2009 Born for the 2025 OHL Draft

[Jordan Malette]

So Jordan, as mentioned about I did end up buying your product last year, question for you.

Do you ever go back and look at your list and see what differences with what happened on draft day and judge it against what your list looked like? Are there items that you didn't value that you do now, or do you just focus on what you like and build that list to be like that. I see some of the higher rated guys not doing great outside of the OHL, where as guys like Fitzgerald who where not as high are doing great in the OHL.

I don't ask to be a jerk or instigate, just genuinely curious and as you've invited a discussion, Id be interested in having one. Ironically my son was drafted and you had him much higher on your list then where he went, so I certainly am not motivated by anything other then an interesting conversation.

First and foremost, I appreciate anyone who spends their money to read what I put out, so thanks for your support.

There's a lot I could say here, but I'll try to keep it as brief as possible. I generally have a decent grasp of who is going to go where, whether I am higher or lower on a player. Especially on day one of the draft, there weren't really many surprises that caught me off guard (only one big one that I recall), so immediate comparison isn't really that worthwhile as it's something I have (sort of) already done to ensure I feel good about my list. Basically, if a player is going to go 12th and I have them 30th or vice versa, I try to be as sure as possible of what that discrepancy is signaling. As rounds go on, things definitely deviate more, as decisions in the mid-to-late rounds become way more subjective as the talent level tapers off and there are lots of different factors at play.

As for who's doing well, it's great to see players off to hot starts, but my list is all about how I think they will be 2-3 years from now. Maybe I end up being right, or maybe I end up being wrong to have guys higher or lower, but it'll just take time to see how things go. I did spend a lot of time last month reviewing the 07s (the first year I started) to see who has developed better or worse than I expected and what I can learn from that. While it's still early, enough time has passed to see if things are progressing as I had hoped or if someone is outperforming my expectations, and just trying to improve myself by revisiting players, but it's still a wait and see for the 08s for sure.

I could talk your ears off on the differences between my list and what happens on draft day, but the thing I say a lot when people ask is we don't have the benefit of knowing what teams' lists looked like. That player Team X took 12th? They may have had them ranked 4th. The player Team Y took 30th? It's possible all the other 19 teams had them way later. The player Team Z took 200th, maybe they had them 80th and knew they could snag them later as they were undervalued for whatever reason. Obviously, these are potentially extreme examples, but it is illustrative of how comparing a public list's rankings to the draft results can have its flaws as we don't know the full picture.

Final thing as it likely pertains to your son's case - I'll just say I spend a lot of time challenging my own process as I know how my work can be interpreted and potentially give false expectations. Should I really be going 100% on ranking players I'd draft, even if I know they may go later? Should I rank kids that I would never personally select that I know teams will take? There's no right answer here, and finding the right balance as a public-facing service can be tricky and something that's always on my mind. (Turns out I was not brief at all)

 

[DraftGuyyy]

I subscribe to a few of those independant agencies myself and I find that that they all take different approaches. Some will try to rank players where they think they will go in the draft, others will try to rank according to what they believe those players potentials to be. I like both approaches, but some do it better than others. I'll be honest, not a huge fan of Neutral Zone, just a personal preference from some stuff I've seen in the past, the older guy that covers the OHL draft seems off, but I still believe they do really good work with their US content.

To be honest, I found Neutral Zone content to be more in line with what OHL teams seemingly are looking for, while not trying to rank according to where players were being taken. Puck Preps was more as I said before, lets just load up a list of small skilled guys (who my son is) and rank them, almost as if bigger guys had a bias against them. I'm not sure that the hockey world is looking for that right now, so Its surprising that they do it that way, but to your point, its not wrong, just different.

Final thing as it likely pertains to your son's case - I'll just say I spend a lot of time challenging my own process as I know how my work can be interpreted and potentially give false expectations. Should I really be going 100% on ranking players I'd draft, even if I know they may go later? Should I rank kids that I would never personally select that I know teams will take? There's no right answer here, and finding the right balance as a public-facing service can be tricky and something that's always on my mind. (Turns out I was not brief at all)

Your job isn't to manage player expectations, that's my job. So just rank and value as you see fit, not because you are worried about a players feelings.

 

[DraftGuyyy]

I could talk your ears off on the differences between my list and what happens on draft day, but the thing I say a lot when people ask is we don't have the benefit of knowing what teams' lists looked like. That player Team X took 12th? They may have had them ranked 4th. The player Team Y took 30th? It's possible all the other 19 teams had them way later. The player Team Z took 200th, maybe they had them 80th and knew they could snag them later as they were undervalued for whatever reason. Obviously, these are potentially extreme examples, but it is illustrative of how comparing a public list's rankings to the draft results can have its flaws as we don't know the full picture.

