Home Analysis Shanny listens to his Leaf gut – Part III

Shanny listens to his Leaf gut – Part III

Illustration courtesy of @drumok

Nov 18, 2015

In which Brendan Shanahan listens to his Leaf gut

So, Don Cherry trashed Brendan Shanahan after the 2014 draft, saying:

“Brendan, I know you’re watching, President or whatever you are… You know how many Canadians the Leafs drafted this year? Zero… So who did they pick? They picked that little guy. We won’t say who. Then they sent him back to Sweden, to save his life…They pass on a guy, Nick Ritchie, 6-foot-3, 230 pounds, 100 minutes in penalties… What they need are big, tough wingers. They don’t need a little, wee forward… They’ve made the playoffs once in fourteen years and they draft U.S. college guys and a Swinn and a Fede… That’s why the Leafs are like they are & will be for a long time.”

Now, Don’s right. The Leafs have drafted poorly over the years.

Where Don’s wrong is in his advice.

Because it’s advice like Don’s that has wrecked the Leafs drafts for years.

Time to look at how Shanahan [and Hunter] have changed the Leafs drafting.

***

Imagine when Brendan Shanahan arrived in Toronto in 2014. The draft was coming in just ten weeks. Now, imagine that he took just five minutes, to look for himself at the Leafs’ draft strategy in recent years and its results. Here’s what he’d have seen.

The Leafs top two draft picks for each of the last few years:

Maple Leafs First Two Draft Selections - 2007 to 2013

Name	Year	Nationality
Freddie Gauthier	2013	Canadian
Carter Verhaeghe	2013	Canadian

Morgan Rielly	2012	Canadian
Matt Finn	2012	Canadian

Tyler Biggs	2011	American
Stuart Percy	2011	Canadian

Brad Ross	2010	Canadian
Greg McKegg	2010	Canadian

Nazem Kadri	2009	Canadian
Kenny Ryan	2009	American

Luke Schenn	2008	Canadian
Jimmy Hayes	2008	American

Dale Mitchell	2007	Canadian
Matt Frattin	2007	Canadian

Now, two things would jump right out at Shanahan from those results:

1st. That’s right, all you kids out there! Of their 14 top picks, the Leafs actually picked 11 Canadians, 3 Americans… and 0 Europeans. That’s right. No top picks used for Europeans at all. For seven years straight.

Which means the Leafs draft strategy for their top picks took 11 of 14 from Canada, and lots and lots of big-bodied and gritty kids – a perfect fit with Don’s views.

2nd. Only problem? The strategy was crap. I’m sure it looked nice on paper and all, and it’s the kind of strategy that sure sounds great when you shout it over the radio or down at the tavern. You know how it goes:

WE DON’T NEED ANY MORE TEENY TINY LEAFS!
hellz noooo. we hate little guys. also: they suck.
WE NEED SOME GREAT BIG TOUGH WINGERS INSTEAD.
hellz yeah. big. and tough too! ones that’ll fight!!
RIGHT! KNUCKLE-CHUCK! BUT GRITTY TOO.
grit – damn straight grit. old-time grit! gritty like a bear!!
GRITTY… BUT DIRTY TOO! DIRTY AS CAT LITTER!!
dude. you’re cut off.

See how great those conversations sound?

I know. Because I’ve had them. Heck, I have those conversations with myself. And at least twice a game, every game, I wish the Leafs had drafted twenty Colton Orrs, and I could send them all out onto the ice at once, to crush, pound and disembowel whatever Hab, Canuck, Bruin or FLiER!!1 player is particularly irritating to me at that moment.

The only problem with that draft strategy is that the Leafs keep on trying it, and it keeps on failing. Because, sure, it was great and all when Colton and Lazer Frazer McLaren chased all those little Habs around that one time. But the decade as a whole?

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Montreal Canadiens — Photo: Getty Images, NHLI

Pretty dismal.

But here’s a thing. What we think about how the Leafs drafted and what Brendan Shanahan thinks are two different thinks.

Because Brendan Shanahan’s perspective might well be a bit different. After all, he was a big player – just like Don and the Leafs always wanted. 6 foot 3, in fact. A winger, too. Ended up with over 100 NHL fights, and more than 2000 penalty minutes.

