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LD Bowen Byram - Vancouver Giants, WHL (2019, 4th, COL)

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sting101 said:
These are your quotes. Skating is really bad. Dont like his balance. Never seen him make a stretch pass. Indecisive with the puck. Looks lost defensively. Reminds you of Griffen Reinhart NHL version yet you somehow call him atop4 down the road. all in follow up to OK so i just watched a shift by shift from earlier this month.
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I don't see the problem. I can't be critical of a player because he is hyped? I can't be critical of a player that I still believe has a good amount of upside? Or what is the deal? All I'm arguing is that he is overhyped (and I bring up exactly why I think that is and what parts of his game are lacking), not that he will bust. I also said that he is a 1 zone player, and in that one zone he is very good, that is why I still have him rated highly in my rankings despite his other shortcomings.

And to clarify, when I say his skating is really bad, I mean his acceleration and backwards skating. Two of the things that are the most critical to have as a defenseman. His agility and edgework are fine but those two doesn't really help you win puck races or handle explosive forwards coming at you in full speed.

I think you are frankly reading too much into my words and taking them at face value without looking at the larger context in which I'm making those comments. As for the bolded, what does that even mean? I was told to see a more recent game of him than the ones I've seen before because supposedly his game has gotten better. So I did, and I didn't see any changes.

You do realize why your getting criticized for these takes i hope? and you never responded to the skating take by the Lehoux youtube video or what i've been arguing with you regarding his talents really other than to pump your reputation which is fine but makes me that much more perplexed by your assertions. And i watched Vince Dunn also and had him rated in the 20s 2015 too but for you to think his skating is that much better than Byrams at the same age is way off.
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I didn't watch the Lehoux video so that's why I never responded to it. What is he gonna tell me that isn't already covered in this thread or that I haven't already seen myself in a couple of hours of footage on Byram? Feel free to outline his thoughts in one of your replies if it's so important.

"Pumping my reputation" well if that's what you wanna call me responding to being accused of being a cherry picker then sure. Bringing up past controversial opinions I have had is pretty relevant to this discussion I believe too, to illustrate that I'm not just randomly harping on a player for the sake of harping on someone.

I'm sure you put in time on this and you have some good takes on players but this is so off in left field. You essentially torched this player and descibed a bust at the tools level which is contrary to everything i've seen and what the scouts are saying......explain this?

I have a hard time seeing Byrums skating being the thing that holds him back like you desribed......whatever should be some good fodder for someone in a few years.
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I mean, I don't know what I can say other than that in every viewing I have of him he has gotten beat to pucks that he should've easily been first on, and getting beaten wide a lot more than I'm comfortable with for a guy ranked so high. When you see that happening over and over again it gives you a bad taste in your mouth.

As an aside, I'd love for people to critique York for instance and tell me what it is that Byram does so much better than him that he's the top D no question. Because to my eye York is better defensively, a better skater, much better passer (likely his best asset) and nearly as good in the offensive zone as a whole.

How many people in here have seen extended footage on guys like York and Heinola to make that statement about Byram being the best D? I'd argue very few.
 
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Byram's first step is the problem, he can't get going fast enough and in small areas of the ice with stops and starts he gets beat to pucks consistently and when he has the puck on retrievals against a forecheck he is often unable to escape pressure. In the open ice yes he can beat people but so can almost anyone once they get going. I agree with Zaddy that it should be obvious that Vince Dunn was a far superior skater to Byram who I also had in the first round. Out of the top defensemen in this draft Byram is at this point almost certainly the worst skater out of that group.

Lehoux clearly has no idea what he's talking about when he rates Byram's skating ahead of Broberg's which is such a unbelievable opinion that you wonder if it's a parody account.
 
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Zaddy said:
You realize skating is comprised of so many different facets right? Yes he is not a terrible skater in every measure, and I never said that either. But as a whole his skating leaves a lot to be desired for me. He's after-all a defenseman, and as such it is pretty important to be able to skate backwards and also to have a burst of speed to be able to retrieve pucks before the forechecker closes in. He regularly gets into trouble in these situations, and this is in the WHL against boys, what will it look like when he moves to the pro level?



If you read my post you should know that I compared him to Reinhart the NHL player, not the WHL player. Huge difference. I very well know that Reinhart was a good defensive player in the WHL, but he wasn't in the NHL as he didn't have the footspeed and wasn't cerebral enough to make up for it.



We'll see. Look, I'm not hating Byram or saying he will bust. In fact, I said he will likely be a 2nd pairing D. There's no shame in that. A top4 D is still very valuable.



