How the Sabres scout and draft

[LGR4GM]

What has been interesting to me (maybe only me) the last few years is how the Sabres scout players and then translate that into drafting. For a few years it seemed that whatever Murray felt like in the moment or whatever non CHL player Botterill liked were going to get picked. It felt old-school where you watched a guy and if you liked the cut of his jib, you drafted him. It got us guys like Nylander but also guys like Samuelsson as Botterill started to seemingly incorporate some numbers and the like into the model. 

None of that really matters now because we are in the Adams era with Jerry Forton as head of amateur scouting and Sam Ventura head of analytics. Forton recently said this "The Sabres won’t draft a player in any round unless they have somewhere between 50 and 100 game reports on him through in-person viewings and video scouting." and it prompted the starting of this thread. We know that Ventura built out the draft models on the analytics side but now we see what goes into the more traditional scouting side. "Ventura and his staff blew Forton away with the volume of their coverage and the way they spot trends. As analytics have become more advanced, Ventura is now working with a bigger sample size of historical data. That helps him and his staff further recognize what is useful when they’re building models."

The Sabres feed whatever data they use (I have some guesses here) into the model and compare it to a historical cohort (be still my heart). They watch 50-100 viewings of a guy. Finally they bring it all together to look at who the player actually is (I would guess intangibles come in here). Just found it interesting. 

Here is the full read if you are interested https://theathletic.com/3535709/2022/08/30/sabres-analytics-jerry-forton-scouting-department-video/?source=emp_shared_article

[dudacek]

So we like Granato, and we like Ventura, and we like Karmanos and his team with the Amerks, and now we like Forton too?

What the hell is happening?

(Seriously, interesting piece. Thanks for posting)

[That Aud Smell]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Forton recently said this "The Sabres won’t draft a player in any round unless they have somewhere between 50 and 100 game reports on him through in-person viewings and video scouting."

🧐

[Marvin]

I am interested in this stuff.  Thanks, @LGR4GM.

[French Collection]

I love this stuff.

I know we all want to see success at the NHL level now but it has to start somewhere and these departments are key to creating a pipeline of Sabres. It has been a long decade+ but I think KA and his group are on the right path. I believe he wants a homegrown team that plays for each other and the fans. The conveyor belt full of prospects will ensure that once the team is competitive that they will have many playoff runs and that one or more of them will end with a Cup.

If the scouting and analytics people do their jobs well, success can be sustainable.

[Eleven]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

"The Sabres won’t draft a player in any round unless they have somewhere between 50 and 100 game reports on him through in-person viewings and video scouting."

That is a TON of work considering that they must line up about 5-6 ideas for each draft pick.  (Or more?)

[French Collection]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

That is a TON of work considering that they must line up about 5-6 ideas for each draft pick.  (Or more?)

50-100 games is pretty much every game in a junior player’s season. NCAA guys don’t play that much but we’re scouted the previous year as juniors or at the USNTDP..

[MattPie]

1 hour ago, Eleven said:

That is a TON of work considering that they must line up about 5-6 ideas for each draft pick.  (Or more?)

I think by the later rounds you'd almost have to scout every player since the order becomes largely random. I guess with video you can watch every game and at times get a two- or three-for-one, but it's not like you can focus on five players in a game. Maybe liberal use of rewind to watch several guys in a game.

[GASabresIUFAN]

It seems to me the real benefit of all that work is later in the draft.  While they seem to adhere to the general adage that they must do at least one thing at an NHL level such at score, skate or defend, they really seem to be finding guys that one can project as really having a chance to be an NHLer.

Here are some standouts that KA drafted after the 2nd rd in the last couple of drafts that really illustrate how their system is finding possible gems.

In 2021 they grabbed Bloom, Nadeau, Kozak and Novikov.  The first 3 rewarded the Sabres with excellent CHL seasons with 30 goals plus each.  All are now signed.  Novikov was able to hang defensively in the KHL at 18.  Bloom even missed his draft year season because of COVID lockdowns.

In 2022 they found 3 potential scorers late in Neuchev, Richard and Karlsson and then added a high skill excellent skating D in Lindgren and another solid defensive Russian in Komarov.  Richard and Karlsson standout to me because their scouting uncovered Richard’s huge in-season progress in the USHL and found in Karlsson the 2nd best goal scorer for his age group in Swedish juniors.  The only player who scored more than Karlsson at his age and league was a 1st rd pick. 
 

 

 

[LGR4GM]

31 minutes ago, French Collection said:

50-100 games is pretty much every game in a junior player’s season. NCAA guys don’t play that much but we’re scouted the previous year as juniors or at the USNTDP..

