As the final name was called last June, the Devils director of amateur scouting Paul Castron and his team of over 25 scouts officially closed the book on the 2017 draft class and, just two days later, they officially opened the book on the 2018 draft class as a handful of scouts traveled to upstate New York for the USA Hockey National Select Festival where the best American 17-year-olds (outside of the US National Team Development Program) gather for the annual player development camp.
In mid-July, the Canadian scouts traveled to Calgary as Hockey Canada held a similar event as part of their Program of Excellence for the best Canadian U18 players. In late July, even more scouts traveled to Plymouth, Mich. for the World Junior Summer Showcase featuring U20 players from USA, Canada, Sweden and Finland, including a handful of draft eligible players. In August, there was a contingent in Czech Republic and Slovakia for the annual Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament featuring some of the best U18 players from USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Switzerland.
After using these summer events as a bit of a preview, the scouts met as a group again in Buffalo at Devils rookie camp to identify players of interest and set a preliminary scouting schedule for the first half of the year. As a collective group, they made sure they had the chance to see every draft eligible player in every corner of the world from European professional and junior leagues to the CHL and Canadian Junior A teams to the NCAA, USHL and high school hockey in Minnesota and New England and everything in between, including a couple international tournaments in Europe in the fall.
In January, the scouts met again for their mid-term meetings and started to whittle their list of players of interest down to a more manageable number to better allocate their time and resources in the second half of the year. Individually, the scouts put together a list of top prospects in their area - could be five, could be 25 - and then presented that to the group for an opportunity to debate and discuss each prospect's value and their potential to become a New Jersey Devil some day.
Castron and Gates Orlando, Devils assistant director of amateur scouting, then took on the challenge of meshing those lists together, identifying priority players and coordinating schedules to make sure they, along with crossover scouts (scouts who work in more than one area) and Dan McKinnon, Devils senior director of player personnel, have the chance to see all the potential first and second round players in person and hopefully at different times.
Once the IIHF U18 World Championship concluded in Russia in mid-April, the scouts gathered once again in May for their year-end meetings to debate and discuss each prospect on their list as they started to solidify their order. While 217 players will hear their names called in Dallas on June 22nd and 23rd, most teams don't have 217 names on their final list. Most, including the Devils, will only have about half that.
"Some guys might not fit our criteria whether that be our style of play and the characteristics our coaches would like our players to have or maybe they don't fit our criteria off the ice with their work ethic or drive," Castron explained. "Ray (Shero) and John (Hynes) have set the guidelines and we do our best to give them guys who follow them. We sorted out the first 35 names on the list at the meetings in May, then we meshed all the area lists to get up to 80 and when we finish there might be 100 names on the list come draft day. To an outsider, it doesn't seem like enough, but it's rare to get through the draft and not have guys left on your list."
After the interviews at the combine, Castron and Orlando have almost daily conversations as they spend the final few weeks before the draft tweeking the list.
"There comes a point where not everyone has seen everyone play and that's where Gates and I really have to mesh the lists," he explained. "Sometimes Ray or Dan or [Tom Fitzgerald, Devils assistant general manager] only see a guy once and maybe he has a terrible game. They're not going to veto the opinion of a scout that's seen him play multiple times over the course of a season. All they can say is, 'I don't see what you guys see in him.' So, we have to make the decisions for the group. We'll go back to the area scouts and get their opinions, but in the end the decision comes down to Gates and I. We make the list."
Devils general manager Ray Shero concurs: "I'm involved in the discussion, but the decision isn't mine to make when I've never seen them play or have only seen them once. Each of these scouts are here because they're very good at their job and I've got to rely on them and trust their opinion."
As the debate and discussion of these players continue, it's all about the details because it's those details that ultimately separate players on the list. This includes scouting reports throughout the year, various interviews with the players, their coaches and, in some cases, even their teammates, as well as the information gathered at the combine.
"It's just a matter of cross-referencing all the information we have on each player - physical testing, psychological profile, interviews, scouting reports - and making sure we have everything we need to make the best decisions for our organization," Shero said. "We've already had our final meetings and our list won't change that much, but more information will become available and we'll be able to talk to guys that weren't at the combine and bring a couple guys in for testing and it's just all about gathering more information. We might have some questions we want to follow up on and it's just important to make good use of the time we have left before the draft to make sure we make the best selections for the New Jersey Devils."
At this point in the draft process, no one's jumping up ten spots or dropping five. It's more like players are being flip flopped on the list and, while the Devils currently hold the 17th pick in the draft as well as five more selections in rounds four through seven, not a single spot on the Devils final draft list is overlooked.
"Sure, we could take it lightly and not care about who we have at 31 or 32, but then if Ray comes to us and says, 'Hey, I just got us a second round pick.' we have to be ready to make that pick and be confident about it," Castron said. "We have to put the list together like we have a pick in every round. You can't just slap it together. Every spot is important."
With draft weekend rivaling the trade deadline for number of trades, that's a prudent approach to take.
"I don't see us trading into the top ten or anything like that because you'd have to lose a pretty good roster player to make that happen, but if there's a chance and it makes sense for us, like if a guy is sliding that our guys are really keen on then maybe, but you don't know those things heading into the draft," Shero explained. "Then, if a bunch of guys are falling and we'd be confident that we're going to get a really good player that we like later in the draft, there might be potential to trade down and get another asset. These are all spur of the moment decisions as you see how the draft is unfolding and what would be best to improve the New Jersey Devils both now and down the road."
The scouts will meet one last time on Thursday before the draft to go over the list one more time and make any final tweaks.
"We still have some work to do, but we're pretty comfortable with where we're at," Castron said. "Ray always says there's two Hall of Famers in every draft class. I can't guarantee we're going to be the ones to pick them, but we're confident we'll get some really good hockey players in Dallas."
