Scouting Success

A recent article in The Buffalo News got my mind to wandering about the Buffalo Sabres and their scouting department. Much has been made of late about the Sabres decision not to retain Don Luce over the summer of 2006, and the losses of Jim Benning and Terry Martin that same summer. Luce was the Director of Player Personnel, Benning was the Director of Amateur Scouting, and Martin was the Director of Pro Scouting.

At the time, there was much confusion as to why Benning and Martin left for Boston and Colorado, respectively, while Luce was not retained by the Sabres. In hindsight it seems clear that Sabres GM Darcy Regier had made his intentions known about the move towards an increase in video scouting, and those gentlemen were not comfortable with the direction in which the Sabres were going.

Since that time, the local media and many pundits have been particularly critical of the the Sabres decision. A couple months back Bucky Gleason referred to the Sabres as “scouting with computers,” and his shots at the Sabres scouting system are fairly common.

But what has really taken place, and do we have a long enough track record to judge the success or failure of video scouting?

The 2007 draft was the Sabres first draft that was conducted under their new structure. Buffalo lacked a first-round pick that year, but did have two second-rounders. The draft unfolded as follows:

2 (31) T.J. Brennan (D)
2 (59) Drew Schiestel (D)
3 (89) Corey Tropp (RW)
5 (139) Bradley Eidsness (G)
5 (147) Jean-Simon Allard (C)
6 (179) Paul Byron (C)
7 (187) Nick Eno (G)
7 (209) Drew Mackenzie (D)

Not having a first-round pick makes judging the draft rather difficult, because of this little nugget:

- Based on the 1990s sample, a first-round draft pick has a 63 percent chance of being a career player.

- From 1990 to 1999, about one-quarter of the players selected in the second round turned into NHL career players. (ed. note: a “career player” is one who has played 200 NHL games)

- From over 2,000 players selected in the third round and beyond during 1990s, just 261 made it as NHL career players. That’s about 12 percent.

Because of the relative uncertainty surrounding the drafting of 18-year-old kids, anything beyond the first couple rounds is basically a crapshoot, although some teams roll a “seven” often enough that we can conclude there are teams that simply draft “better” than others.

Overall, it is far too soon to draw conclusions about the 2007 (or 2008) draft as most of them are in Juniors or are entering their sophomore or junior years in college. So anyone making statements that video scouting is a failure is not using any objective measure, but is instead being subjective about it.

But back to the article that set me to thinking…

Apparently, Sabres prospect Marek Zagrapan signed a deal with a KHL club and will be heading back to Russia. In the same article, they mention Barrett Heisten and Artem Kryukov as other first-round Sabres busts. Which got me to thinking about how the Sabres had fared in drafts that Regier ran with Luce, Benning and Martin around, and how that would compare to the numbers I referenced above. The 1998 draft was the first of those, so here is a list of all the first-rounders from 1998-2006 with my “career” expectations:

2006 – Dennis Persson (too early, bust or journeyman)
2005 – Marek Zagrapan (bust)
2004 – Drew Stafford (career)
2003 – Thomas Vanek (career)
2002 – Keith Ballard (bust)
2002 – Daniel Paille (career)
2001 – Jiri Novotny (might just make it to career)
2000 – Artem Kryukov (bust)
1999 – Barrett Heisten (bust)
1998 – Dmitri Kalinin (career)

As we learned above, the league average for career players on first-rounders is 63%. The Sabres come in at 40%, possibly 50% if Novotny can find a team willing to take him this year. Either way, it’s below the league average.

As for second-rounders, it depends on how we grade the careers of Chris Thorburn and “Fax-Machine” Mike Zigomanis, who both currently fall below the “career” threshold but could make it if they find jobs next year. Without them, Buffalo is at 20%; with them, 33%.

Despite the nature of looking at such small sample sizes, it seems to me that the Buffalo Sabres are not as successful as their peers when it comes to drafting players in the first round, and are about equal to their peers in the second round. When I did a quick analysis of the third round (1998-2004) the Sabres shake out anywhere between 12.5% and 15%. Pretty close to the league average but with a much larger sample size.

What does it all mean? It means that the Sabres are at best an average-drafting team under Darcy Regier, and at worse are slightly below-average. It also means that we have no idea how much, if any, video scouting will harm the team in the future. Lastly, it means that the three gentlemen who are held up as such great talent evaluators were probably very similar to their peers around the league. You can use individual examples (Ryan Miller – 5th round, or Barrett Heisten – bust) to prove any point or drive any agenda you wish.

The other point I wanted to address was the myth that the Sabres “replaced” their scouting department with video scouting. I read it enough in the Buffalo News and hear talk radio callers mention it so often that it has become gospel. It is simply not true, and a quick check of the Sabres website should confirm that. They list eight amateur scouts, three pro scouts, a Director of Amateur Scouting, and a Director of Amateur Scouting Operations.

Let’s compare those 11 scouts to a few other teams whose websites I checked out today:

Boston – 9
Montreal – 15
Ottawa – 13
Toronto – 16
Columbus – 11
Chicago – 11
Nashville – 10
St. Louis – 10 (plus six part-time scouts)
Detroit – 9 (really? that was unexpected)
New Jersey -21 (that seems odd)
Rangers – 14
Philly – 15
Pittsburgh – 11

Doesn’t look like the Sabres are doing anything different than these other teams, and many teams had a “director of video scouting” listed in their front office as well.

My conclusion? “Video scouting” is a term being tossed around by certain irresponsible media types without bothering to look into the facts or dig a little deeper for points to support an argument. It is an easy term to bandy about in order to rile up the masses or drive home the recurring theme that the Sabres are “cheap.”

Now you have the facts with which to draw your own conclusions.