They actual talked about how the different levels guys play at like WJC and the such go into the evaluations. I am not surprised they want 50 looks on a guy (note that most draft eligible are not in the NCAA, that's a small list). 

24 minutes ago, MattPie said:

I think by the later rounds you'd almost have to scout every player since the order becomes largely random. I guess with video you can watch every game and at times get a two- or three-for-one, but it's not like you can focus on five players in a game. Maybe liberal use of rewind to watch several guys in a game.

Forton said with Ventura's work and the video abilities they have now, they can scout about 400 guys. 

I would guess some guys do not get 50 views though if their analytics and first 10 views are all bad. You can process that, let analytics keep tabs and move on. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 minute ago, LGR4GM said:

They actual talked about how the different levels guys play at like WJC and the such go into the evaluations. I am not surprised they want 50 looks on a guy (note that most draft eligible are not in the NCAA, that's a small list). 

Forton said with Ventura's work and the video abilities they have now, they can scout about 400 guys. 

But they said they also go to the draft with only about 115 to 140 players on their draft board.

[LGR4GM]

16 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

found in Karlsson the 2nd best goal scorer for his age group in Swedish juniors.  The only player who scored more than Karlsson at his age and league was a 1st rd pick. 
 

This really depends on if you adjust for goal per game played. 

That said... Karlsson has a really interesting gf/ga percentage. 69.35% gf or 43gf/19ga at even strength which is very interesting. 

[MattPie]

5 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

Forton said with Ventura's work and the video abilities they have now, they can scout about 400 guys. 

I would guess some guys do not get 50 views though if their analytics and first 10 views are all bad. You can process that, let analytics keep tabs and move on. 

That makes a ton of sense. When you get down to the tail end of the draft, you can mostly pick the guys you like that are left, and not worry as much that the one guy that gets past you.

[LGR4GM]

Karlsson was 5th in the SWEj20 in P1/e60

[GASabresIUFAN]

5 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

This really depends on if you adjust for goal per game played. 

That said... Karlsson has a really interesting gf/ga percentage. 69.35% gf or 43gf/19ga at even strength which is very interesting. 

This is the type of stat that truly reflects why they drafted him.  I agree that prior admins likely didn’t go to that depth in their analysis.

[triumph_communes]

It’s clear they aren’t emphasizing size much and are giving volume scorers a chance regardless of projected slights. I thought that could be a result of a data driven approach. 
 

Though I agree with the concept that if a player doesn’t show ‘it’ against peers they never aren’t magically going to start at the next level and too many draft picks were given a hand wave away for not producing cause they had a frame. 

[LGR4GM]

13 minutes ago, triumph_communes said:

It’s clear they aren’t emphasizing size much and are giving volume scorers a chance regardless of projected slights. I thought that could be a result of a data driven approach. 
 

Though I agree with the concept that if a player doesn’t show ‘it’ against peers they never aren’t magically going to start at the next level and too many draft picks were given a hand wave away for not producing cause they had a frame. 

I will add that if you are 18 and big (6'4" 200lbs) but you don't produce in a j20 league, my question is always you are bigger and stronger but you still can't get to the right spot on the ice, get the room you need, and get either pucks to the net or setup teammates? So how the hell will you get better at that in a league where everyone is bigger (maybe 6'4") and stronger? 

This applies more to forwards. On defense if you are big like that, I expect you to be shutting down chances against like it is nothing. 

[Flashsabre]

4 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

What has been interesting to me (maybe only me) the last few years is how the Sabres scout players and then translate that into drafting. For a few years it seemed that whatever Murray felt like in the moment or whatever non CHL player Botterill liked were going to get picked. It felt old-school where you watched a guy and if you liked the cut of his jib, you drafted him. It got us guys like Nylander but also guys like Samuelsson as Botterill started to seemingly incorporate some numbers and the like into the model. 

None of that really matters now because we are in the Adams era with Jerry Forton as head of amateur scouting and Sam Ventura head of analytics. Forton recently said this "The Sabres won’t draft a player in any round unless they have somewhere between 50 and 100 game reports on him through in-person viewings and video scouting." and it prompted the starting of this thread. We know that Ventura built out the draft models on the analytics side but now we see what goes into the more traditional scouting side. "Ventura and his staff blew Forton away with the volume of their coverage and the way they spot trends. As analytics have become more advanced, Ventura is now working with a bigger sample size of historical data. That helps him and his staff further recognize what is useful when they’re building models."

