Hi, my name is Sebastian and I am a second-year history major at Carleton University who has quite a passion for hockey; not that I’ve ever played the sport. I’m a lifelong Habs fan — though that was challenged this summer following the draft — and, over the past two years, I’ve developed a real interest in prospect analysis, prospect research, and most recently, scouting.
I’ve been writing for A Winning Habit since December 2018, but the blog doesn’t offer a platform for what I most want to write and talk about right now: draft-eligible prospects. I’ve also been taking part in a podcast with a tremendous group of people since July 2021, which has given me a forum to chat about my current passion, but I love writing, and a podcast doesn’t quite quench that need for an obvious reason.
The podcast, Puck and Roll, has, however, given me something of tremendous value, even in terms of writing material: a media pass to watch the Gatineau Olympiques. Something, that still feels surreal, especially considering that the podcast has only garnered a few hundred total listens through a baker’s dozen of episodes. Watching a game from the media/scouting box in the brand new and gloriously named Centre Slush Puppie — alongside a myriad of NHL scouts including Trevor Timmins — really invigorated my passion for this.
And I think that I have progressed quite a bit from where I started. For both the 2020 and 2021 NHL Entry Drafts, I relied heavily on the annual Elite Prospects Draft Guide to determine which players I liked the profiles of. I did also watch some games to scout the highly-touted players, but most of my opinions were derived from analyses made by the talented team at EP Rinkside.
This was certainly more the case in 2020 than 2021, but my main source remained the same. Still, my rankings didn’t mirror those of Elite Prospects, I simply looked at the profiles of the players they covered and made my own valuations of the players based on traits that I like a lot. For instance, in defencemen, I really value puck-moving abilities, strength in transition — both offensively and defensively— and intelligent stickwork. My method for ranking players will change this year. I am definitely still going to read EP’s draft guide, but the bulk of the scouting will be done by my eyes, which brings me to a slight conundrum.
I consider myself very progressive in terms of hockey analysis. I value analytics a lot, as it is simply a quantitative — if flawed — representation of what happens on the ice. And I am going to do a full season of eye-test scouting before seeing any of the data; I certainly hope my eyes are as refined as I think they are in determining a positive impact on the game. While it’s going to be a lot of work, I’m so excited about it.
I’m hoping that my 2022 draft ranking will be a lot more unique and thoughtful than my previous two were. For the sake of full transparency, here are my rankings for the past two drafts: 2020, 2021. Similar to someone I hold in very high regard and have had the pleasure of talking to on the podcast, Will Scouch, I am keeping track of the players I would have selected with the picks my favourite team had. Here are the lists I compiled during both the 2020 and 2021 NHL Entry Drafts:
2020
16: Mavrik Bourque (C) — Kaiden Guhle (LD)
47: Daniil Gushchin (RW) — Luke Tuch (LW)
48: Anton Johannesson (LD) — Jan Mysak (LW/C)
102: Sean Farrell (LW) — Jack Smith (C)
109: Brett Berard (LW) — Blake Biondi (C)
124: Alexei Goryachev (LD) — Sean Farrell (LW)
136: Declan Carlile (LD) — Jakub Dobes (G)
171: Ryker Evans (LD) — Alexander Gordin (RW)
2021
31: Logan Stankoven (RW) — Logan Mailloux (RD)
62: Stanislav Svozil (LD) — Riley Kidney (C)
63: Simon Robertsson (RW) — Oliver Kapanen (C)
87: Dylan Duke (C) — Dmitri Kostenko (RD)
113: Peter Reynolds (C) — William Trudeau (LD)
142: Kirill Gerasimyuk (G) — Daniil Sobolev (RD)
150: Lukas Gustafsson (LD) — Joshua Roy (C/RW)
191: Jiri Tichacek (LD) — Xavier Simoneau (C/LW)
214: Jake Martin (RD) — Joe Vrbetic (G)
In the 2020 draft, I was alright with the Guhle pick, he was second on my board, but the gap I saw between him and Bourque was large, and I really wanted the centre at 16. I liked the Mysak pick a lot and I adored the Farrell pick, which is evident by the fact that he was the highest player left on my board by the time the 102nd pick rolled around (he was 36th overall).
In the 2021 draft, I was enamoured when I heard Marc Bergevin announce the selection of a Logan, as I was championing Stankoven. That excitement quickly turned to disillusionment, though. I liked the Kapanen and Roy picks and I loved the Simoneau selection (though I somehow completely forgot to include him in my ranking, he’d have come in at 75, just ahead of Pavel Tyutnev).
The Habs drafted just one of my 17 picks in their slots. My drafting philosophy is quite simple: draft the best player available, no matter positional need, give your organization the most valuable assets possible and let the GM figure out the rest. If there is no obvious BPA in terms of high-end potential, then go with someone the organization likes a lot or a local kid. This philosophy is evident in the fact that 7 of the 17 picks I’d have made are left-defencemen, a position of strength for the Habs’ prospect system. In retrospect, I also wouldn’t have picked Goryachev and Carlile in 2020 as their ceilings are very limited, but learning is a real process.
While Joshua Roy and Riley Kidney are tearing up the QMJHL to start the season, I’m still quite confident in the higher quality of my list to the Habs’ actual draft, though my inexperience in scouting will likely — and hopefully for the Habs’ and my fandom’s sake — change that at some point. My 2020 list is already more of a mixed bag, but I think Bourque, Gushchin, Farrell, Berard, and Evans are all projecting extremely well and would give my list more quality up until now than the Habs’ draft.
To bring things full circle, I hope that my 2022 list will make these two seem amateur-ish, which they are; at the very least, my contribution to these lists and the scouting process behind them was. I’m going to watch a whole lot more hockey than ever before, including some in-person QMJHL and OHL games, and I’m hoping to uncover some real gems. As a prelude to my first actual scouting post here, both Noah Warren and Olivier Boutin (a D+1) have really impressed me through three Gatineau games this season.