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Do the Edmonton Oilers scouts have what it takes to build a Stanley Cup winner? Hmm

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Turnover in amateur scouting department appears to be essential to ongoing success

The surest way to a Stanley Cup is to have an amateur scouting department that repeatedly identifies all-star talent.

Do the Edmonton Oilers have such a scouting department?

Just what is it that makes a scouting department catch lightning and suddenly identify a handful of Hall-of-Fame players in a close group of drafts?

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I looked closely at four teams that built through the draft to become Stanley Cup winners, the 1980s New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers, the 1990s and 2000s Detroit Red Wings and the 2000s Chicago Blackhawks, to see if there were any common themes.

A few things became apparent: first, great scouts don’t blow their first round picks; second, great scouts find late round gems; third, a few great scouts can do a massive amount of great work; and fourth, that if you keep even a great scout around long enough he’s likely going to be come a mediocre or even terrible scout, so a regular amount of turnover is necessary for a healthy and productive amateur scouting department.

Let’s go team-by-team and see how they built their Cup winners (with the draft data from Hockey Data Base and the list of scouts from Elite Prospects).

New York Islanders, 1972-80

Top Draft Picks, 1972-1980: Billy Harris, first overall, 1972; Bob Nystrom, 33rd overall, 1972; Richard Brodeur, 97th overall, 1972; Denis Potvin, 1st overall, 1973; Dave Lewis, 33rd overall, 1973; Clark Gillies, 4th overall, 1974; Bryan Trottier, 22nd, 1974; Dave Langevin, 112th, 1974; Stefan Persson, 214th 1974; Ken Morrow, 68th, 1976; Mike Bossy, 15th, 1977; John Tonelli, 33rd, 1977; Duane Sutter, 17th, 1979; Tomas Jonsson, 25th, 1979; Brent Sutter, 17th, 1980; Kelly Hrudey, 38th, 1980; Greg Gilbert, 80th, 1980.

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One scout led the way for the Islanders, Jim Devallano, who signed on as the team’s only scout in 1972 and was director of scouting in 1974 until 1982, when he left for the Detroit Red Wings. An argument can be made that Devallano is the greatest scout of all time, given that he was a key player in both the building of the Islanders and Red Wings dynasties.

Devallano’s team of scouts included Ed Chadwick and Harry Saraceno, who both left in 1979, and James Fullerton, who left n 1977. That group had magic together, but perhaps they had reached their “best before” date as well as a group.

Edmonton Oilers 1978-83

Top draft picks 1979-80: Kevin Lowe, 21st, 1979; Mark Messier, 48th, 1979; Glenn Anderson, 69th, 1979; Paul Coffey, 6th, 1980; Jari Kurri, 69th, 1980; Andy Moog, 132nd, 1980; Grant Fuhr, 8th, 1981; Steve Smith, 111th, 1981; Jeff Beukeboom, 19th, 1983; Esa Tikkanen, 80th, 1983.

Minnesota North Stars defencemen Curt Giles, left, and Chris Dahlquist, right, battle Edmonton Oilers forward Esa Tikkanen
Minnesota North Stars defencemen Curt Giles, left, and Chris Dahlquist, right, battle Edmonton Oilers forward Esa Tikkanen Photo by Bruce Edwards /Edmonton Journal

A strong argument can be made that no head scout put together three better consecutive drafts than Barry Fraser, 1979 to 1981. In this he was assisted by Lorne Davis and his Finnish scout, Matti Vaisanen. The Oilers drafted five Hall-of-Fame players in three years, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri and Glenn Anderson, an amazing achievement by Fraser.

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But Fraser’s record running the draft quickly deteriorated through the 1980s, with Esa Tikkanen his last big steal. Fraser stayed on until 1999-2000, Davis until 2007-08, with Bob Freeman scouting from 1981-1995 and Ace Bailey 1981 to 1994. Vaisanen left in ’91.

Edmonton’s record under Fraser is an indication that new NHL scouts can hit it big but that lengthy experience doesn’t seem to help much. In fact, scouting seems to be something of a hungry man’s game. If a core group of amateur scouts has been  together for a decade, it’s probably been together for about five years too long. That’s not saying every one has to move out, but bringing in new faces might well be a solid plan.

