's gone. That's like the Twitter hockey Twitter Hall of Fame right there. I know. And I also meant to keep that one by screwed up. And one that I didn't mean to keep, but I now kind of regret, is Juggernaut Training Systems retweeted myself. And for those who do not know what Juggernaut training.

systems is. It's, um, they're both a powerlifting, weightlifting crossfit, um, uh, company that works with like improving athletes, um, that's owned by Chad Wesley Smith, who has eighth highest raw total ever. So, um, and I'm pretty sure he's the one that's running the, uh, Twitter account. Right. Why'd you have to delete that tweet? I didn't mean to. Um, and I'm very disappointed because, imagine if you got retweeted by the eighth best. hockey player of all time. Wait, so how many, do you know how many tweets you had before you started deleting that? 92,000.

Well, that's a depressing note to end this show on. Ryan, speaking of Twitter, where can people find you? At Ryan Beach, B-I-E-C-H. And by the time everyone listens to this, the entire rankings will have been done. How many do you guys do? Did you a top 100? Yeah, we did top 100. Like, that was a good idea.

When we came up with that idea, it seemed like a great idea. in April and then once we started going through it and got to the end yeah uh the 87th best guy great yeah and then i got tapped to do other ones like freelance work and then just by the end you're just like i don't even care i don't want to talk about nolan patrick it's like he played hockey he's good there you go it kind of reminds me of how like the playoffs go where like the first round is so exciting and then by the time you come to the stanley cup final it's like mid june it's nice out and you're like i didn't really care about this anymore it's like the ultimate the reason why we spent like eight months doing this Yeah, but as being said, we're proud of it because when it started in 2014 for Canucks Army, we did 15.

Yeah. And then it went 30, I believe, and then 60 last year was our doing. And then so Jeremy Davis and I were like, we're going to do the biggest one we possibly can as 100. So everyone should check out Canucks Army for the top 200 next season. Might as well just do the 217 or whatever it is now, right? So just go all the way. All right, well, I appreciate you guys coming to take the time and chat. And yeah, enjoy, enjoy the draft.

enjoy all the fruits of your labor and we'll talk soon. Sounds good. Thank you. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdiocast.