2nd Edition : Those Scouting Mistakes

For a 2nd edition, I present an article detailing certain mistakes that I have made in recent years in my work evaluating prospects eligible for the draft.

First edition here : https://www.toutsurlehockey.com/tslh-espoirs/rankings-those-scouting-mistakes-we-regret/

Someone wise once told me, “There are no mistakes, only learning opportunities.” This is something I try to incorporate every season when I observe players and comment on their projections, and also, when putting out my ranking together.

Although the players featured come from recent drafts, I consider it wiser in my practice to quickly identify these mistakes and learn from them. I find it too easy to sit on errors by saying that we need to wait longer before making a statement.

However, it remains dangerous to correct things too quickly, for example, at the conclusion of the 2021-2022 season, I felt stupid for having ranked Dylan Cozens ahead of Trevor Zegras in 2019 as well as for having Matt Coronato ahead of Cole Sillinger in 2021.

Cozens has established himself as a two-way powerhouse who can drag his linemates around while scoring over 30 goals per season as a 6’3 center.

Sillinger had a very difficult second professional season last year after causing a surprise by earning a role in the NHL at 18. As for Coronato, I maintain my comparison with Jonathan Marchessault and I believe that he will eventually be able to reach the same level as the most recent recipient of the Conn-Smythe Trophy.

Grigori Denisenko

I’m starting with the player who represented one of my biggest favorite of the 2018 draft. I even went so far as to qualify Densisenko as the next Artemi Panarin

Denisenko had it all. Individual skills that rose well beyond his peers, the confidence and daring to keep the puck on his stick at will before making plays, a strong understanding of the notions of nuance in the use of his teammates and to top it all off, he was a player who brought a lot of intensity and who could play on the edge of the legality. For some this lack of discipline (he was suspended a few times during his draft season) was worrying, but I saw a a player who played with passion and who understood the physical game in a way that few talented Russians like him do.

Something I didn’t take into account was the fact that Denisenko had never dominated statistically anywhere he played. Despite a large dose of excitement in each game he played, the Panthers’ pick posted modest statistics in the MHL his draft year: 22 pts in 31 regular season games and 7 pts in 12 playoff games.

Vladislav Kolyachonok

 Belarusian defenseman who played in the OHL, Kolyachonok was 14th on my 2019 list. Having been released by the London Knights since they exceeded the limit of European players allowed by the CHL (Adam Boqvist and Matvei Guskov being the 2 euros), he did played his junior career with the Flint Firebirds. I was convinced that if he had spent the season with the Knights, he would have received a much bigger showcase than in Flint did and would have been much higher on the lists.

Kolyachonok presented exceptional mobility in all 4 directions, a very polished defensive game and latent offensive skills. What was even more encouraging was that he was still far from reaching physical maturity. I thought he was going to be the Niklas Hjalmarsson of his generation.

From the following season, I expected to see great progress from him. However, the first powerplay unit was not entrusted to him and he presented statistics almost similar to those of the previous season. Of course, it wasn’t because of his offensive prowess that he was drafted, but we still had every right to expect to see him take a leap forward.

After a season in the KHL (the OHL having suspended its activities due to Covid), Kolyachonok earned himself a few tries in the NHL with a decimated defensive brigade with the Coyotes. In the few games I have observed, he has never been able to develop adequately physically and this prevents him from winning his battles along the boards. This is actually an observation that I made last year, in the past, I was going to favor players who present a portrait conducive to late bloomer rather than opting for players who already seemed close to their maturity. In other words, players who had a low body mass index (weight in relation to height). However, I noticed that most of these players still lag behind in muscular strength a few years later and this harms them in several facets of the game and prevents them from reaching another level on the ice. And at the other end of the spectrum, I feared that junior players who benefited from an advantageous size compared to their peers would arrive at the professionals and lose this advantage, and this would expose weaker links in their game since they would no longer have an escape route (their physical strength). Unfortunately, this just adds another string to these players’ bows and helps them in several on-ice scenarios.

The coaches in Tucson still seem to have hope that he will manage to play as a regular in the NHL one day, but the time is starting to get late for him.

Logan Cooley

For all his talent and dynamism, Logan Cooley was a player I was too harsh on during his draft season.

To begin with, he missed his team’s first few games while recovering from a minor injury. It took him some time to find his bearings on the ice. His months of December and January in the USLH were disappointing.

Accumulating a large number of viewing for around fifty players in your spare time comes with its share of challenges. Especially for a perfectionist individual like myself. Although the American center was stunning in the last few games I watched of him, I wanted to remain honest with my previous evaluations of the season and judge the players on the whole of what I had seen. This is where I made the mistake of giving too much importance to his games in the first half of the season. Then, there were so many ‘battles‘ at different ranks in my ranking that I preferred to prioritize my viewing on certain players so I had to abandon other players who I believed to have decided my final position on them.

Cooley finished 4th on my list, which is far from outrageous considering he came in 3rd. The biggest mistake I made though was comparing him with similar players from different draft.

While many were talking about a very good draft, I quickly established (at the beginning of November) that the quality of the 2022 draft was below average. Controversial opinion at the time, which was finally adopted by the masses at the end of the season. The mistake I made is drawing parallels between the 2022 draft compared to other years. Clayton Keller and Trevor Zegras, two players with a similar style to Cooley who, went 7th and 9th in their respective drafts (2016 and 2019)

In retrospect, it is unfair to draw such parallels even if they can open the door to certain discussions. Each season it would be possible to say that a power forward who is ranked 12th is no better than a similar player who came 24th the previous year, that a defenseman expected to come out 7th is no better than another defender who came out 16th a few years earlier, etc. This would never stop. I buried myself somewhat with the idea of ​​proving to people that the 2022 draft was disappointing and it came back to bite me in the butt!

