Getting Into Scouting
I get asked fairly often how to get started with scouting, as it can be daunting and inaccessible, here's my advice:
I’ve been getting asked this question with increasing regularity, and whenever I respond, I feel like my answer isn’t quite comprehensive enough and doesn’t encapsulate the wide variety of ways to gain a foothold in the world of hockey analysis, and scouting specifically. Thus, I wanted to write up a longer article really delving into my answer, so that I can refer people who ask me this question to a more in-depth answer than I’d otherwise be able to provide them.
First, I have to explain how I got to where I am now as the Director of Scouting at Dobber Prospects. I’ve been a big hockey fan my entire life but didn’t have many friends or family to share this interest with (which seems unlikely as someone who grew up in Montreal). In late 2018, I found an outlet for this desire to talk about hockey: A Winning Habit. I wrote for the Habs blog for about three and a half years, not always very frequently, and doing so opened up a whole new world for me, that eventually led me to discover my fascination and interest in scouting: Twitter.
Twitter is a… frustrating environment, but it introduced me to the work of some of the best public scouts out there; Will Scouch and the EP Rinkside crew were especially influential in making scouting a passion of mine.
During the first waves of Covid, I sat around at home, quite bored, and needed to find something to pass the time. EP Rinkside’s 2020 Draft Guide was exactly what I needed. I read that thing from cover to cover and got familiar with the 2020 draft class. More importantly, however, I learned a boatload of hockey terminology and theory and gained a real interest in scouting. Noting down the players I’d have picked had I been the Habs also added a competitive element to the fold and gamified scouting in a way that I was really taken by; it also held me to account on my work (which at this point was exclusively secondary research).
For the 2021 draft, I kept my eye on it for the entire draft cycle and even got my hands on some game tape, ranging from TSN broadcasts to OnHockey (an illegal site that I totally definitely wouldn’t recommend for free and convenient hockey watching, whether it be for NHL blackouts or for amateur scouting). While the bulk of my research was again reliant on public scouts’ work, I was able to contextualize it with some of my own viewings.
It wasn’t until the 2022 draft class, and October of 2021 to be precise, that I really started scouting and relying on my own observations to form my opinions of draft eligibles. So yes, I am still quite new to scouting relative to most other public scouts, which also means that I very much understand the struggle to even get started with this in the first place… that was me just over a year ago.
I went to a tonne of Ottawa 67’s games last season and took heaps of notes. Looking back, they’re unusable for actual scouting work, consisting mainly of play-by-play observations, but this was a necessary step in improving as a hockey analyst: learning what to look for. Getting reps in and just watching hockey, no matter the competitive level or league is the most important starting point. So just starting by watching your favourite NHL team differently is a great starting point: focus on a specific player(s) and note down their strengths, weaknesses, and inconsistencies. How do they skate? Are they quick? Are they balanced? Do they make quick decisions? Do they attack the middle lane or are they pushed to the perimeter? Are they active defensively? Do they keep a tight gap with the puck carrier in transition and in their own zone? Are they individualistic? Do they default to shooting the puck or do they use their shooting threat to create playmaking opportunities? There are many more questions to ask, but this is a starting point.
Flicking the switch as a hockey watcher from recreational to analytical is the biggest step you can take immediately.
Another thing you can do before even gaining access to draft eligibles’ game tape is to ask yourself what makes great players great. What differentiates good players from great ones? This differs on a case-to-case basis, but there are commonalities, and one person’s definition of a great player may not be the same as someone else’s. Learning what you most value in players is a key step in the process of becoming a scout.
But what then? And what if you have immediate access to game tape of draft eligibles but the sheer amount of players to watch out there is overwhelming? My advice is to do what I didn’t: focus on a specific region, at least to start. Not only will this give you a far smaller sample of players to keep track of and scout, but the level of competition is pretty comparable for everyone you’re watching and it will make it easier and cheaper to find game footage. It also gives you the opportunity to quickly become a relative expert on the league or region you’re covering, which will open doors to become a regional scout with a public scouting service.
But if you want to scout all the draft eligibles, I get it, I did too and it’s working out fine for me (I had some luck). The tough part is finding footage for players from all regions. HockeyTV is excellent for the USHL, USNTDP, BCHL, AJHL, and USHS for $30 CAD per month or $150 per year. Svensk Hockey TV is the best way to (legally) watch Swedish Junior hockey and will run you back around $17 CAD per month. CHL TV is the way to watch WHL, OHL, and QMJHL games, but it’ll set you back $150 for a regular season CHL pass, which is… pricey. All three of these services include a catalogue of past games, so you won’t need to watch all the games live and you can fast forward to skip to the shifts you want to focus on, which saves time.
