2009 Born for the 2025 OHL Draft

[Jordan Malette]

Hey everyone. I'm the man behind the OHL Draft work at PuckPreps and was pointed to this thread for obvious reasons lol.

I just want to say that if anyone ever wants to have a discussion about how I go about things or have a conversation about a player, I'm all ears. Feel free to DM me on twitter and I'm more than happy to have a conversation. We may not agree on everything but I put a lot of time / effort into this so I'm always happy to share my thoughts / hear other perspectives with others interested in this stuff.

Aside: I watched McGregor plenty in U15 and both he and Freeman are on my list, just not mentioned in the article as I didn't go player by player mentioning everyone.

@JordanMalette

 

[OHL4Life]

To be fair I don’t disagree with any of the names he mentioned it’s just evident he doesn’t follow draft classes until September of the U16 season. He doesn’t know who anyone is that didn’t play, or didn’t play well in the Titans tournament and that leads to him missing top end kids like McGregor.

Its fascinating to me that he didn’t mention a kid like Freeman as a big point getters at tournaments have been overvalued dramatically in his previous rankings.

in other words, he doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t go there games. a month before the draft Fitzgerald was scoring 2 goals a game for he past month every time he played and was at like 24. we all know Ethan belchez drama. he’s a kid with no experience and blindly maki g a list, which anyone can do. Didn’t make it valuable. he has no one to tell him what he’s wrong or right about and when someone says what he needs to do to improve, he cries

 

[OHL4Life]

Hey everyone. I'm the man behind the OHL Draft work at PuckPreps and was pointed to this thread for obvious reasons lol.

I just want to say that if anyone ever wants to have a discussion about how I go about things or have a conversation about a player, I'm all ears. Feel free to DM me on twitter and I'm more than happy to have a conversation. We may not agree on everything but I put a lot of time / effort into this so I'm always happy to share my thoughts / hear other perspectives with others interested in this stuff.

Aside: I watched McGregor plenty in U15 and both he and Freeman are on my list, just not mentioned in the article as I didn't go player by player mentioning everyone.

@JordanMalette

look at the feedback last year. Appreciate your passion but you got to get it to games, your lists will suffer until you do. you can’t do it alone and without ppl with experience to let you know what your missing or what you need to improve on, you're a ship without a sail. there are tones of guys who are in the same boat as you that find the ability to go to games all over Ontario like OHL guys do, and OHL guys give them all the time of day, they get hired by teams. Neutral zone is at every tournament and are now used by OHL scouts, they do it the right away, if they can do it, so can you, if you try.

there is a reason nhl teams have gotten rid of video scouts for the most part, it’s not nearly as accurate as in person. do you want to make a list, or do you want accuracy and improvement. Draft eligible kids bust thier ass all year to get noticed and put in a ton of work to get to where they are, if your going to judge and rate them, I would suggest it’s only fair you do the same, but maybe I’m old and from a different ‘school’.

 

[Jordan Malette]

look at the feedback last year. Appreciate your passion but you got to get it to games, your lists will suffer until you do. you can’t do it alone and without ppl with experience to let you know what your missing or what you need to improve on, you're a ship without a sail. there are tones of guys who are in the same boat as you that find the ability to go to games all over Ontario like OHL guys do, and OHL guys give them all the time of day, they get hired by teams. Neutral zone is at every tournament and are now used by OHL scouts, they do it the right away, if they can do it, so can you, if you try.

there is a reason nhl teams have gotten rid of video scouts for the most part, it’s not nearly as accurate as in person. do you want to make a list, or do you want accuracy and improvement. Draft eligible kids bust thier ass all year to get noticed and put in a ton of work to get to where they are, if your going to judge and rate them, I would suggest it’s only fair you do the same, but maybe I’m old and from a different ‘school’.

I appreciate your feedback and certainly understand doing most of this by video isn't the norm and puts me on an island. I've gone to my fair share of games/tournaments and I think my work (reports and rankings) are at the very least on par, if not better off when I do it over video. I don't intend to convince anyone of this as I know it's unpopular, but a lot of what I do wouldn't be possible if I were to be mainly in person. It may not be the way others do things, but it's what I find works best for me.

All I ask is for people to approach my work with an open mind. There's a long list of reasons why my rankings may be different than consensus / what happens on draft day, and at the bottom of that list is watching games in person vs. video. I've never claimed to be perfect or better than anyone at this, but giving me the benefit of the doubt that my opinions and rankings have an incredible amount of time and thought behind them is all I can hope for.

At the end of the day, I'm just a guy sharing my perspective. Whether people want to agree with me or disagree with me is their choice, but that can be done so respectfully.

 

[OHL4Life]

I appreciate your feedback and certainly understand doing most of this by video isn't the norm and puts me on an island. I've gone to my fair share of games/tournaments and I think my work (reports and rankings) are at the very least on par, if not better off when I do it over video. I don't intend to convince anyone of this as I know it's unpopular, but a lot of what I do wouldn't be possible if I were to be mainly in person. It may not be the way others do things, but it's what I find works best for me.

All I ask is for people to approach my work with an open mind. There's a long list of reasons why my rankings may be different than consensus / what happens on draft day, and at the bottom of that list is watching games in person vs. video. I've never claimed to be perfect or better than anyone at this, but giving me the benefit of the doubt that my opinions and rankings have an incredible amount of time and thought behind them is all I can hope for.

At the end of the day, I'm just a guy sharing my perspective. Whether people want to agree with me or disagree with me is their choice, but that can be done so respectfully.

ok, so let me ask you, why can’t you just go out to games? I see everyone else doing it in your position, what makes you different?

why do I have to drive 4 hours to Whitby silverstick and manage missing family for 3 days because it’s the that way to get info and accurate viewings on kids, but you don’t think you have to do that?

 

[ScoutLife4]

ok, so let me ask you, why can’t you just go out to games? I see everyone else doing it in your position, what makes you different?

why do I have to drive 4 hours to Whitby silverstick and manage missing family for 3 days because it’s the that way to get info and accurate viewings on kids, but you don’t think you have to do that?

It sounds like he's either trying to change the landscape of scouting or is just lazy and cheap.
If its the first he has have a model that will fail.
If its the second he is wasting his time in hockey.

Video scouts will never admit how much of the big picture they are missing not attending live games. -It's not even close to being the same and if it was you wouldn't have 10 or so NHL scouts at almost every OHL game and AHL game.

There may not be much or any money in scouting for Major JR players but a lot of scouts like Kiana Scott have spent a lot of their own money to gain the experience needed to land NHL roles.
I doubt NHL clubs are out there busting down doors to hire video scouts that don't attend live games that they never interact with in scout rooms.

Jordan - You are missing one of the most important parts and any hope of getting in with a pro organization.
The networking in scout / media rooms. -I cannot stress enough how important it is to get you're name out there and meet people if you ever want to work for a league or team.