This is Jacub Voracek of the Halifax Mooseheads. If God loves copper, he'll be an Oiler come draft day. If God is blog-reading tonight and happens by, we'd also accept Turris.Marc Ciampa is (according to oilstain in a previous post on this site) the Oilers website manager and publishes their various articles and press releases. I was very critical of the new look at the beginning because (among other things) they had retired prospects listed "in the system."
But credit where it's due.
Ciampa (or someone) has done a masterful job of listing the ISS Top 30 for the upcoming draft with video. It's amazing. I just watched 5 minutes of Voracek and plan on viewing Esposito and Turris after I go for a walk (when you're old, you do things like going for a walk. If you're giggling right now, do me a personal favor and take the gaspipe) :-).
Kudos to the Edmonton Oilers for making this available. I've been following the draft for over 35 years and it's amazing what technology can do.
As an aside, tell me again why a team couldn't just print out the stats, watch a player through video, and make a call? Is there something I'm missing here? The cold nights, putting the Torino in the ditch around Gull Lake, the bad food? Are there skirts for scouts?
I mean, there HAS to be a reason teams spend mondo dollars on scouts, right? Watching the Voracek video we can see he skates with authority, is clearly more of a man than the other guys on the ice, and knows when to take a penalty. I suspect the Esposito video will show he needs to add strength and that he might not be a center for a long time.
The stats tell the rest. I know Buffalo has gone to video + stats (there was an article I posted a link to before I flushed the previous year's worth of posts), and certainly you'd want WAY more than 5 minutes worth of video (and possibly a number of different camera angles).
Why wouldn't NHL teams put complete video setups in every barn on the planet and send all the scouts home to their wives?
Tradition.
Awesome post LT.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel any better, I'm 19, and I didn't giggle because I've gone for my share of walks in the past few years. Awesome way of clearing ones head... unlike beer.
And thanks for the heads up, I'm on my way to edmontonoilers.com right now.
I just don't believe that you can see things on video that you see when seeing a game live. Hockey is especially a sport that doesn't translate nearly as well to TV as it does live. THere's value in scouts as long as you are willing to also look at the video and stats.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone see the Turris video? Fan-fucking-tastic. He gets lost behind a pillar nearly every 20 seconds.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, that might not be definitive proof of the need for scouts but it certainly is proof of the need for decent sightlines.
Or at least multiple camera angles.
Forgot to add. It is cool that they have that up there.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else having trouble with several of the videos? Kane and van Riemsdyk definitely don't work and there was one or two other ones for me as well.
Riv:
ReplyDeleteYup. I can't even get Voracek to work...
Updated my WMP, tried on FireFox and on IE... no dice.
Just for shits and giggles last night I listed to LAST YEARS interview of the ISS guys on the Pipeline Show. Always fun to listen as people tell you that without a doubt that Leland Irving is a late 2nd or early 3rd round pick :) Truth be told they called a number of the top 15 pretty well - but I could do that too just by taking all the published rankings into account.
ReplyDeleteAnyway - my point here is that one thing that these scouts were in total absolute agreement on was "that stats only tell you so much" and they basically ignore them to a large degree. It was like saying the lord's prayer for these guys - sacred text. So much belief in their inate ability to subjectively judge talent - yeah they saw him good :)
An aside from the current debate:
ReplyDeleteIf we're going solely on 5 minutes of video each, I would prefer Keaton Ellerby to Karl Alzner. They're both very strong, Ellerby being 6'4 and lankier than Alzner at 6'2 and solid, but Ellerby looks to be both a better skater and make a better first pass. There is one play in which Alzner is simply unable to close a gap because he's not fast enough - on that particular play, Ellerby would have been more able to cover.
So... has anyone seen them for more than 5 minutes at a time?