One of the reasons I recommend people to join scouting services pretty quickly is the access to InStat. Not only does this make footage from any player you could possibly be interested in accessible and free, but it optimizes the scouting process by providing access to 20-minute video files with all of a player’s shifts from a particular game, which saves you countless hours and enables far more precise analyses. My own progression as a scout really took off once I was able to scout all of a player’s shifts in a single file.
Dobber has a ton of entry-level positions such as team scouts (covering drafted prospects of a particular NHL team) and feature writers (on particular junior or pro leagues) which I’d wholeheartedly recommend. Not only does this give some (but limited) access to InStat footage, but you can also get media credentials to go scout junior or pro (excluding the NHL) games in person. Now, I’m not writing this as a recruitment ploy for Dobber, I’m sure the other fantastic scouting services offer similar opportunities, I just know Dobber’s best. The Montreal Canadiens prospect page was my “in” with Dobber, and things accelerated from there. There’s always turnover in the summer with scouting services, especially with entry-level positions like team contributors at Dobber, so that’s the best time to apply.
And lastly, here are some of my tips in terms of actually scouting, just to help accelerate your development process as a scout.
When taking notes on prospects, try to dig deeper than just play-by-play things, something that took me a few months longer than it should have. Focus on some more intricate details, and ask yourself the questions I outlined in part 1.
When identifying the things you value in players, consider what can and can’t (easily) be taught. For instance, processing speed and consistent scanning habits are tougher to teach than improved stride mechanics (eg. Nick Suzuki). Also, with big and small players, think about what makes them adapt well to the speed and physicality of the game. Small players who routinely attack the middle, have a strong base, and weaponize their agility, speed, and intelligence to play inside contact and like to draw in physical pressure in order to exploit it are far more projectable than undersized players who are constantly pushed to the perimeter. Larger players who struggle to accelerate and aren’t overly capable of executing plays in tight areas are far less projectable than their counterparts who can keep up with the pace of the modern game and don’t rely on space in order to execute plays, even if they don’t hit as much as the former player archetype.
How a player plays without the puck is often more telling of their projectability than their play with the puck. Do they get static? Do they constantly try to create space and opportunities for their teammates with their off-puck movement? Can they find dangerous soft ice in the offensive zone to act as a shooting threat? Do they apply defensive pressure? Do they stick with their defensive assignment? Do they scan for threats both offensively and defensively?
Does a player have a standout ability? Even players who end up as career 4th liners entrench their place in the NHL on a defining skill or ability. Cal Clutterbuck hits… a lot, it may not be my preferred skill, but it’s earned him a living for a really long time. Paul Byron had his speed. Raphael Harvey Pinard is just getting started, but his intensity and offensive off-puck movement should cement his spot in the NHL. Many prospects are pretty good at just about everything, but unless this is at a high level average (eg. Jordan Harris) that makes for a tougher projection. Flawed players with standout skills are more likely to forge NHL careers than well-rounded unspectacular players are, even if they are “better” players at the time of the draft.
Become familiar with the intricacies of scouting, the painful details like skating mechanics (knee bend, ankle flexion, stride extensions, heel kicks, etc) and hockey terminology. I learned these parts mainly through EP Rinkside’s draft guides, so I’d highly recommend you pay for a one-month subscription and download the past guides from 2020, 2021, and mainly, 2022. Not only do they provide a glossary for terms and intricate mechanics, but reading their analyses will be a great help in learning what to look for while scouting, they’re all tremendously intelligent (and kind) people, so use that resource.
Ask questions. I know, I wrote this article to address a question I get very often, but feel free to message me or any other scout for advice or insight. In my experience, the public scouting community has been very welcoming and extremely willing to help people trying to get started in this geeky hobby (and, potentially, career) of ours. Learning from people who’ve been doing this for years is extremely valuable, but remember to form your own analyses as well.
Scouting is, after all, a debate. No two scouts will have identical rankings, and this difference in analyses is what makes scouts valuable. Echoing consensus or the scouts you most respect doesn’t really add anything to the discourse; what’s valuable is your personal insights, don’t be afraid of going against consensus for players you believe in. If you’re right about them: awesome! If you’re wrong: that’s an important learning experience.
I think that’s everything I can think of, at least for now. I likely will continue to update this as long as new questions are being asked to me on this topic. The purpose of this write-up is to create as comprehensive an answer to that difficult question as I can, not to disincentivize people curious about this field from asking me questions, please do so!