I disagree on shift-by-shift. I think it's in fact the best tool you can use. I know a lot of people will disagree with that and people rave all the time about the "eye test" and the importance of "live views", and I used to buy into that stuff...until I started scouting myself that is and going to 40 games a year and realize just how much you miss when you're in the building. There are of course some things that you can see in a live game that you cannot see on video, but if I had to choose between ONLY live views or ONLY shift-by-shift video to evaluate a prospect, I would choose the latter every time. It paints a much more complete picture. Not being able to rewind and break down plays step-by-step is a killer. There are so incredibly many biases involved when you're watching a player live, not to mention poor sight lines and stuff that just makes it impossible to see everything.



No, I haven't seen the Giants in the playoffs and no I haven't seen him more than 10 games. This is another point of contention from my side. You don't need to watch a player 10 times or more. In fact I think it's counter-productive. 4-5 times spread out over the season is generally enough to get to know a player. Because the more you watch a player, the more the bias creeps in and distorts your view, whether it's positively or negatively, it happens. I know this because I realized it myself while scouting how distorted my view got of the team I saw 20 times a season. I think legendary Detroit scout Håkan Andersson is even on record saying that he doesn't want to watch a prospect more than a handful of times because it screws with your perception of the player.
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I applaud your enthusiasm and appreciate that you are sticking to your point. Regardless of the fact that it is one that has been derived off of youtube viewings. I imagine the real number of looks is below 3-5 and I find that equal parts humorous and disturbing. But again, I at least applaud your enthusiasm.

That you invoked a legendary, all-time scout's approach as the justification for your own lacklustre technique is equally bewildering:

"I heard that Fred Couples never hits balls on the range, so I'm not going to, either..."

Given that we are in the midst of the playoffs, I'd implore you to catch a game. Or don't - as I am sure some clips will be up on youtube, with 0 context, in a few month's time.

I think it's safe to say that I completely disagree with you on so many levels, that continuing this discussion will significantly detract from this thread. I'll be putting my side of this on ice for now..
 
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covfefe said:
I applaud your enthusiasm and appreciate that you are sticking to your point. Regardless of the fact that it is one that has been derived off of youtube viewings. I imagine the real number of looks is below 3-5 and I find that equal parts humorous and disturbing. But again, I at least applaud your enthusiasm.

That you invoked a legendary, all-time scout's approach as the justification for your own lacklustre technique is equally bewildering:

"I heard that Fred Couples never hits balls on the range, so I'm not going to, either..."

Given that we are in the midst of the playoffs, I'd implore you to catch a game. Or don't - as I am sure some clips will be up on youtube, with 0 context, in a few month's time.

I think it's safe to say that I completely disagree with you on so many levels, that continuing this discussion will significantly detract from this thread. I'll be putting my side of this on ice for now..
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It's so telling when someone starts attacking the poster rather than the arguments presented, and not only that but distorts and derides what the poster in question is saying. Trying to claim moral high-ground off that is hilarious actually.

I don't know what you have against video either. Every professional hockey team uses it to evaluate players in every way possible. If all you had to do was follow the action live then there wouldn't be any need for video coaches and analysts, would it? Yet it's more important today and more emphasis is put on it now than ever.

To say that I'm only watching some youtube clips with 0 context is so incredibly disingenuous and shows that you don't know me or my methods of evaluation at all, so I don't know why you feel like you're in a position to comment on it.

I watch most of my shift-by-shift videos on prospectshifts.com, a site run by Anthony Lenting, the guy who used to do shift-by-shift videos for HockeyProspect. These are high-quality videos that actual scouts and people in the industry use.
 
covfefe said:
A shift-by-shift is not going to tell you anything valuable. Watch some games, and form an opinion - or don't, and have one anyway. But you are far more likely to completely miss the mark if you are basing all of this on a shift-by-shift and some games you watched back in the fall.

That's why NHL teams have dedicated regional scouts - so they can watch and evaluate games, and not base their opinions on lacklustre potato-cam shift-by-shift video replays of games..
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You pretty much need video. When I'm concentrating on a player, on most plays a player makes I need to first rewind and watch how the situation initially unfolds, something you completely miss when you actually watch it for the first time, then how the player makes decisions and at what points, how fast they reacted to the trigger, identify the exact trigger and what exactly happened on the ice the moment they did, and what they seem to do and when after they decide on a decision, etc. it takes perhaps 10 times to get a play down accurately and to me it's completely impossible to scout passably without video.

By the way, that's also why I don't really put a lot of weight on people who "only scout live" or whatever.