He’s even local. A Toronto boy.

In fact, of every Toronto born and bred player who ever played in the NHL, where in the all-time Top 10 Goal Scorers do you think Brendan Shanahan ranks?

Well, I’m not gonna make you wait to read it down at the bottom or anything like that, cause I always hated having to wait for stupid answers to stupid quiz questions, but I have to disguise the answer, somehow, sojustletmesaythatshanahanranksfirstalltime.

But if anyone would be well-placed to judge the results of the Leafs [and Don’s] draft strategy, then Brendan Shanahan would be a pretty fair judge, right?

Ok. But what do you think he thought of those Leafs draft results?

He would see: Morgan Rielly [great pick], Kadri [damn good pick] and Hayes [late-bloomer, pretty good pick.] And Gauthier and Percy still with an NHL shot.

But Luke Schenn at #5? And trading two high picks to get Tyler Biggs? Wow, that’s bad. And picking Brad Ross and Kenny Ryan? Great screaming handmaidens of Hell, what was that about?

That’s not good.

And he’d also see that the Leafs two best picks — Rielly and Kadri — actually went against any strategy of picking big-bodied, truculent kids.

Rielly in particular. He’s a great pick. But not because he’s big for a defenceman, or a hitter. In fact, he’s not a fighter — at all. From Bantam up through Junior and into the NHL, Rielly never had a season with more than 21 penalty minutes.

In his first two full NHL seasons, Morgan Rielly rang up the fewest penalty minutes of any NHL defenceman, ever [who played over 130 games.]

And this season? Zero penalty minutes so far.

Shanahan would also have noticed that the Leafs best picks — and Morgan Rielly was a brilliant pick — came when they broke with that whole “Big Tough Guy” strategy.

So it’s no surprise that even without much time to think about it, Shanahan decided to come up with a new draft strategy for the Leafs.

Fortunately, Shanahan had his own deep, and very successful, well of experience to draw upon. Including personal success like scoring 1300+ NHL points. Team success like winning three Cups, and playing alongside an incredible number of Hall of Famers, Norris and Hart and Smythe and Selke and Vezina winners.

Even more important, however, is that Brendan Shanahan got to watch Scotty Bowman and Kenny Holland, up close, for 10 years.

2014_06_27_NHL Draft_Day I_008_Holland_Babcock_Shanahan_slide

So – with even just a few minutes research in hand – imagine how Shanahan must have seen things going into the 2014 draft.

He has the #8 pick.
He knows exactly what he wants for the Leafs – high-end skill kids.
And he knows the Leafs old scouting system and draft management team has gone skunky.

So who does that leave to direct the 2014 draft?

Because, remember, Mark Hunter wasn’t there for the 2014 draft. Nor was Kyle Dubas.

Which means when you look back at the 2014 Leaf draft, you’re looking at… Brendan Shanahan.

Any judgment calls were based on Shanahan’s own personal sense of where the Leafs needed to go.

Shanny’s Leaf gut, as it were.

Which he then used… to pick the Swedish kid, William Nylander.

William Nylander - Christian Bonin / TSGphoto.com — William Nylander Photo: Christian Bonin / TSGphoto.com

Boom.

And for his 2nd pick, Shanny took the Russian Defenceman, Rinat Valiev. Ahead of six other Canadian defencemen picked in that round alone. Think about that. He even let Thommie Bergman pick a big winger late, Pierre Engvall, from Sweden.

But that whole big brawling thing? Gone.

In fact, no Canadians.

Which – to me, in poker terms – is an interesting tell. When Shanny was operating on short-notice, and firing mostly from his Leaf gut, he picked more Europeans than the Leafs under Burke ever had.

There is no “must automatically pick a big Canadian kid” rule in play anymore.

That’s why Don freaked out.

Now, Shanahan is never gonna come right out and have a fight with him, because Don buys mud by the barrel and flings it like a three-handed monkey on a bad drunk.

At least, I hope it’s mud.

Shanahan is just going to do things his own way, drawing upon his own experience.