Detroit Red Wings 1983-2004

Top draft picks, 1983-2004: Steve Yzerman, 4th, 1983; Bob Probert, 46th, 1983; Petr Klima, 86th, 1983; Shawn Burr, 7th, 1984; Joe Murphy, 1st, 1986; Adam Graves, 22nd, 1986; Mike Sillinger, 11th, 1989; Nicklas Lidstrom, 53rd, 1989; Sergei Fedorov, 74th, 1989; Vlad Konstantinov, 221st, 1989; Keith Primeau, 3rd, 1990; Vyacheslav Kozlov, 45th, 1990; Martin Lapointe, 10th, 1991; Chris Osgood, 54th, 1991; Darren McCarty, 46th, 1992; Tomas Holmstrom, 284th, 1994; Pavel Datsyuk, 171st, 1998; Henrik Zetterberg, 210th, 1999; Niklas Kronwall, 29th, 2000; Jiri Hudler, 58th, 2001, Valtteri Filppula, 95th, 2001; Jonathan Ericsson, 291st, 2001; Johan Franzen, 97th, 2004.

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TAMPA, FL – APRIL 21: Pavel Datsyuk #13
TAMPA, FL – APRIL 21: Pavel Datsyuk #13 Photo by Mike Carlson /Getty Images

Jimmy Devallano and Ken Holland built a stellar team of scouts in the 1980s and 1990s, with the success of the group extended in part because there was regular turnover. Swedish scout Christer Rockstrom started in 1984 and left in 1990, only to be replaced by Hakan Andersson. From 1983 to 1995, most scouts stayed about four or five years before moving on, the constants being Devallano and Holland and the top, with Andersson doing superlative work in Europe. Indeed, the prolonged success mainly came by plucking about one good-to-great Euro player per season. And even Andersson had something of a dry spell in the 1990s, as Detroit went three straight drafts, 1995, 1996 and 1997, without identifying any strong NHL players.

Detroit kept up the good work for almost two decades, but hasn’t drafted so well after finding Johan Franzen in 2004. One issue might well be that the strong core group of five or six scouts assembled in the late 1990s stayed on too long, more than 20 years for some of them, and the department eventually lost its edge. Another way of looking at the more recent weak work is that Andersson, the one scout who carried the entire department for almost a decade, finally lost his magic touch.

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Chicago Blackhawks, 2001 to 2004.

Top draft picks, 2001-2004: Tuomo Ruutu, 9th overall, 2001; Craig Anderson, 73rd, 2001; Duncan Keith, 54th, 2002; James Wisniewski, 156th, 20002; Brent Seabrook, 14th, 2003, Corey Crawford, 52nd, 2003; Dustin Byfuglien, 245th, 2003; Dave Bolland, 32nd, 2004; Bryan Bickell, 41st, 2004; Troy Brouwer, 214th, 2004.

We haven’t seen such dominance in drafting since the Red Wings team fell off, but a group of scouts in Chicago did well for a few years, 2001-04. I don’t include the high picks of Patrick Kane in 2007 and Jonathan Toews in 2006, as those were the only strong players Chicago got those years and were consensus top picks. The strong run seems to have mainly been orchestrated by two men, director of amateur scouting Bill Lesuk and director of player evaluation Marshall Johnston, with Lesuk coming on in 2000 and Johnston in 2002. The strong drafting ended when they were fired in November 2003, though Bolland, Bickell and Brouwer were all taken that June.

Edmonton Oilers 2018-19

As for the current group of Oilers amateur scouts, the two main leaders are relatively new, with Bob Green coming on board in 2013-14 and Keith Gretzky in 2017-18. As for the scouts it appears to be a mix of older and newer scouts, with Jim Crosson, Matti Virmanen and Scott Harlow hired in 2010-11, Per-Erik Eklund in 2013-14, Alexander Naurov, 2015-16, Mitch Holmberg and Brandon Jay, 2017-18, and John Hill and Andrew Shaw, 2018-19.

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I can’t tell you which of these scouts has excelled, and which is likely to excel, but new GM Ken Holland can certainly review the work of long-time scouts Crosson, Virmanen and Harlow to see if the players they pushed hardest turned out or not. But the overall mix of newer and older scouts seems reasonable.

It’s also the case that recent Oilers drafts, from 2015-to-2018, appear to have uncovered a good amount of talent. That said, if top picks like Jesse Puljujarvi, Kailer Yamamoto and Evan Bouchard fail to turn out, that will be a major hit for the Oilers and to the reputation of this group of scouts.

Even if that’s true, however, Holland has to keep a close eye here on results. As his experience in Detroit demonstrates, even a strong group of scouts can only get great results for so long. Changing out amateur scouts should be the norm in an organization, not the exception.

2019 Consensus Draft Rankings

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