Hot off the airwaves from Bob McKenzie on TSN Drive:
(Twitter Question) With the Leafs’ horrible drafting, why has there not been some fired scouts?
Dave Morrison has been heading up their scoring department and continues to, although there is probably a greater degree of oversight. Some would argue Mark Hunter is the de facto, in charge of all scouting issues. In a manner of speaking, I guess it kind of is a new look. You get that a lot, there was all sorts of talk when Jim Benning took over in Vancouver that Vancouver hadn’t been perceived as a strong scouting team and there was going to be massive wholesale changes to scouting department, and there hasn’t been. You’re comfortable with people going out and doing the job so long as you’re most comfortable with who has the final authority. Near as I can tell, who has the final authority is Director of Player Personnel Mark Hunter, who had a great reputation as a GM of London Knights for finding young talent and having a keen eye for that.
(Steve Simmons) Brendan Shanahan was said to have undergone an evaluation of all scouts, going over years old scouting lists.
Some people would say that the Edmonton Oilers’ scouts have taken it on the chin. They’ve done the same thing. As of now, there haven’t been significant changes in the last year or two to the Oiler scouting department. Lots of times scouts get overruled by mangers or other guys in the organization. Maybe the Oilers were ready to take Brandon Saad with a specific pick and said they needed to take a defenceman and took David Musil instead, even though the scouts might have said Saad was the best player at the time. I know it’s easier for everyone on the outside, the amateur evaluators of the evaluators, but it’s also been my experience over the years that the scouts who get the enormous amount of credit, go through periods where the picks are terrible, or vice versa, where perceived bad scouts end up making some really good picks. It’s an inexact science and some teams are better than other teams. I could build you a case for any scout in the NHL. If you hit .400 in baseball you’re a Hall of Famer, but for scouting I’d imagine it’s hard to even hit 400 in the drafting of 18-year-old hockey players.
Rumour of Ryan O’Reilly to Buffalo, and his availability:
Buffalo is interested. They were interested before and they’re still interested. I think Tim Murray is going to try everything in his power to make it happen. If he couldn’t make it happen when he had Tyler Myers, I’m not sure there is necessarily anything there that would make it easier. If anything, it would be more difficult if you are trying to get O’Reilly out of Colorado. Colorado is open to the notion, I think. I’d be shocked if it happened between now and deadline, but this summer I think it’s certainly possible because of financial implications of where his contract is going and the fact that they need help in more areas more than they need O’Reilly, even though Patrick Roy loves rolling O’Reilly out of the gate whenever he can. It’s probably not feasible to keep him long term, which is why I think he will move in the summer if not earlier.
