Sitting with the Pro Scouts

Offseason efforts aimed at getting Seattle back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs next spring are in high gear, with the Kraken pro scouting staff in town to meet with GM Ron Francis and the hockey operations group.

On the agenda: Pouring over in-depth reports on all players with pro contracts connected to each of the 31 other NHL franchises. One order of business, among others, is identifying players that might be signed in free agency starting July 1 or potentially acquired by trade before training camp.

The roster review adds up to 50-some skaters and goalies per team between the NHL and AHL rosters, plus some players with ECHL teams, the league a tier below the AHL. Each scout takes responsibility for five to nine opponents and needs to be ready to go deep (naturally as a Kraken employee) on any name prompting questions or clarifications or bottom-line how-much-do-we-want-this-guy discussions.

Francis started the meetings with what might be called State of the Kraken’s Union material with the scouts, assistant GMs and hockey analytics personnel on hand.

“The message varies depending on the time of the year [the scouts meet in the middle of the hockey season too],” said Dave Baseggio, Director of Pro Scouting, who started with the franchise a season before the Kraken took to the ice. “Then we start with our teams. It takes about a day [of meeting time] to get through them all.”

From there, the discussion is more focused on team needs and the potential for adding what GMs like Francis and pro scout Lorne Henning call “pieces” to, let’s say, the Kraken’s ongoing competition of NHL chess. The discussions include a healthy mixture of scout observations and what the hockey analytics data shows. Baseggio said the rapport with the analytics group just gets stronger each season, with all perspectives valued.

Baseggio and his pro scout colleagues effectively helped set up that chessboard. In that hockey year before the Kraken inaugural season, Baseggio and his staff were charged with building a wide database that now holds reports on thousands of players skating for NHL and AHL teams. With the database established, this spring’s pro scouts meeting is more targeted, though don’t expect Baseggio or Francis to elaborate on which players might have piqued the most interest this week. Baseggio did allow, “We kinda have an idea who we are zoning in on.”

“One of the best things about our job is some years you might need a power player,” said Baseggio, who spent 12 seasons with Anaheim as an assistant GM and working in pro scouting, plus nine years as an AHL head coach and assistant before joining the Kraken. “Sometimes you might need to work on the team’s defense. It's always different. It keeps you fresh and sharp, then we get to see the entire picture of what's going on. For our group, having their priority teams, they really get to know the other teams, both NHL and AHL, very well.”

For his part, Baseggio is a bit of a player-coach in his current role. He covers five NHL foes, the three New York City-area franchises, plus Philadelphia and Washington.

Get to Know the Pro Scouts

John Goodwin, a former juniors coach in the Ontario Hockey League, is responsible for covering Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Columbus. As a coach, he was known for his innovative offensive systems and assuredly can identify a bonafide scorer when he sees one. He led the Ontario Hockey League in points during one of juniors seasons (56 goals, 110 assists in 68 games) and kept pace in the American Hockey League over five seasons (282 points in 315 games).

William White is the youngest of the pro scouts and a former NCAA Connecticut player who earned a full-time role based on impressive reports he filed as a part-timer during the 2021-22 season. He covers the Central Division teams and southeast clubs, Florida and Tampa Bay. He says two things he gleaned from his colleagues. One, if you “learn one thing about a player, then the game’s worth the view.” Two, “I’m working on condensing my reports, a less is more sort of thing.”

The aforementioned Henning is the Kraken’s pro scout for West Coast teams plus Colorado and Phoenix/Utah and has built an enviable career as four-time Stanley Cup winner (two as a New York Islanders player and two more as an NYI assistant coach), NHL coach (Islanders and Minnesota/now Dallas), long-time assistant general manager for Vancouver and consultant with Swedish hockey clubs before joining Seattle. He was drafted by the then-expansion-team Islanders No. 17 overall (actually the first pick of the 1972 second round). The game clearly still fully engages Henning, who says he scouts four to five games every week during the season.