But instead of all of us being stuck in the kind of “Hype & Gripe” argument that Don and some of the more vocal hockey talk media love [like Ritchie versus Nylander]… why don’t we do something more relevant? Like take a look at the strategies used by the one drafting system Shanny knows really well? The one that is also very likely the NHL’s best these past 25 years.

Let’s go to Motown.

***

Wherein: The Leafs go 0 for 75

We’ve already seen how Detroit, after adopting the puck possession style, had to change how they drafted. They needed more high-skill, puck control players – and that meant more kids from Russia and Europe.

Their logic was simple. Historically, the puck possession style of play and the skills required to succeed at it were more intensively taught, practiced and performed in Russia and Europe. So Detroit expanded their scouting over there. And the results? Over these last 20 years?

Detroit drafted 77 Europeans versus 57 Canadians.

The reverse of a team like the Leafs.

Sure, Detroit will still happily select a top-end North American like Dylan Larkin when they’re available. But the Wings draft success has been built off of what everybody calls their tremendous “late round drafting.”

Which was really a way of saying that “Detroit used their late round picks to select highly-skilled, but undervalued, Europeans.”

Like… Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Nyquist, Filppula, Tatar, and Pulkkinen.

I’ve got no problem with the Leafs moving in that direction, and starting to target more high-skill kids from Europe. In fact, I think it’s great news. Why?

Well, because a whopping 40% of the NHL’s 100 top-scoring forwards of the last 20 years have come from Europe and Russia.

Here are the top ones, just for reference.

Screen Shot 2015-11-17 at 4.11.46 PM

Look, the ugly fact is that the Leafs didn’t actually draft ANY of those Top 40%. When we got guys like Sundin, we had to trade real assets for them.

Okay, well.… wait. Let me ask you this question first: Do you actually want to see the full damage from the Leafs’ 40 year stumble through Europe?

What? You do? Oh. Of course you do! You’re a Leafs fan. So at this point, pain means nothing!

Silver Bullet Fact: Of the NHL’s 75 highest-scoring Forwards drafted out of Europe over the last 40 years, the Leafs have drafted precisely 0.

Top 75 European Players

EUROPEAN FORWARDS
1	"Ole Mullet Haid" Jagr - 1990	Pitt	1802
2	Teeeeeeemuuuu - 1988	Winn	1457
3	Jarri Kurri - 1980	Edm	1398
4	Mats Sundin - 1989	Que	1349
5	Peter Stastny	Que	1239
6	Sergei Fedorov - 1989	Det	1179
7	That Rat-F*ck Alfredsson - 1994	Snes	1157
8	Marian Hossa - 1997	Ott	1056
9	Alex Mogilny - 1988	Buff	1032
10	Alexei Kovalev - 1991	NYR	1029
11	Patrik Elias - 1994	NJ	1017
12	Sedin 1 - 1999	Van	915
13	Ovie - 2004	Wash	895
14	Peter Bondra - 1990	Wash	892
15	Peter Forsberg - 1991	Phil	885
16	Sedin 2 - 1999	Van	881
17	Pavel Datsyuk - 1998	Det	869
18	Markus Naslund - 1991	Pitt	869
19	Tomas Sandstrom - 1982	NYR	857
20	Slava Kozlov - 1990	Det	853
21	Sako Koivu - 1993	Mtl	832
22	Alex Steen's Old Man - 1979	Winn	817
23	Kovie - 2001	Atl	816
24	Milan Hejduk - 1994	Que	805
25	Henrik Zetterberg - 1999	Det	786
26	Alexei Yashin - 1992	Ott	781
27	Pavel Bure - 1989	Van	779
28	Pavol Demitra - 1993	Ott	768
29	Vinny Prospal - 1993	Phil	765
30	Marian Gaborik - 2000	Minn	751
31	Olli Jokinen - 1997	LA	750
32	Bobby Holik - 1989	Hart	747
33	Miroslav Satan - 1993	Edm	735
34	Alexei Zhamnov - 1990	Winn	719
35	Martin Straka - 1992	Pitt	717
36	Peter Nedved - 1990	Van	717
37	Ziggy Palffy - 1991	NYI	713
38	Robert Lang - 1990	LA	703
39	Evgeni Malkin - 2004	Pitt	702
40	Kent Nilsson - 1976	Atl	686
41	Willie Nylander's Pa - 1991	Hart	679
42	Jozef Stumpel - 1991	Bos	677
43	Ulf Dahlen - 1985	NYR	655
44	Igor Larionov - 1985	Van	644
45	Anton Stastny - 1979	Que	636
46	Papa Smurf Naslund - 1979	Mtl	634
47	Esa Tikkanen - 1983	Edm	630
48	Robert Reichel - 1989	Cgy	630
49	Martin Rucinsky - 1991	Edm	612
50	Anze Kopitar - 2005	LA	610
51	Thomas Vanek - 2003	Buff	608
52	Michal Pivonka - 1984	Wash	599
53	Dmitri Kristich - 1988	Wash	597
54	Thomas Gradin - 1976	Chi	593
55	Martin Havlat - 1999	Ott	593
56	Radek Dvorak - 1995	Fla	590
57	Patrik Sundstrom - 1980	Van	588
58	Dainius Zubrus - 1996	Phil	584
59	Petr Klima - 1983	Det	573
60	Nik Backstrom - 2006	Wash	572
61	Sergei Samsonov - 1997	Bos	571
62	Bengt-Ake Gustafsson - 1978	Wash	555
63	Martin Erat - 1999	Nash	545
64	Viktor Kozlov - 1993	SJ	537
65	Tomas Holmstrom - 1994	Det	530
66	Radim Vrbata - 1999	Colo	527
67	Ales Hemsky - 2001	Edm	526
68	Jere Lehtinen - 1992	Minn	514
69	Alexander Semin - 2002	Wash	513
70	Valeri Kamensky - 1988	Que	501
71	Mikko Koivu - 2001	Minn	500
72	Tomas Plekanec - 2001	Mon	499
73	Radek Bonk - 1994	Ott	497
74	Marco Sturm - 1996	SJ	487
75	Michal Handzus - 1995	STL	483
76	Nik Antropov - 1998	Tor	465