Agreed with Zaddy on not getting how Byram's better than Heinola.
 
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He ran away with goals scored for dmen this year in the WHL. He must havea pretty good shot eh.. seen him live twice but didnt get to see much of his shot
 
ConnorMcMullet said:
What were your thoughts in those games?
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I liked him. I thought his defensive game wasnt perfect like a guy like Doughty was in junior but I think he could be a number one all around dman. I liked his skating (anyone calling it bad is out to lunch) and he was really strong/pretty physical. He'll try to hurt you in the corner or in front of the net. As a wings fan I would be fine with him as early as 3, buuut they need D bad. In the grand scheme he might be closer to 5 or 6
 
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newfy said:
I liked him. I thought his defensive game wasnt perfect like a guy like Doughty was in junior but I think he could be a number one all around dman. I liked his skating (anyone calling it bad is out to lunch) and he was really strong/pretty physical. He'll try to hurt you in the corner or in front of the net. As a wings fan I would be fine with him as early as 3, buuut they need D bad. In the grand scheme he might be closer to 5 or 6
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Thanks for that!
 
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ijuka said:
You pretty much need video. When I'm concentrating on a player, on most plays a player makes I need to first rewind and watch how the situation initially unfolds, something you completely miss when you actually watch it for the first time, then how the player makes decisions and at what points, how fast they reacted to the trigger, identify the exact trigger and what exactly happened on the ice the moment they did, and what they seem to do and when after they decide on a decision, etc. it takes perhaps 10 times to get a play down accurately and to me it's completely impossible to scout passably without video.

By the way, that's also why I don't really put a lot of weight on people who "only scout live" or whatever.


Agreed with Zaddy on not getting how Byram's better than Heinola.
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It’s definitely a process, while live viewings have a lot of value so does video. You need both to form an accurate opinion in my eyes. You can use one to confirm or debunk what you think you’ve seen but you definitely can’t just use one. When you get limited sample sizes of a lot of players given their proximity, you need to use all the information available to you. I also agree that you need a lot of viewings to form a real opinion on a player, I’ve seen many times a player that I thought would be a star or a complete bum, only to see them more times and realize I was way off base on my opinion. I also think you need to watch them at various points in the season to see if they’re growing/stagnating/declining... Watching a guy play without any basis on how they looked a year ago or even a month ago is useless because you can’t tell how that player is progressing.
 
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I'm in awe of his hockey IQ. For any Giants fans who watch him a lot, any of you agree ?
 
devilsfan35 said:
Does he have better potential than Makar? How do they compare ?
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Makar has some insane skating that Byram will likely never posses. But with that being said Byram has a pretty high IQ level where he can play any game you want him to. I'm not sure if Byram will ever be as offensively good as Makar and Makar's defence will only ever take him as far as his will to skate hard and recover.
 
Stive Morgan said:
Makar is better offensively, Byram is more well-rounded imo. They're about even, maybe a slight edge to Byram.
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There's a common misconception that Makar is weak defensively. Guys an all around dman with incredible skating and IQ. I'm a huge fan of Byram but Makar has higher end skill and similar IQ therefore a higher ceiling.

If the Avs drop to four I'd love for them to be a pairing for the Avs.
Byram-Makar... would be the best d we've iced in a long time.
 
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avsfan09 said:
There's a common misconception that Makar is weak defensively. Guys an all around dman with incredible skating and IQ. I'm a huge fan of Byram but Makar has higher end skill and similar IQ therefore a higher ceiling.

If the Avs drop to four I'd love for them to be a pairing for the Avs.
Byram-Makar... would be the best d we've iced in a long time.
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Not saying Makar is weak defensively, just that Byram has an advantage over him in that category. Makar will have the higher point totals but Byram will be a better "eye test" player.
 
Stive Morgan said:
Not saying Makar is weak defensively, just that Byram has an advantage over him in that category. Makar will have the higher point totals but Byram will be a better "eye test" player.
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I disagree but that perception will change soon enough. Makar is defensively responsible and very good at using his speed to angle players off and is very hard to beat. His defensive stickwork is outstanding aswell. He also has underrated physicality. Basically he took the last two years of college to learn how to balance risk/reward offense and defensive responsibility. His IQ is huge and he has a hell of a head on his shoulders. Can't wait for people to get exposure to what sort of impact he's capable of making.

Also sorry for taking this off topic. It's a Byram thread and I'm not trying to take anything away from him. Avs are picking top 4 and outside of Kakko and Hughes Byram seems like he'd be bpa and really make our d core top notch.
 
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