Smart Talk About Hockey IQ

When Ron Francis and crew started the scouting database, there were two must-haves for players desired: One is skating ability, vital in today’s game of speed and skills. The other is high hockey IQ. Let’s have the scouts explain that one:

“It’s all about puck management and game management without the puck, too,” said Goodwin during a morning break this week. “Does the player know where to be on the ice? Does he make sure he doesn’t get caught back helping a D-man [when there is an offensive rush up ice]? Does he get lost as the third forward on the forecheck?

“A lot of determining a high hockey IQ is awareness and anticipation, positioning to where the puck is going,” said Baseggio, gracious about sharing some of his lunchtime to talk. “We’re looking at how a player sees the play develop and where it’s going. The game is getting faster, and players have to think faster. There are a lot of guys who are really fast who do not think as fast as they play. We’re looking at those players who can survey a situation and react in an appropriate manner quicker.

Henning gave his take on hockey IQ while spotting a chess board in the player lounge at Kraken Community Iceplex: “I think you can see the players who just figured out the game, their awareness on the ice, always knowing where to go to make a play or defend. I’m looking at those chess pieces over there. In that game you need to think several moves ahead, same for hockey players. The players we want are going to the right spots and not just skating all over the place.”

“With defensemen, you are looking if the player is head-on-a-swivel, looking around [at where teammates and opponents are positioned], especially going back for pucks,” said White, zeroing in on defensive zone IQ. “The really smart player is looking over his shoulder to see what’s next and what they can do with the puck. It’s getting so fast in this league; things are happening so quick. We want the players who make those plays at a fast pace.”

Expanding the Pro Scouting Purview Beyond the NHL

While the Kraken’s pro scouts watch plenty of games at NHL arenas, an underestimated part of the job is attending nearly as many American Hockey League games. For William White, that might mean watching a Stars game in Dallas one night and the next night heading to Austin to watch the AHL Texas Stars. White also gets to other AHL cities regularly, working a complex travel itinerary to see as many NHL/AHL games as possible. He estimated watching 150 to 160 in person during regular seasons and playoffs.

The AHL is a bit slower, but it's still a really high-quality league,” said White, who arrived hours early Monday for the 1 p.m. start time. “It a developmental league and you can especially watch more of the younger players’ progress. It’s about making a projection as opposed to an NHL player who is already established. It’s an important part of our roles. One of the other guys might scout a game with my AHL clubs, maybe send a note. But we are solely responsible to know all we can about the AHL players.”

Report Cards in the Hundreds

After watching an NHL or AHL game on a given night, the scouts have 48 hours to file into the Kraken database, offering notes on players and using a numerical scoring system the team has implemented to allow a systematic comparison among players.

Goodwin said he looks to file his reports the following day but might need more time with AHL treatments. He routinely uses his AHL.TV subscription to replay shifts of players and scoring plays because highlights are not as robust compared to what is offered by NHL telecasts. Travel can complicate filing reports, too, since the scout might be using the next day to get to another city.

For White, he leans on rewatching parts of games when determining his evaluation of players: “You still go home and watch video. You use it to supplement, for sure. You want to trust your eye but you’re also a human being. So if you want to make sure you saw what made that player miss a defensive assignment, you can double-check yourself.”

On the value of Prospects Playing a Full Season in the AHL

All four scouts were effusive about playing for Coachella Valley is a big plus for the likes of Shane Wright, Ryker Evans, Ryan Winterton, Logan Morrison, Jacob Melanson, Ville Ottavainen and, a year ago, Tye Kartye. Baseggio talked about Wright’s opportunity to prosper over a full AHL regular season.

“It's always good for prospects to play for AHL teams,” said Henning. “You get to experience more situations instead of limited minutes [in the NHL lineup]. You’re playing power play and penalty killing. You relied on more at the end of the game. And ou you want somebody to go through the inevitable ups and downs, so they learn from it.”

“People underestimate how good a league that is,” said Baseggio, who saw it up close as a coach for nine seasons. "It's a very good hockey league. And not an easy one to travel. No charter planes and five-star hotels. It's long bus rides.

“For a young player like Shane, You saw it at the end of the year when he came up [scoring four goals in five Kraken and impressing in all zones]... He's just moving so well with the puck."