I've seen Alzner for a hell of a lot more than five minutes, but despite my best efforts, I always get caught up in enjoying the game, and rarely notice the subtle things. Also hard to pick up the subtle things when you're five rows from the glass in one end of the ice and can't see the other because the guys on the bench are in the way.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I do like him as a first-rounder -- plays all situations and generally does well, though he does need to work on skating a bit. Question is, of course, if the Oilers really want to use their high pick on a D. If Alzner's unquestionably the best player available, then okay, but otherwise, I really wouldn't bother. Teammate Alex Plante, though, might be a good grab with Anaheim's pick.
Just wanted to comment on the near-absurd quality of this blog. I stumbled across it about 2 weeks ago and have been reading it religiously ever since. Everything about it--the quality of the writing, the research, the sound, grounded opinion, the insight, the humour, the asides--hockey fan or not, this is simply a masterful read.
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ReplyDeletei'd also like to give LT some kudos.... i've known he had the ability to write a good hockey article for a few years now (through his postings on HF) and its nice to see him strike out on his own.... LT could write for a daily if he wanted to, of that i have no doubts
ReplyDeletekeep it up LT, i come back here literally every day hoping you've added a new post
It's funny but because I didn't grow up going to hockey games, I really never learned how to watch the play live. When I'm watching on TV I can pick out a bunch of stuff but whenever I saw AHL games, I'd just pick a different player every shift and just isolate on him, but when I did that I'd totally lose the flow of the game.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for the draft, yet it scares the hell out of me. Don't get me wrong, I think Lowe should be fired, primarily for Pronger and secondly for Smyth, but every day he goes without being extended is another day closer we are to him trying to hand out bad contracts in an effort to get closer to the 10th spot in the WC this season, and thus perhaps save his job. Nichols didn't seem too enamoured with the Pronger return so I think Kevin's on a short leash and it's gonna be hard for us to get any higher than 9th spot given the teams in our division. But as much as Nichols and Co probably don't mind missing the playoffs, they like to give the illusion of being comepetitive and Lowe has a long way to go to get us in that bracket. But he has to do that to save his job, I believe.
It's a bad situation we find ourselves in, AFAIC. With the last two trades Lowe has clearly set this team on a big-to-massive rebuild and he's doing so with some picks that aren't exactly slamdunks plus he's also trying to do it with question marks like Lupul and the Isles guys plus a guy in Smid who's ceiling doesn't look high enough that you'd need a power forward to touch it. I highly doubt he's got the tools for a correct rebuild but yet that's the plan we're on.
So the question for me heading into this draft day is: Is Lowe the right man to get us back on track? Should we trust his judgement and let him throw good money after bad? Or should we cut him out now and try and save this before we really find out that there materials aren't here for a successful rebuild?
C'mon Dennis, you know how this is going to shake down. ;)
ReplyDeleteIf the EIG were going to put upon Lowe the indignity of being outright fired, they would've done it weeks ago. Since they didn't, you can write it in ink that Lowe will be this team's GM until the end of the '08 season, whereupon the EIG will simply let his contract run out.
They were on the road to doing it with MacT, but then the '06 playoffs happened.
It's like that classic line from Glengarry Glenross:
"The good news is...you're fired!"
"The bad news is...you have one week to get your job back!"
With Lowe, it's one season.
So.. is there any point in putting stock into a players favourite player?
ReplyDeleteKane - Datsyuk ("He's exciting")
JVR - Nash ("He's big and has skill")
Gagner - Forsberg ("He makes everyone better.")
Turris - Yzerman ("Complete warrior")
Alzner - Niedermayer ("Makes everything look so effortless")
Elerby - Pronger ("I try to model my game after him.."
... I wouldn't put much into it, but it does make me shy away from JVR and Kane a little bit more.
Kane has also been quoted as saying he wanted to go the Junior as opposed to College route because he was turned off that the NCAA "was more of a defensive game". I could definitely see the logic behind this coming from the point of view of a teenager but that's not exactly a Voracek-like show of determination to get his career going in the right long term direction.
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