The Sabres feed whatever data they use (I have some guesses here) into the model and compare it to a historical cohort (be still my heart). They watch 50-100 viewings of a guy. Finally they bring it all together to look at who the player actually is (I would guess intangibles come in here). Just found it interesting. 

Here is the full read if you are interested https://theathletic.com/3535709/2022/08/30/sabres-analytics-jerry-forton-scouting-department-video/?source=emp_shared_article

I love that they are working in harmony. Analytics is great when used hand in hand with old school scouting. Checks and Balances both ways. Time will tell but I think the past couple drafts have produced a very promising group of prospects that hopefully develop.

[PASabreFan]

3 hours ago, Marvin said:

I am interested in this stuff.  Thanks, @LGR4GM.

That's fine as long as it doesn't replace being an actual fan... ya know, watching the games and stuff. Honestly the team has been so bad I wouldn't really blame anyone. We all do what we gotta do to survive until better days. Personally I could sit and listen to tapes of Rick and transcribe them and analyze his use of verbs and allergy to too many details.

I feel like the guy who is sitting in a favorite Italian restaurant hoping that THIS time the eggplant will be as light and crispy as it once was, while others study the soil conditions where the latest crop was grown.

Or something. Now my mouth is watering.

Edited August 30, 2022 by PASabreFan

[PerreaultForever]

Contrary to what some people think I do not have a problem with the use of all these analytics and correlating all this data. Computers and programmers have revolutionized what can be done and you need to incorporate that into the mix. There is no way to humanly scout everything in person to the extent that these people can amass data. So you use it, and the Sabres definitely seem to have recognized that but other things still matter too. 

I'm not going to talk about Murray, he was simply a bad GM. In fairness to the argument though weren't Nylander's analytics good? He was fast, a good skater, scored at the junior level. I don't remember the analysis, I probably never looked at it, but I think analytical people had him ranked high.

Similarly, JBot's picks were not all terrible and he seems to have combined other things in his decisions. I still believe in Cozens and think he was a good pick and his character definitely elevated him above his numbers.  If I remember correctly analytics people thought Samuelsson was picked too high. He was supposed to not be a good enough skater and had flaws in his game that made the pick a reach in their minds. But he also had a work ethic and as we see, he's developing quite nicely. A good pick, so sometimes bloodlines work out and sometimes they don't. 

Is the current Sabres methodology good? Seems fine, but time will tell. I simply hope they haven't gone TOO far into the analytics and are not paying enough attention to personality, body type, character and so forth. A pick like Rosen makes me wonder about that. A pick like Kulich makes me think we're okay. 

[dudacek]

I feel like the guy who noticed the service has improved, likes the plans the new management unveiled, and found the new sample tray a clear cut above what they used to serve.

Now I’m actually looking forward to tasting the new menu, and seeing how the new chef and his staff will develop it.

[bob_sauve28]

Well, I sure hope they are looking to add d-men in the next draft. 

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

That's fine as long as it doesn't replace being an actual fan... ya know, watching the games and stuff. Honestly the team has been so bad I wouldn't really blame anyone. We all do what we gotta do to survive until better days. Personally I could sit and listen to tapes of Rick and transcribe them and analyze his use of verbs and allergy to too many details.

I feel like the guy who is sitting in a favorite Italian restaurant hoping that THIS time the eggplant will be as light and crispy as it once was, while others study the soil conditions where the latest crop was grown.

Or something. Now my mouth is watering.

Fear not: I am a fan first.  I started musing about how these data could be quantified back in the late 1980's when I took courses in Operations Research, where they try to quantify things like leadership or motivation.  I have always maintained that you could partially quantify how hard someone backchecks or how good their hockey sense was if you took in and analyzed the right data.  It is only after 2010 that we have had the computing power to do this effectively.

[Curt]

4 hours ago, MattPie said:

I think by the later rounds you'd almost have to scout every player since the order becomes largely random. I guess with video you can watch every game and at times get a two- or three-for-one, but it's not like you can focus on five players in a game. Maybe liberal use of rewind to watch several guys in a game.

Most likely they use data analysis to identify a group of players who they are interested in scouting, then they scout those guys heavily.  Everyone probably gets watched at a low baseline level, and if anyone who isn’t identified by the data impresses your scouts’ eyeballs, they probably flag them for additional scouting as well.

As to rewinding and video scouting, they have scouting tool software where they can watch only a particular player’s shifts, so they can probably scout a player’s game in 20 mins, including note taking.  It’s not like they are watching 75 full 2 hour games to scout one player.

[Pimlach]

5 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Karlsson was 5th in the SWEj20 in P1/e60