That’s right.

0 for 75.

The Leafs have literally never [by which I mean, “literally” and “never”] drafted a young, top-end European Forward scoring talent. Neither Russian, Swedish, Finnish, Czech or Slovakian.

Which is why any Leafs or media hockey talk type who actually argues that the Leafs are wasting too many top draft picks on high-scoring, little Europeans… is just batty.

And not “batty” in a good, Jose Bautista, home-run-trot kinda way.

More like “batty” in a Jose Canseco, ‘roid rage kinda way.

Which is why I think it’s such good news that Shanahan came in, and changed the Leafs strategy, from Year One, to draft more heavily from that European and Russian talent pool. Even better, to target high-end talent — not grinders, not bottom pairings, not bottom six.

Okay, maybe you just plain don’t want Europeans on the Leafs roster. But let’s be clear that there’s a cost to holding to this kind of strategy.

For instance, we’ve all heard how Don Cherry himself tried that hard core “No Europeans” strategy on his OHL Ice Dogs.

And only won 27 games out of 272.

That’s real world evidence, and it’s worth paying attention to, but some will say, “it’s just the OHL.” So how about we do a simple, practical, Toronto vs. Detroit draft comparison? Below are two rosters.

Each is made up of 25 years worth of draft picks:

The Blue one [naturally] on the right [naturally] follows Don and the Leafs’ strategy. It’s 100% made up of first round picks, each kid from Canada and the US. Each pick shown is an actual Leaf pick. So nothing made up or fictional here.
The Orange list is Detroit’s. Only it has no first round picks; just second round or later. But all are from Europe and Russia, and, again, each pick was a real pick.

Now the Leaf roster, which is made up entirely of first round picks, should win this by a mile, right?

You tell me which drafting strategy you like.