I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, my entire life is managing process, finding better ways to do things, looking for errors and fixing it. What I would say is that if any list, yours or another agencies, has a player in the top 50 or 60, and that player isn't taken until lets say the 12th round and isn't going to the NCAA or making noise about it, then something happened there. I would think that the variance gets wider as the draft moves on, but if there is that much of a gap then something with the evaluation process is failing with that specific player.

Not a big deal and something to learn from, at least that's what I would do.

 

[DraftGuyyy]

As for who's doing well, it's great to see players off to hot starts, but my list is all about how I think they will be 2-3 years from now. Maybe I end up being right, or maybe I end up being wrong to have guys higher or lower, but it'll just take time to see how things go. I did spend a lot of time last month reviewing the 07s (the first year I started) to see who has developed better or worse than I expected and what I can learn from that. While it's still early, enough time has passed to see if things are progressing as I had hoped or if someone is outperforming my expectations, and just trying to improve myself by revisiting players, but it's still a wait and see for the 08s for sure.

One of my favorite prospect guys is Corey Pronman at the Athletic. I find that he is excellent at mixing the analytical approach with more eye test and finding and listing players that NHL teams want, which I think is what his customers want.

Every year he posts a 'what I got wrong' post about a draft year and mentions what about the player changed, what he missed, how he learned, etc. I would suggest that being open and following that lead would be very good content, while also showing a bit of acknowledgement on kids that are outperforming your expectations. I see you post your 'wins' on twitter all the time, I would suggest that posting your 'losses' may add more value and make those wins more valuable, and show a bit of a humble side as well.

Just food for thought, appreciate the back and forth.

 

[Jordan Malette]

One of my favorite prospect guys is Corey Pronman at the Athletic. I find that he is excellent at mixing the analytical approach with more eye test and finding and listing players that NHL teams want, which I think is what his customers want.

Every year he posts a 'what I got wrong' post about a draft year and mentions what about the player changed, what he missed, how he learned, etc. I would suggest that being open and following that lead would be very good content, while also showing a bit of acknowledgement on kids that are outperforming your expectations. I see you post your 'wins' on twitter all the time, I would suggest that posting your 'losses' may add more value and make those wins more valuable, and show a bit of a humble side as well.

Just food for thought, appreciate the back and forth.

I appreciate all the feedback. It's definitely all stuff I've thought about, but it's always good to re-jig my brain on it coming from someone else. There's more I could say, and if we were having a beer together, we could have an interesting discussion on it all, but not sure this is the best medium for it all.

As I watched plenty of 07 tape last month, I actually am working on this sort of reflection article for them. Highlight some players who are exceeding my expectations regardless of where I had them and outline what I missed if applicable. Hard to straddle the 09s and reviewing the 08s/07s all at once, but I am working on some of that stuff.

I try to rarely position what I say as coming across as counting my wins, but it's possible I need to review some of my tone / wording if it's coming across that way. I mainly try to shed light on what a player offers, maybe share a snippet from something I previously wrote, but it's possible I'm missing the mark, so I appreciate this feedback big time as that was never really my intention.

 

[Petey3329]

I was at the ETA showcase this past weekend. Lots of great hockey and talent on display.

Here are a few guys that caught my eye on games that I was able to catch:

Oakville - Forrester, Chaput and both goalies. Also had a player w no name bar but number 17. He was very good.

YSE - Edgar (so smooth), blyth, cloutier, Vietch (qmjhl draft eligible), Crawford

Barrie - Larmand, Chitaroni, Martin on D, Rollings, Morden

NOHA white - Gravelle

Ajax - Bouchard, Bagshaw

North Shore - Farmer

Halton - Semenstov, Underhill, Spadafora, Katzin

Quinte - Munnings, Rashotte, Leavitt

NCP - Wolfe, Black

Niagara - Rayner, Partridge

Great hockey. Hope to make it out to the Silverstick in a few weeks.

 

[Leviathan899]

There’s way more important things to look at when evaluating 15 year olds than their height and weight.

What’s their compete level? Do they play with an edge? Where’s their head at off the ice?

You can focus more on height and weight when they’re 18 or 19 years old because they’re pretty much finished growing and their frame is established at that point, but not at 15 years old when there’s still so much growing to do.

You’ve inadvertently proven my point.

Instead of drafting a 5’7” 135lb “shrimp” like Denver Barkey, North Bay chose to draft a strapping 6’3” 190lb “power forward” like Owen Outwater.

One turned out to be a total flop and has bounced around the league on three different teams to where he’s now a third line plugger. The other turned out to be a 100+ point player, 3rd round NHL pick and is now captain of the best team in the league.

Incidentally, Barkey has grown from 5’7” to 5’10” - - which is still short and undersized, but not an obvious red flag for the size queens anymore.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, because when a 15 year old is still just 5’7” they obviously haven’t had their growth spurt yet. Compared to a 15 year old who’s already 6’1” it’s much less likely that he’s going to become 6’4” tall.

To be fair that was a Covid year and scouting was all messed up.