MacLean said the book has so far been well received.
YORKTON – The fate of NHL teams often seems to depend on what they do in the annual draft.
Top picks, like Guy Lafleur, Gilbert Perrault, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and most recently Connor Bedard, are obvious selections that are almost guaranteed to add a star to a team – although there is also the occasional Brian Lawton.
But as the draft continues and teams decide between players at 25th in total, or in the second or third round, how do they decide. Why choose one teenager over another in the hope that one day he will make the NHL roster?
Sometimes it honestly feels like a simple roll of the dice with your fingers crossed.
But there is actually an extreme amount of statistical data and years of experience accumulated in reporting before making a choice.
It’s a difficult process to understand, but one that fans are keenly interested in because the success or failure of favored teams can depend on what happens on draft day.
SO Draft daya new book by Doug MacLean and Scott Morrison, will be of interest to many NHL fans.
MacLean certainly approaches the subject from the perspective of his experience as a former NHL coach, general manager, team president and television commentator.
In the book he’s writing, he reveals “how teams build to greatness – or fail – on hockey’s most anticipated day,” notes the publisher’s website at www.simonandschuster.com
MacLean certainly knows what a bad draft can mean.
“I will never forget the final weeks of the 2003-04 season,” he wrote. “Perhaps this was the moment I truly understood the mental tug of war that a National Hockey League general manager goes through, especially the general manager of a struggling, still relatively new expansion franchise . This was my fourth of ten seasons as President and General Manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“With the eighth selection Columbus selected (Alexandre) Picard. I remember after we made the pick, Tim Murray, who was scouting with Anaheim at the time, walked past our table on his way to the ninth overall pick and said, “Dude, you have a player. What a selection. We wanted it. We left Raleigh after the draft in style. Have we ever been wrong.
So why this book?
Well, MacLean was asked to write it.
“I never would have thought about it if Simon and Schuster hadn’t called,” MacLean said in a recent interview with Yorkton This Week.
The publisher was looking for a manuscript that was in the vein of the popular baseball book Moneyball.
“It was their idea and they came to me with the idea,” said MacLean, who added that he thought the idea was “pretty unique,” so he took it on.
MacLean said it was certainly a topic that intrigued fans.
“The draft is something that a lot of people are interested in,” he said.
While there’s a lot that goes into the picks, MacLean said the draft is far from an exact science. He said if a general manager finds players capable of carving out NHL careers 50 percent of the time, “he’s done well.”
The uncertainty of the process is partly due to recruiting players so young.
“Things can change dramatically,” MacLean said.
That’s why sometimes late-round picks fit into the game and play for years, while higher picks may have peaked and never make the final step to the NHL.
MacLean pointed to Columbus, a team that still has never had the first overall pick, despite years of mediocrity, at best.
“It’s frustrating. It drives me crazy,” he said.
This also means that the team must have been right in their subsequent choices, and as previously stated, this was not always the case.
In the book, MacLean shares the process, letting readers go behind the scenes where a team presents the people it covets in the draft. After a read, fans will at least have a better understanding of how choices are made – even if the reason they become stars or footnotes isn’t something a book can ever capture.
“It was an overall disastrous draft for us. Things got worse when our two second-round picks – Boston College right winger Adam Pieneault at 46th overall and Ottawa defenseman Kyle Wharton at 59th – played a total of three NHL games. We drafted a goaltender, Dan LaCosta from Owen Sound, who played four games in the NHL. Next, our next five picks have never played in the NHL. Our final pick, in the ninth round, Nepean defenseman Grant Clitsome, played 205 games. Go figure. This is the plan,” he wrote.
MacLean said the book has so far been well received.
“It’s been really positive,” he said, adding that he thought “there were some great things in there” that fans will appreciate, like some behind-the-scenes footage of the Eric Lindros trade on draft day.
MacLean also talks about analytics, a topic he says general managers tend to avoid talking about – only two of them speak for the book.
“To me, it’s just another tool to use to get information,” he said.