The few reservations I had with the fact that Cooley is a player who can be guilty of holding the puck too long on his stick and experimenting at a level perhaps a little excessive on the ice with his flashy play remain consistent with the evaluations I had of players of the same mold; Trevor Zegras and Kent Johnson to whom I preferred more complete players.

On the other hand, I underestimated the fact that Cooley jumps on the ice every time with the intention of being the Difference-Maker and that his desire to be the best elevates his already existing attributes.

It’s a difficult thing to predict, but some players will continue to improve on what was already their greatest strengths in their game. Cooley went from ‘Very Good’ to ‘Elite’ in several aspects of his game. As we observe prospects with a keen eye on the weaknesses they need to improve, we forget that their strengths can also reach a whole new level. Jiri Kulich represents a good example of this as well, he was a good scorer in his draft year and had a heavy shot, but a few months later and his shot represented a LETHAL weapon in the AHL.

Will Cooley establish himself as the best player in the 2022 draft? It remains to be seen, but he undoubtedly risks becoming the most exciting player of this draft. It is possible that defenders such as David Jiricek, Simon Nemec, Kevin Korchinski or Pavel Mintyukov become just as important to their team.

As for Shane Wright, I admit I was disappointed with his play last year. I wouldn’t change the evaluation I made of the player in any way, however, I took a gamble believing that he would demonstrate more passion at a higher level and for the moment, he is making me lie.

Alexander Perevalov

This Russian forward quickly became one of my favorites of the draft right from the get go of the season with the Hlinka tournament.

He started his draft season with a bang and literally torched the MHL. Some of his strengths like his shot and his skating could be a little inconsistent and difficult to judge adequately, but the results and the flashes spoke for themselves.

He was even recalled with the Loko team in the KHL for 5 games and he was excellent in them! He patrolled the blue line on the power play and took good one-timers, skated at the same rate as players in this league, created scoring chances and pushed players around the ice.

This and the fact that the Russian National team seemed to have a lot of hope in him left me optimistic about his future. Even in games with an under-20 team (facing an adult Russian B squat and Belarusian adult team) he played regularly with Matvei Michkov and even had more playing time than Danila Yurov!

This reassured me, because several worries had started to simmer in my head. He finished his draft season over a PPG, but if we subtract his smoldering start to the season, he didn’t make much of a mark on the scoresheet in the second half of the season or in the playoffs.

There were also elements in his game that left doubt. Although his one-timer was quite good, his wrist shot lacked a lot of power. I tried to rationalize it by telling myself that it was quite possible that he would improve the velocity of his shot with eventual physical maturation. And when it comes to quality offensive players, they always end up finding a way to improve. There is no comparison to be made between the players, but Jack Hughes is a player who didn’t have a very big shot as well and he is now practically a lock to score 40 per year. What I liked about Perevalov was that he had some elements of deception in his shooting. Goalies these days are simply too good to get beat by a shot. I remember reading an article from an NHL goalie who mentioned looking at each body alignment of the shooter in order to predict where he was going to shoot; wrists, shoulders, hips, eyes, etc. Often it is not the shot itself that will beat the goalkeeper, but rather what was done before. And speaking of that, Perevalov was a player skilled at taking shots from both feet (few players shoot from the back foot) as well as within his skating stride.

Another element of his game that was filled with ambivalence was his physical play. Discreetly, he was one of the forwards in this draft who gave the biggest hits I have seen. On the other hand, when it came time to protect his puck in the corners, or when a player engaged his body against him, he constantly fell down on the ice.

It had already been several weeks that I was continually left wanting more in my viewings of the player, but a few flashes as well as my memories of the first half of the season left me taking a bold stance on him.

Having no room for him, Loko decided to loan him to Kunlun in the KHL last year. I watched several games at the start of the season and although I was encouraged as he managed to keep up the pace and provoke certain things, 2 constants stood out; he was still too physically weak to win his one-on-one battles and his wrist shot was still weak. Not only is his shot not a threat, but it puts a large number of pucks on net every game, preventing him from using his best asset which is his playmaking skills.

He is currently having a disastrous start to the season, and to be quite frank, I think it is time to throw in the towel.

Cutter Gauthier

A power forward from the United States Development program, I characterized Gauthier as the typical player where his whole is not as good as the sum of his attributes.

My main criticisms came from the fact that I did not believe Gautier would be able to take full advantage of his attributes. I didn’t think he would be able to get rid of one or two coverers before using his shot and I didn’t see him being able to gain the center of the offensive zone on his own.

I was quickly blown away by what I saw of him coming out of Boston College.

Also, debates surrounding his position moving forward arose during his draft season. Not being a big puck distributor and preferring to attack along the boards when he was carrying the puck and positioning himself in front of the net when he didn’t have the puck led me to believe that it would be better to use him on the wing.

However, from what I have seen of him since his draft, he feeds his wingers very well, including with nuances and subtleties. I had not seen such refinement in his vision of the game developing.

For now, he looks like a player worthy of the Flyers’ early selection in the 2022 draft.

You can follow me on Twitter @19Simon19 for content relating to the 2024 NHL draft.