Drafting: Detroit vs Toronto

DETROIT		TORONTO
NICK LIDSTROM	53	MORGAN RIELLY	5
SERGEI FEDOROV	74	NAZEM KADRI	7
PAVEL DATSYUK	171	BRAD BOYES	24
HENRIK ZETTERBERG	210	GRANT MARSHALL	23
V'MIR KONSTANTINOV	221	SCOTT THORNTON	3
SLAVA KOZLOV	45	DRAKE BEREHOWSKY	10
TOMAS HOLMSTROM	257	CARLO COLAIACOVO	17
GUSTAV NYQUIST	121	STUART PERCY	25
TEEMU PULKKINEN	111	LUKE SCHENN	5
TOMAS TATAR	60	ROB PEARSON	12
VALTTERI FILPPULA	95	LANDON WILSON	19
TOMAS FLEISCHMANN	63	BRANDON CONVERY	8
JIRI HUDLER	58	JEFF WARE	15
JOHAN FRANZEN	97	STEVE BANCROFT	21
PETR MRAZEK	141	ERIC FICHAUD	16
TOMAS JURCO	35	TYLER BIGGS	22
MATTIAS JANMARK	79	FREDERIK GAUTHIER	21

That single chart spells out – in as brutal a manner as I can imagine – the central difference between us and Detroit over the last 25 years.

Detroit’s draft picks produced, while ours plopped.

And that is a hard fact.

There isn’t a hockey fan alive who wouldn’t prefer to coach, or watch, the team in the orange list. Seriously, even with Rielly and Kadri, I couldn’t watch that team in the right list.

Here’s another fact. When the Leafs actually did use their first round picks on Europeans, they’ve done way better. Kenny Jonsson. Alex Steen. Tuukka Rask. Nik Antropov. Jiri Tlusty [and Luca Cereda – lost to a heart ailment]. Okay, I was never a big fan of either Antropov or Tlusty, but just compare those results to our results in the list on the right above.

Our best draft in 20 years? 2006. The year the Leafs went heavily into Europe, and got Tlusty [meh], but also Komarov and Kulemin and Stalberg [and Reimer!].

So the Leafs haven’t even been able to read the evidence of their own draft results.

Now add Shanahan back in. For him, there’s nothing theoretical about those lists. He was there, as a player in the dressing room, to welcome and then play alongside Pavel Datsyuk and Zetterberg, Holmstrom, Kronwall, Franzen, Hudler, and the rest.

Which is why he set aside all the blah-blah-blah from Toronto’s hockey media, and changed our draft strategy even before he’d hired any new staff.

***

Wherein I want my MHL

Now, just before we jump to the 2015 draft and Mark Hunter’s arrival, there’s one more piece of Shanahan’s draft strategy to pry loose [beyond the fact that he wants and needs high-skill kids, and isn’t afraid to draft smaller anymore].

Shanahan’s strategy also takes advantage of the fact that a lot of NHL executives continue – even today – to undervalue European and Russian talent.

Sure, each team has their reasons. They prefer bang/crash hockey players, or they’re worried about the “Russian factor,” or they say they don’t have the money to scout there.

But if you’re Brendan Shanahan, you don’t give a rat’s why teams stay away. All you know is that as long as other teams continue to under scout, under draft or undervalue the high-skill European and Russian kids, that’s great news for you.

Because as long as other teams undervalue European and Russian high-skill kids, you can get better ones, with later picks, than you otherwise would.

Amplifying this is the fact that a top-end skill kid playing in North America likely gets scouted 10 times more than in Europe, and 100 times more than a Russian kid. Because our kids get scouted by NHL teams, independent scouting agencies, the media, bloggers, fans, you name it. And their every move is taped, YouTubed, gif’ed [hard “g”] or vined.

Compare that to all the Russian Junior [MHL] games you’ve seen recently.

None, right?

Of course, some parts of Europe are becoming better-scouted. For instance, more Swedes were drafted per capita than kids from Ontario last year.

But Russia isn’t well-scouted. The MHL isn’t. Russia has 14 times the population of Sweden, and still wins more World Championships, but has fewer kids picked.

That tilt away from Russia is why top-end talent Vladimir Tarasenko fell to #16, Evgeny Kuznetsov to #26, Nikita Kucherov to #58, and Artemi Panarin was available as a low-cost Free Agent.

So Brendan Shanahan will be spending more time looking for his kids where the other teams aren’t. In Europe, and in particular, Russia and the surrounding region.

