Drafting and player development was a unique challenge in 2020

In many ways, life was easier for NHL clubs before the introduction of the salary cap in 2005. Sure, there was a disparity between clubs in terms of resourcing, but an uneven playing field also meant that some teams could spend their way out of mistakes.

The introduction of the cap eliminated that possibility overnight, and suddenly made smart drafting and player development a necessity for teams in the modern era. The Calgary Flames are one of several organizations that have adjusted to this new necessity on the fly, as well as the list of complexities added during the COVID-19 pandemic.

First and foremost, NHL clubs don’t start paying attention to players in their draft year. While WHL area scouts were definitely paying more attention to watching 2020 NHL Draft eligible players like Kaiden Guhle and Seth Jarvis last season, it wasn’t like they completely ignored the 2021 prospects like Dylan Guenther and Cole Sillinger. They usually noted aspects of those players that caught their eye, but didn’t go into as much detail as they do on players in their draft year.

During the area scouts’ repeated viewings of the teams and players in their region, they develop a profile for each available player in the draft. The idea is the viewings are distributed throughout the season, so they can get a sense of how a player is growing and maturing, and it protects against the chance that the scout will have a bunch of viewings during a bad week or two during a player’s season.

Once there’s enough of a “book” on a player to figure out their general attributes – how they fit within the mould of the type of player that the Flames would like, for example – the “cross-checking” part of the season begins. “Cross-checking” boils down to one of the area scouts wanting a second (or third) opinion of a player that the team might consider drafting. Cross-checking could be done by another area scout, but typically it’s done by more senior people within hockey operations – folks like the head or assistant head amateur scouts, the GM or assistant GMs, or other trusted folks within hockey ops. (Depending on the team’s resources, often a club’s analytics department will also flag players who seem worth taking another few looks at who may otherwise be flying under the radar.)

The idea is that when the club puts together their draft list, enough individuals within the scouting group have seen the players involved that they can feel comfortable with a player’s placement. The Flames have remained adamant about “working the list” – something held over from Jay Feaster’s time as GM – and so it’s important that the legwork is done during the draft year (and sometimes earlier) that they have enough information to have confidence about everyone’s slotting. (This is where player and coach interviews and the draft combine also come in handy.)

Flames assistant GM Craig Conroy has been with hockey operations since early 2011, the better part of a decade. He noted that since Brad Treliving’s been GM they haven’t changed a lot of how they do things, but the resourcing has changed somewhat – notably in Europe.

“We only had a couple guys,” said Conroy. “And it’s a huge pool and I think that’s one thing where Jay wanted to bring on more and the owners stepped up and said ‘If you want to have more of a presence, go ahead,’ and that’s when Brad came in. Jay already had it going in that direction and Brad was able to come in and say we needed this presence.”

Since Treliving’s arrival in 2014, the Flames have added Derek MacKinnon (first as a pro scout, then promoted to director of player personnel), Robert Neuhauser (as a European scout) and Hakan Loob (in a formal role as head of European scouting). The idea was to supplement the existing amateur scouting group with some pro resources, so that the amateur personnel wouldn’t have to do both – it makes the workload more manageable and gives the Flames better coverage across Europe. The club added some bodies on the American side for similar reasons, to help with scouting of the USHL, NCAA and American high school circuits.

Once a player is drafted and on a team’s reserve list, the next challenge is to build a plan to get them to the next level. Part of that legwork is done during the scouting process, as there’s a bunch of information gathered during viewings and interviews that inform development – what a player’s strengths, weaknesses and tendencies are, and potential hurdles in their development. (This is why so much information is gathered during the draft year, so that player development doesn’t start from scratch.)

Following the draft, the Flames hold an annual development camp where they gather the club’s eligible prospects – usually everyone on an entry level contract and any unsigned drafted players – and do some fitness testing, drills and scrimmages. The motivation behind this is to build a development plan for the coming year for the players in the system- newly-drafted players are given an initial plan, and at subsequent camps the team can gauge their progress and alter their plans accordingly.

For players who aren’t in the Flames’ pro system yet, the Flames have roaming development personnel who check in with players in-person when possible. For those with Stockton, there’s day-to-day hands-on development being done.

Under Treliving, the Flames have made some holistic tweaks to development camp – adding more of a focus on off-ice challenges like health, nutrition, mental health and performance – and added Brian McGrattan in a player assistance role.

The 2020 NHL Draft was a bit weird, but for the most part Flames scouts got to see what they normally saw. They missed out on events such as the annual World Under-18s and the Memorial Cup, as well as the playoffs for almost every league, but they got their typical in-person viewings throughout the regular season and were able to supplement with video where needed. Not ideal, surely, but not the end of the world.

The 2021 NHL Draft scouting process is a lot different than typical. There’s very restricted travel, so scouts have to largely rely on video (aside from parts of Europe). World-wide, some leagues are going and some leagues aren’t. Even within Canada, where the Flames typically draft most of their players, the WHL and OHL haven’t played any games and the QMJHL has played off and on (with repeated stoppages due to COVID flare-ups).

Where teams are playing, scouts are able to get viewings, usually via video. But for now, the scouting departments have to circle back to last year’s video to get additional details on a player who hasn’t started their 2020-21 season yet. (And when the 2020-21 seasons do begin, it’ll be a bit more challenging to build a book on a player that might not have played in nine or 10 months.) Conroy noted that the area scouts have been good at flagging intriguing 2021 prospects in their prior reports, so they had a decent road map for the work they’re currently doing.

On the development side, there was no development camp in 2020 and their new drafted players are all in different spots – some haven’t played a minute yet this season, some have played a little bit here and there, and some of their Europeans were well into their seasons by the time the draft rolled around. The Flames were able to bring in some of their Canadian-based prospects for check-ins, but everything else has to be done remotely and brings along some challenges.

“Half of our base, though, they come to development camp, we do know them, we do have a feel for what they need to improve on,” said Conroy. “The only bad thing is some of the guys weren’t able to skate, some of the guys weren’t able to get in to work out in gyms, they had to do it at home.”

Ultimately, Conroy summed up the Flames’ efforts to maintain momentum in drafting and development during the pandemic in a very succinct manner.

“We’re doing as much as we can with the resources we have.”