Late last night the reports started coming in that the Oilers have made big changes to their scouting staff now less than 1 week away from the Draft.
Chief among the changes were that the team has let go both their (former) Head Amateur Scout Stu MacGregor and Head Pro Scout Morey Gare, as reported by Elliotte Friedman. Beyond them we understand that other scouts have been let go as well.
The timing is certainly curious but I imagine the final meetings have all taken place and now the Draft is going to be the execution of the plan. Change in the scouting staff has been telegraphed for some time now since Bob Green took point position over the entire scouting staff (pro and amateur) during the Winter.
The cold hard truth of the matter is that the scouting staff, like many aspects of the Oilers, has been failing to do its job particularly well for a long time. Thankfully the bad coaching, management, and scouting conspired to leave the Oilers in a position to Draft 1st Overall in 4 of the last 6 seasons. I say that thankfully because any idiot could Draft 1st Overall. It takes almost no skill whatsoever to take the consensus number 1 in any Draft.
AMATEURISH AMATEUR SCOUTING
Amateur scouting has been a significant problem for the Oilers during a time when it was supposed to be their primary form of player acquisition. The Oilers committed to a tear down rebuild where the red light would flash so often that the club would burn down to nothing and then through drafting and developing they would rise from the ashes a great club for the next 10-15 years. That was, literally, the plan.
Except they had a problem. Stu MacGregor and the staff kept blowing their picks after the 1st Round. I think he did a commendable job in the 1st Round, by the way. Even relatively later 1st Round selections like Eberle and Klefbom have turned into difference makers. Although it wasn’t always peaches and cream.
The relative ease of Drafting 1st Overall aside, ownership still had to step in on at least one occasion when the scouting department tried to recommend Ryan “Injured Reserve… Murray over Nail Yakupov in 2012. Imagine the Oilers with even less to cheer about because somebody decided to pick a very unspectacular defender 1st Overall. *Shudders*
Once we get into Round 2, that’s where the real heartbreak begins. The Oilers have had the chance to draft very high on Day 2 of the Draft on several occasions and each time the club has chosen poorly.
2010 – Pitlick, Marincin, Hamilton 2011 – David Musil 2012 – Mitch Moroz 2013 – Marco Roy
That’s 6 picks in 4 years and the only one worth a damn is Martin Marincin and he’s been included in every trade proposal imaginable. The Oilers wasted picks on draft busts Pitlick, Musil, and Moroz in particular - all with picks 31 or 32. At least with Pitlick he was rated in that range but Musil was a legacy pick and Moroz was never going to be more than a poor AHL player ever, and frankly he hasn’t actually earned an AHL spot exactly on merit.
That level of ineptitude is enough to get anyone relieved of their duties and we haven’t even gone into the overage pluggers from the BCHL that keep getting taken in the late rounds of the draft. We haven’t gone into the Cam Abneys of the Draft. We haven’t gone into passing on player like Tkachev to take the umpteenth Coke Machine on skates they hope will miraculously turn into Milan Lucic Two Point Oh. PROFESSIONAL (?) SCOUTING
Even longer than amateur scouting has been an issue, professional scouting has let down the Oilers. Teams make bad trades or bad UFA choices all the time. It happens. But can any team actually survive with the level of bad information continuously sent Edmonton’s way by their very own scouts?
Just reviewing some of these names has me ready to heave. The list of failed Free Agents is brutal. The number of times Edmonton was on the bad side of a trade was inexcusable as well. We can go all the way back to trading Ryan Smyth and getting table scraps up to this most recent season with a laundry list of bad acquisitions of pro players but let’s focus on just a few real gems.
-Signing Cam Barker after he’d just been bought out and assuming he’d bounce back. -Signing a washed up Khabibulin to be the starting goalie -Dealing Cole in a 3 way deal and missing Williams but getting Patrick O’Sullivan -Trading Visnovski for Ryan Whitney, a player with a known congenital foot defect -Any Goaltender acquired since Roloson -Nikita Nikitin’s 2 year 4.5M deal (although that’s probably squarely on Howson)
Long story short, they’ve been getting bad advice from the Pro Scouts for a long time. These guys just can’t recognize talent and that’s a bad problem to have for a scout.
SUMMARY
The Oilers have been making a series of changes to their organization ever since Bob Nicholson took over. When he made his first series of moves he said he wasn’t done and that hasn’t been lip service. He removed the bad decision makers and put in proven, competent people.
It’s tantalizingly cruel to get this close to Drafting the best prospect since Sidney Crosby entered the league and who some think is the best prospect since Mario Lemieux entered the league, but Chiarelli let these guys do their job right up until they were no longer needed.
The Oilers have not been good enough in this department and that has to be corrected. Bob Green runs the scouting department now and I have a lot more faith between him and Chiarelli than I did in the previous men in charge.
It was a painful but necessary change as Edmonton has to get better in this area.
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