BOB CLARKE ON THE EVOLUTION -- AND CYCLICAL NATURE -- OF NHL DRAFT
This past week, I had the honor of interviewing Bob Clarke for an Draft-related feature on the Flyers' official website. The
article, which was published today, looks primarily at some of the more notable drafts during his 22 years as an NHL GM, including some trade-up moves and alternate selections considered at the time.
However, the majority of my conversation with the Hockey Hall of Famer went in a somewhat different direction. Clarke reflected on the bigger picture of how the NHL Draft has changed in the last 34 years, things that he considers cyclical and other aspects that have probably changed for good. Although he's no longer involved in day-to-day operations of the Flyers, Clarke still has a very sharp mind for the game. He imparted a lot of wisdom and insight during our 20-minute conversation.
We started out by my asking him about his initial transition from the playing side to managerial side of the sport as relates to the NHL Draft.
“When I retired as a player [in 1984] and became the Flyers general manager, I had never scouted players at all or ran a Draft. I had to keep it simple. I relied on our scouting staff, guys with experience that I trusted, and I went with their recommendations,” Clarke said.
Over time, Clarke learned how to assess his scouting department itself, which he said is something that every organization needs to do. No one can coast on their laurels and having the loudest voice in the room doesn't always make one the best scout. At the same time, good scouts can't be timid about speaking their minds.
“Scouts are like players. Sometimes you need to make changes. How can you tell if someone is a good scout? You look at the players they’ve recommended and if they’ve come up with players who’ve become good contributors in the NHL. That’s where the trust is built up. You want scouts who have the courage to step up and push for kids they believe in. But they also have to be team players. Your scouts have to work together for what’s best for the organization. That’s the whole key right there. You don’t want a guy who has a personal agenda and pushes to get his way just because he wants to be a general manager someday,” Clarke said.
For many years, the dean of Flyers scouts was the late Gerry Melnyk. In fact, it was at Melnyk’s vehement insistence that the Flyers drafted Clarke himself in 1969. Melnyk was nearly apoplectic after the Flyers, like every other team, bypassed him in the first round of the Draft due to concerns over the youngster's diabetes. Melnyk finally convinced Allen to select the player who became arguably the single most important figure in team history.
As his career moved along, Melnyk became a mentor to younger scouts, preaching the value of patience and the vital importance of making multiple viewings before passing judgment. Very few scouts ever logged as many miles over the course of a career as Melnyk did. He was often described as a “scout's scout” because he set the bar for so many in his profession, was a good companion on the road and, while not easily impressed, knew what to look for in players.
Melnyk’s mantra was "in the end, hockey talent is what matters the most", which was why he was able to pinpoint players of vastly different styles, physical profiles and personalities -- for example, dissimilar goaltenders Pelle Lindbergh and Ron Hextall were both drafted by Philly on Melnyk's recommendation.
Gerry Melnyk passed away on June 14, 2001 after a long struggle with a form of leukemia. He was 66. To this day, his legacy lives on his influence over scouts with he worked. Among many others, veteran Flyers scouts Dennis Patterson and Simon Nolet – both brought aboard by Clarke – were both close with Melnyk and learned much from him over the years that they carried over into their own post-playing careers as scouts.
“Like I said, scouts are a lot like players. There a lot of pretty good ones out there, but just a few who really stand out. Clearly, Gerry Melnyk was one who stood out. But we’ve had a lot of really good scouts over the years, right up to this day with the staff we have with Hexy as the GM and Sarge [Chris Pryor] as assistant GM. If you look at our drafts the last four years, five years, with the guys who are now in the NHL, there’s been good work done on the amateur scouting side,” Clarke said.
Clarke points out that the scouting realm has grown exponentially over the years. There is now a global pool of players to assess, from all across Europe and the United States (including the USHL, high-school and prep leagues as well as the NCAA) as well as Canada. With 31 teams in the NHL, it vital to leave no stone unturned when trying to build organizational depth.
“By the 1980s, there were European players coming over to play in the NHL but these guys were the stars; the very best players from the leagues over there. They were the most skilled players. Nowadays, we also draft role players from Europe and from leagues over here,” said Clarke, whose son, Wade, is a Flyers scout who primarily scours the collegiate hockey ranks and has been part of the scouting staff since 2008-09.
During the 1990s, especially by the middle part of the decade, teams placed a heavy emphasis on drafting for size, especially on the blueline. This trend was largely in response to the emergence of big and strong but also highly skilled players such as the Flyers’ Legion of Doom line (Eric Lindros centering John LeClair and Mikael Renberg), not to mention to likes of Pittsburgh Penguins superstars Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr.
Over the last decade, however, changes in the rules and an emphasis more toward speed and puck possession has brought been more focus on speed and stick handling. Smaller players, including defensemen, now once again have more of a role to play than all but a special few did in the mid-90s to early-2000s.
“You can’t score with just three guys anymore,” Clarke said. “Every team needs defensemen who can move the puck up the ice and join the play offensively. Players like [Shayne] Gostisbehere are valuable for those skills. At the same time, when you can find someone who can skate and join the play but also has good size – someone like [Ivan] Provorov or [Travis] Sanheim – those are guys you look to take early in the Draft if you can, because they aren’t easy to find.”
While forwards and defensemen prospects have gotten a bit smaller on average than their top-rated counterparts of 20 years ago, goalie prospects have gotten bigger. Gone are the days when sub 6-foot goalies such as Dominik Hasek, Mike Richter, John Vanbiesbrouck, Ed Belfour or especially someone the size of Arturs Irbe (5-foot-8) or Jeff Reese (5-foot-9) manned nets across the NHL. Nowadays, Flyers top prospect Carter Hart (6-foot-2, 180 pounds) is described as “strictly average-sized” for an NHL hopeful.
Another trend over the last decade has been a movement away from selecting goaltenders in the first round of the Draft. Dating back to 2012, there have been only four goaltenders – Andrei Vasilevskiy (19th overall to Tampa Bay in 2012), Malcolm Subban (24th overall to Boston in 2012), Ilya Samsonov (22nd overall to Washington in 2015) and Jake Oettinger (26th overall to Dallas in 2016) – chosen in the opening round. That trend is likely to continue this year, with no goalies widely forecasted as likely picks in the opening round.
This hasn’t always been the case. During the 1990s and early 2000s, many NHL teams including the Flyers tried to find their goalie of the future in the first round. In the Flyers’ case, Philly selected Brian Boucher in the first round (22nd overall) in 1995, Jean-Marc Pelletier in the second round (30th overall) when the team did not have a first-round selection in 1997, and Maxime Ouellet in the first round (22nd overall) in 1999. Other teams even used top-five picks within the Draft’s first round on goalies during that era, such as Kari Lehtonen (2nd overall to the Atlanta Thrashers in 2002) and Marc-Andre Fleury (1st overall to Pittsburgh in 2003).
Clarke believes that most trends within the Draft are cyclical. He believes that a time may come around again where it is commonplace for teams to select a goalie in the first round.
“Right now, a lot of teams will say, ‘We can get just as good a young goalie in the third round or fourth round as the first’ because they take time to develop. But what will probably happen at some point is there will be another goalie like Fleury who comes along, wins the Stanley Cup or wins the Vezina a couple times. Then there will be more teams who want to grab the top goalie early. That’s how it usually goes,” Clarke said.
During his first tenure as Flyers general manger, Clarke presided over teams that reached the Stanley Cup Final in 1984-85 and 1986-87, plus another that came within two wins of reaching the Final again in 1988-89.
To this day, Clarke is quick to credit the roster foundation that was built by his predecessors, Hall of Fame general manager Keith Allen and Bob McCammon, as a big key to the team’s success in the 1980s. Allen in particular was a famously astute trader (he wasn’t called “Keith the Thief” for nothing) and had an uncanny ability to hire talented scouts.
As general manager of the Minnesota North Stars, Clarke was at the helm of another team that reached the Stanley Cup Final (1990-91). Following a brief return to the Flyers, Clarke served as the inaugural general manager for the expansion Florida Panthers, before returning to the Flyers for his second stint as GM (1994-95 until early in the 2006-07 season). The Panthers set a first-year expansion-team point record that held until the 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights came along. With much of the nucleus Clarke assembled still in place in the team's third season, the Panthers made a surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1995-06.
In the meantime, the highlights of Clarke’s second tenure as Flyers’ general manager included a trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 1996-97, trips to the Eastern Conference final in 1994-95 (six games), 1999-2000 (seven games) and 2003-04. Additionally, the club had the Eastern Conference’s top regular season record in 1995-96 and won regular season division championships five times (1994-95, 1995-96, 1999-2000, 2001-02, 2004-05).
Only in Clarke’s final two seasons as Flyers general managers did the NHL have a salary cap. Today, Clarke says that the cap has only increased the importance of building through the Draft; for two inter-related reasons.
“The cap definitely changed things. First of all, to stay under the cap, you need to have young players on [entry-level] contracts who contribute to the team along with the older guys. Second, when these kids get a little older and the time comes to pay them [big raises on multi-year contracts], you need to keep having other kids come up to keep your salary cap in line. If you look at what Hexy is doing, that’s the plan he has,” Clarke said.
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QUICK HITS: JUNE 16, 2018
1) In a few days, the Flyers' official site will feature a first-round mock Draft. I ended up changing a pick based on Ron Hextall's press conference last Thursday, trying to read the tea leaves on the direction in which the Flyers themselves may be more likely to go.
I'll provide a little spoiler here: Initially, I selected Swedish junior standout winger Jonatan Berggren for Philly at the 19th overall spot based on my own fondness for the player's potential. Then I changed it.
At his press conference, Hextall reiterated a preference atop the Draft for centers (including ones likely to switch to wing at the NHL level) over wingers --- unless the winger has markedly higher offensive upside and still checks off at least the majority of the other attribute boxes in which the Flyers place at highest value in the first round.
Personally, I believe Berggren has most of these traits -- high "compete level" and character despite his lack of size, with above-average skill to match it. However, I switched the 19th pick over to someone that I think fits in line with Hextall's statement that there's no such as too much depth down the middle, and some players drafted as centers can also play wing with skill.
2) Unrelated to Berggren but to other players in the Draft, Hextall's press conference also spelled out where he draws the line in risk tolerance in the first round.
"A lot of times risk maybe means bad character or poor work ethic, all the things that we don’t really want. We want the best player, but we also want the best player that can come close to hitting their ceiling," Hextall said.
"The 'safe pick' [term], I don’t like that word. We need to project, that’s what we all get paid to do; to project how good a guy is going to be. A safe pick to me, I don’t like that word. What’s he going to be, where is he going fit in and where he’s going to fit in the National Hockey League. We need to know that. But in terms of having two picks, I know some organizations look, well you have two first round picks, you can take a swing on a high upside guy. We’re going to know more on that high upside guy. If we’re going to take a swing, it’s going to be a pretty good swing. It’s not going to be, this guy could be a first line player, but he’s got a 20 percent chance of being this, no, we’re not going there."
Essentially, Hextall is saying that there are question marks -- not from the pundits or outside scouts, but raised internally within the scouting staff -- about whether a player is committed to playing (or at least learning to play) a two-way game, adhering to structure, has innate hockey sense, possesses good practice habits, self-awareness of the flaws of his game, coachability, team play, etc. -- the Flyers will be inclined to bypass that player even if his ceiling is tantalizing.
While he'd never name names for obvious reasons, one can read between the lines to weed out as potential candidates players who might fall into this category. For example, even though Bode Wilde is a righthanded shooting defenseman with good pure skills and size, unless the Flyers' scouting reports differ from those elsewhere, the question marks over his hockey sense and work habits could push him down in their ratings.
I found it interesting that USA Hockey invited two of his 2018 Draft-eligible USNTDP blueline teammates, K'Andre Miller and Mattias Samuelsson, to their summer showcase precursor to selecting a 2018-19 WJC roster but Wilde did not get an invite despite his obvious natural abilities. It bears watching to see where he's picked in the upcoming Draft relative to Miller and Samuelsson.
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