Leafs' Prospect/Marlies Discussion Thread!

[CH1]

My YouTube scouting has been nearly infallible and I haven’t needed to physically attend any games anywhere, so these are all just excuses.

True. Have you considered expanding your coverage beyond the 6 guys the Leafs draft every year

I’d be interested in subscribing

 

[Preston]

I do agree with him to an extent that people tend to glamorize the expertise of scouts who do this for a living. The vast majority make no money watching hockey games in places that literally no one wants to be in. In the world of supply and demand, there is not much of a supply who are willing to do that job, so you hire who you can and hang on to the smart ones dearly. But in general, they're not special talents.

But neither is some nerd who never played the sport and went to journalism school once upon a time.

 

[CH1]

I would never question your ability to get angry and offended. it's the fuel that drives you!

or zeke's reflexive making of lists for that matter

One of true bonus features of the Habs recent ascension is that I will be able to read comprehensive xGF and NetRating charts of my team when they face the Leafs

 

[MindzEye]

It’s not even debatable that it’s just a media job. How is someone supposed to be equally well versed in what’s going on in Russia, Sweden and North Dakota

It's why age controlled stat scouting is so viable for these guys, but they routinely fucking ignore it because he saw Easton Cowan take a bad route on a forecheck this one time in the OHL finals.

 

[LeafOfFaith]

True. Have you considered expanding your coverage beyond the 6 guys the Leafs draft every year

I’d be interested in subscribing

It would actually be great fun if I had time, kidding aside. The law is a jealous, and terrible, lover though, unfortunately.

 

[MindzEye]

I do agree with him to an extent that people tend to glamorize the expertise of scouts who do this for a living. The vast majority make no money watching hockey games in places that literally no one wants to be in. In the world of supply and demand, there is not much of a supply who are willing to do that job, so you hire who you can and hang on to the smart ones dearly. But in general, they're not special talents.

But neither is some nerd who never played the sport and went to journalism school once upon a time.

Yeah, I looked into scouting for an OHL team a bunch of years back and the lifestyle is fucking garbo. I get why he hasn't done it. But with that said, someone with his exposure and experience as a journalist/scout would be offered a real front office job (ass dir of amateur scouting, etc) by now if he was actually considered good.

 

[leafman101]

Problem is you get fired when you're wrong when you work for a team.

 

[CH1]

I do agree with him to an extent that people tend to glamorize the expertise of scouts who do this for a living. The vast majority make no money watching hockey games in places that literally no one wants to be in. In the world of supply and demand, there is not much of a supply who are willing to do that job, so you hire who you can and hang on to the smart ones dearly. But in general, they're not special talents.

But neither is some nerd who never played the sport and went to journalism school once upon a time.

Back when I was a young nerd toting an oversized laptop at Expos game for BIG ANALYTICS I met a lot of scouts and a few of them were basically illiterate. It was shocking but it made sense that some ex players with no other prospects would take the job and vice versa teams would fill their low budget scouting ranks with anyone who could differentiate between a slider and a curve

 

[MindzEye]

Wheeler does fall in love a bit too much with his guys. I remember back around the start of the Matthews era in Toronto, he did a series he called “The Gifted”, which was a bunch of deep-dive profiles on a select group of prospects (mostly Euro skill midgets picked in the middle rounds) that he deemed to have extraordinary talents and greater potential than was generally acknowledged in hockey circles.

I’m pretty confident that every single one of the guys he profiled busted. Like, didn’t even come close to being legit NHLers.

Casey Mittelstadt, Robin Salo, Bode Wilde are the 3 I could find. He referred to Mittelstadt as a "super prospect" fwiw.

 

[Preston]

I don't care that he's always wrong. That's normal and expected. They all are. It's the ego that would make him a shitty scout.

 

[zeke]

 

[MindzEye]

I don't care that he's always wrong. That's normal and expected. They all are. It's the ego that would make him a shitty scout.

Oh, projecting who is and isnt' going to be a good pro at 18 yrs old is a crap shoot once you get past the consensus top 10 or so prospects in the world. It's definitely a hard job to get right more often than the average. I always go back to the old example from 10+ years ago though where a smart nerd took a bunch of draft data and lined up the players by PPG (using a rudimentary NHLe for euros and just slotting them in order) and created a draft board that generated far more efficient selections than NHL scouting departments did. For the life of me I can't remember who did the analysis, but it was widely talked about amongst online weirdos like us for a few years after. If this was possible with something as simple as PPG, one would imagine that better iterations should be developed by now (and have, by people like Sunny)

The eye (and even character) scouting is a great supplement to production, but production should be weighted first in your personal calculus. We can argue all day about whether a prospects production will translate to the NHL, but they are producing, good NHL players produced similarly when they were in major junior and the better question is why your gritensity prospect isn't producing similarly, at the same level.

 

[LeafGm]

View attachment 35575

Ok, not as bad as I remembered. I will give that to ‘ole Wheels.

 

[MindzEye]

Ok, not as bad as I remembered. I will give that to ‘ole Wheels.

I looked at it a few times and there's some names in there that he deserves some credit for calling gifted, but there's a lot of those names who just never were. Euro QMJHL seal clubbers, euro skill midgets, etc.

He covered some intriguing names, but calling a bunch of them "gifted" is a stretch.

 

[Pwner]

I just posted the link because there was a lot of digital ink spilled over how the top "6" were all better than McKenna, but the Leafs were going to select him because Leafs. And lo and behold, McKenna is the #1 prospect in hockey