Shanahan-Larionov

Of course, the Leafs will face other competitors besides Detroit when it comes to capturing that talent. Old team-mate Stevie Yzerman has been building Tampa Bay up on similar lines of speed, skill and Europeans. And he’s gotten plenty of them, on the cheap — Kucherov and Nesterov were late picks from Russian Jr., Ondrej Palat came at #208, and Sustr was an undrafted free agent.

The opportunities won’t come entirely for free to Shanahan, but every time the Leafs pick up another undervalued European player – through the draft, waivers, free agency or a trade – the rebuild accelerates.

This European drafting thing of Shanahan’s?

It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

Okay. Fast-forward to this year’s draft.

With Shanahan having hired Mark Hunter and so many OHL guys to help out, we all figured that every pick was gonna be from within 90 miles of Toronto.

Well, hello everybody being wrong [me included].

Because this time with Mark Hunter fully on-board, Shanahan’s Leafs went out and basically filled their chariots with high-end young European talent, picking up four more, including two amazing young puck-handlers:

The surprise third Round Latvian pick Martins Dzierkals [out of precisely that less-scouted Russian Junior league, the MHL].

And Dmytro Timashov, who wasn’t spied this past year in the Q, but the previous year, 2014. When Shanahan and Thommie Bergman were watching his teammate, some guy named “Nylander.”

Both Dzierkals and Timashov are smaller players, but both look like strong late round picks. Certainly as good as Detroit made.

But in total, over the 2014 and 2015 drafts, Brendan Shanahan took seven Europeans, and just four Canadians.

European vs Canadian Picks

	Europe			Canada
2015	Martins Dzierkals	Latvia	2015	Mitch Marner	OHL	2015
	Jesper Lindgren	Sweden		Travis Dermott	OHL
	Dmytro Timashov	Ukraine-Swe		Andrew Nielsen	W
	Nikita Korostelev	Russia		Stephen Desrocher	OHL
2014	William Nylander	Can-Swe	2014	None	n/a	2014
	Rinat Valiev	Tatarstan
	Pierre Engvall	Sweden

It’s not an accident, folks.

It’s part of the plan. The Shana-plan.

Now, DON’T get me wrong.

Shanahan’s top drafting territory is still Canada, and he’s aiming to get skilled Canadian kids any way he can.

But, as we saw, it’s damned tough sledding trying to find any truly high-end North American talent that 29 other teams haven’t already scouted to death.

Teams aren’t giving up first round picks for free anymore.

When you see a super-talented Canadian kid, they cost you a top round pick.

Nonetheless, when Shanahan can get an astonishing, world-class puck-handling talent like a Mitch Marner – from Ontario – he’s going to take it. Like he said:

“When there’s only one potato left on the plate, my fork’s already in it.”

The job of Mark Hunter and the other Canadian scouts is to scout Canada to such a depth, and with such penetration, that they can come up talent that 29 other teams are underrating, undervaluing. In Year One, with Dermott and Nielsen — who’ve looked great — they appear to have done really well.

But the days where a kid like a Schenn or a Biggs or a Gauthier had an automatic advantage, just because they were bigger, or from North America?

Those days are done. Done like dinner, as the Tiger used to say.

With Shanahan and Babcock’s focus on picking kids who’ll be talented at puck possession — and as long as Europe and Russia continue to be less well-scouted — you’d be smart to place a good-sized side bet on the Leafs drafting more Russians, Swedes and assorted other Europeans than they have been. A lot more.

Swinns and Fedes, Don. Swinns and Fedes.

Better get used to ‘em.

Oh yeah. A quick word to Don, Don Cherry.

It’s true that Nick Ritchie could end up being better than William Nylander. That could happen. It’s hard for anyone to say. But last year, skinny Willie Nylander somehow out-scored Nick Ritchie 10 to 1 at the WJC. Then, the poor little Swede mustered up enough courage to come over to the AHL, and did very well there, too. He even put on 20 pounds. Of muscle. Again this year, he’s running at least as well as Ritchie—and at a position more important than wing.

So how about a new, slightly more humble, fairer Coach’s Commentary this Fall. Like…

“WAY TO GO, WILLIE BOY!!! TWO THUMBS UP!!!”
Read the rest of the series here: