Replying to Peter James Bond:
As far as I know Kopitar, Brown and Quick were drafted under Al Murray who then went on to Tampa Bay where he had an enormous amount of success. But that's a different story to explore.
I don't know who exactly the Kings scouts are year to year over the last 20 years and the staff listings you find online aren't always 100% reliable (whether they list part-time scouts or not etc.), in fact now I can't even find the staff listing directory for Kings.
However my impression was that the Kings Euro scouting was never that strong under Lombardi as far as priorities. I don't think it is that strong today although I think they've added some scouts there, I think in the early years under Lombardi it was a very small scouting staff and very limited in Europe but I'm going off memory. I've already said in past that I don't think the Kings Euro scouting really is that great and I'd imagine there isn't anything near as close of a strong push for Europe-based players as some teams have. Not that there is something inherently wrong there, not everyone has to be Detroit.
As for their picks from Europe, it seems they favor toolsy guys (size or skating) with supposed high floor and compete level. They rarely seem interested in taking raw skilled projects with good IQ.
From the years I was scouting Europe heavily, I think their bad picks from Europe were Sodergran, Nousiainen and Kupari. Sodergran was a big kid with a decent shot but limited upside. I don't see a lot of logic to drafting limited players out of Europe with late picks. Nousiainen was a small D with good compete, but that's it. He wasn't an elite skater, he didn't have exceptional IQ and he was not exceptionally skilled. Defensemen with that profile just don't make it to NHL. Kupari... I've already said I dislike the pick the moment it was made, he was not a first rounder on our board. He had decent skill with good skating and size but average IQ at best, didn't understand the Kempe comparisons at all as Kempe had decent IQ, the only similiarity was size and skating. Fagemo was overdrafted by a round probably, a midsized winger with compete and ok mobility and high volume shooter but not much else and an overager.
If you look at their picks out of Europe they rarely use a pick on a skilled high IQ project, which is usually the type of pick you would expect to see out of Europe. The only two (partial) exceptions to this were probably Shafigulin (skill) and Moverare (IQ), again in the years I did heavy scouting.
Apparently Lias Andersson was high on their board if I remember correctly and they acquired him later from NYR. We saw his upside as a 3rd line forward and ranked him 7th in Europe (not 7th overall as he went), felt he was overrated in North America. We had Pavel Dorofeyev as a late 1st round value pick (he went in 3rd round). He's a clear example of a high IQ skill guy who was very raw and is doing pretty good for Vegas nowadays. We had Fagemo as late 3rd round value which I think in retrospect is about right. We didn't have Kupari in the first round and reading I think on Mayor's website pre-draft that they're leaning Kupari or Lundestrom among others...I was perplexed by that because neither guy had better than 3rd line upside. And I know at 20th pick you're probably most often not going to get more than that...but still, I miss some high upside picks out of Europe, they just don't make them much if at all. I'm not going to speak for their NA scouting as I haven't tracked NA players as closely (we did Europe only).
I think the scouting staff prioritizes probably the typical Kings player that they can develop and have a history of developing. From the Euro perspective, I don't think they seem to have much of an interest in high skill raw players that don't have clear projections to Kings hockey (yet), and in my opinion they tend to overvalue limited but role-projectable ones.
As far as I know Kopitar, Brown and Quick were drafted under Al Murray who then went on to Tampa Bay where he had an enormous amount of success. But that's a different story to explore.
I don't know who exactly the Kings scouts are year to year over the last 20 years and the staff listings you find online aren't always 100% reliable (whether they list part-time scouts or not etc.), in fact now I can't even find the staff listing directory for Kings.
However my impression was that the Kings Euro scouting was never that strong under Lombardi as far as priorities. I don't think it is that strong today although I think they've added some scouts there, I think in the early years under Lombardi it was a very small scouting staff and very limited in Europe but I'm going off memory. I've already said in past that I don't think the Kings Euro scouting really is that great and I'd imagine there isn't anything near as close of a strong push for Europe-based players as some teams have. Not that there is something inherently wrong there, not everyone has to be Detroit.
As for their picks from Europe, it seems they favor toolsy guys (size or skating) with supposed high floor and compete level. They rarely seem interested in taking raw skilled projects with good IQ.
From the years I was scouting Europe heavily, I think their bad picks from Europe were Sodergran, Nousiainen and Kupari. Sodergran was a big kid with a decent shot but limited upside. I don't see a lot of logic to drafting limited players out of Europe with late picks. Nousiainen was a small D with good compete, but that's it. He wasn't an elite skater, he didn't have exceptional IQ and he was not exceptionally skilled. Defensemen with that profile just don't make it to NHL. Kupari... I've already said I dislike the pick the moment it was made, he was not a first rounder on our board. He had decent skill with good skating and size but average IQ at best, didn't understand the Kempe comparisons at all as Kempe had decent IQ, the only similiarity was size and skating. Fagemo was overdrafted by a round probably, a midsized winger with compete and ok mobility and high volume shooter but not much else and an overager.
If you look at their picks out of Europe they rarely use a pick on a skilled high IQ project, which is usually the type of pick you would expect to see out of Europe. The only two (partial) exceptions to this were probably Shafigulin (skill) and Moverare (IQ), again in the years I did heavy scouting.
Apparently Lias Andersson was high on their board if I remember correctly and they acquired him later from NYR. We saw his upside as a 3rd line forward and ranked him 7th in Europe (not 7th overall as he went), felt he was overrated in North America. We had Pavel Dorofeyev as a late 1st round value pick (he went in 3rd round). He's a clear example of a high IQ skill guy who was very raw and is doing pretty good for Vegas nowadays. We had Fagemo as late 3rd round value which I think in retrospect is about right. We didn't have Kupari in the first round and reading I think on Mayor's website pre-draft that they're leaning Kupari or Lundestrom among others...I was perplexed by that because neither guy had better than 3rd line upside. And I know at 20th pick you're probably most often not going to get more than that...but still, I miss some high upside picks out of Europe, they just don't make them much if at all. I'm not going to speak for their NA scouting as I haven't tracked NA players as closely (we did Europe only).
I think the scouting staff prioritizes probably the typical Kings player that they can develop and have a history of developing. From the Euro perspective, I don't think they seem to have much of an interest in high skill raw players that don't have clear projections to Kings hockey (yet), and in my opinion they tend to overvalue limited but role-projectable ones.
Last edited:
