News Article: Rick Pracey Hired as Director of Amateur Scouting

[North Cole]

Hello lads, I saw this thread title in the sidebar and had a giggle.

This was a good first year. It did not go so well after that.

Seems lateral at worst then. Oilers are pretty famous for drafting not going well for the last 30 years, but im sure you knew that.

 

[Canovin]

Duchene, Landeskog and Mackinnon were easy picks and anyone could have gotten that right too.

O'Reilly and Barrie were good pick ups. So no players after that? That's not a good track record

 

[CycloneSweep]

Wright isn’t good but this new guy doesn’t seem good either. So shit in shit out

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Seems that the brain trust over at The Athletic comments section likes this hire.

Is the below even true?

View attachment 738123

Pracey focusing on drafting skill is a laugh, unless he has significantly changed since his time with the Avs. Guy had a type, CHLers (with a heavy OHL bias) that were character guys on their team with limited upside.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Seems lateral at worst then. Oilers are pretty famous for drafting not going well for the last 30 years, but im sure you knew that.

Don't you know we're not allowed to critique the Oilers' drafting....

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Remember that most 1sts are the GMs veto pick and after that the scouting department takes over. It’s still not a stellar record that he has either way , but it may be a GM preference over data on that first pick. That said Patrick was a stud in junior, but injuries took him out.

Bang on, well documented that Hextall overruled his scouting staff about the Patrick pick. Here's Bobby Clarke dancing on Hextall's grave about it and more:

Patrick was an excellent junior, big, two-way prototypical centre coming out of an excellent junior program. He was a consensus for #1 overall in TSN Pre-Season Ranking that McKenzie formed from direct pro scout intel. McKenzie's pre-season ranking: The 'Nolan Patrick Draft'

On the surface this hire doesn't necessarily jump out as a sure thing in terms of obvious improvement. It's a leap of faith in the new big boss man that there's far more here than meets the eye. It's been an organizational area of weakness forever.

 

[joestevens29]

Kind of hard to say what the guy has done as of late. Just being a scout it's rather hard to tell what impact positively or negatively a guy has brought.

Maybe there is a case to be made that GM is overriding the head of scouting at the top of the draft while he was in Colorado, but I'm not seeing a lot of hits in Colorado either during his time as head scout in any of the rounds other than a couple.

Very interesting hire and I'm curious the connection here.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

Duchene, Landeskog and Mackinnon were easy picks and anyone could have gotten that right too.

O'Reilly and Barrie were good pick ups. So no players after that? That's not a good track record

He was the Flyers OHL scout, which means he had a hand in drafting Konecney, Frost, and Foerster, all very good picks for where they went.

 

[Heavy Dee]

Thinking about this, it as to be a Holland hire.

No way Jackson tells Holland who to hire in his first two weeks on the job.

There must be more to this. Seen seen some speculation online about Wright 'off the ice'

 

[Cloned]

I think Pracey got brought in because he does have some later round hits. Maybe I'm just overanalyzing


Then why would he fire Tyler Wright? He had him forever

The news release said it was a mutual decision to part ways. There’s probably more to this story than we’ll ever know.

 

[DrDrai]

This guys impact will be outside our obvious window to win. His goal is to keep us competitive or extend that window.

 

[joestevens29]

But Fraser’s first round picks after 1983 weren’t good. Ironically in the nine years between 1984-1992, his best first round pick was Wright. He played 613 NHL games.

Skinner sets the bar

<p class="p1">As good as he was in the blue paint for most of his firs...

oilersnation.com

This made me laugh when reading Gregor's article about Pracey coming in. Also made me cry about how bad our scouting once was.

 

[ujju2]

Wasn’t Patrick ranked pretty high during his draft year?

He was the projected 1OA most of that season.

 

[bone]

Savoie has only had one year pro.

Fair enough. Quick glance I saw him play the year before but neglected to consider it was only 2 games

That's fair but 4 drafts with their most impactful pick being two 1st rounders including one being a top 10 pick that got a glorified Cup of Tea at the NHL level is pretty poor drafting. Too early to tell on a lot of these guys but you'd expect to at least get some yield by a Draft+4 season and not much there, yet.

Which top 10 pick was Wright part of selecting... He was hired a couple weeks after Broberg was drafted.

 

[Broberg Speed]

Duchene, Landeskog and Mackinnon were easy picks and anyone could have gotten that right too.

O'Reilly and Barrie were good pick ups. So no players after that? That's not a good track record

How could they do worse than Tyler Wright... dammit.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Tried to look into Pracey's draft philosophy. Found this in an old 2011 Denver Post interview:

"Skill, instinct and competitiveness are the key traits we look for. We try to prioritize instinct and hockey sense as the key criteria."

Things cratered with Patrick Roy's arrival who was highly critical of the team's lack of size and organizational depth. Gospel According to Patrick Roy: Size Does Matter

Fascinating to see Jeff Jackson move this quickly and targeting amateur scouting as his first priority to change ... hopefully upgrade.

 

[Stoneman89]

Never heard of this Dick Tracey guy, but if he can do proper investigation and sniff out some good picks, I'm all for it!

 

[TheNumber4]

This Pracey guy doesn’t sound like a relevant hire. Even his hit year is kind of overrated. Wright wasn’t great but it’s too early to say on a lot of those picks.

Oh no so the new guy isn’t great either

Ironically this hire kind of reminds me of Archie. Seemed like he wasn’t relevant for over a decade when he was hired. Guessing Archie got hired because hes Kennys buddy. Hopefully the new guy didn’t get hired because hes a buddy to someone but thats how it sort of feels.

I didn’t look too much into the new guy. Not sounding great.

 

[Bryanbryoil]

Thinking about this, it as to be a Holland hire.

No way Jackson tells Holland who to hire in his first two weeks on the job.

There must be more to this. Seen seen some speculation online about Wright 'off the ice'

I doubt that Holland would turf his long time scout 2 weeks after the new guy comes in, if he felt that Wright wasn't doing a good enough job, why let him draft for us this summer? I think that Jackson has guys in mind that he is reaching out to and if/when they are ready to commit he pounces on them.

 

[North Cole]

What does the director of scouting do? There seems to be a lot of comments that this guy, personally, has a shitty hit rate. Do we care about that if the director is a more administrative role? Does he hire and direct other scouts, or is the director of scouting actually spending all his time scouting players himself?

I feel like the job should be making sure the scouts are looking for the type of skills the GM is interested in. Communication/managerial role to make sure both sides are on the same page. If that's the case, why do we give a shit if this guy sucks at going to OHL games and finding good players himself? Wouldn't he just be there to use his connections to hire useful scouts that actually do the scouting?

I genuinely have no idea but it seems like missing the forest for the trees worrying that he doesn't find hidden gems all by himself, if he's not being brought in to be an on the road scout.

 

[McTonyBrar]

Tried to look into Pracey's draft philosophy. Found this in an old 2011 Denver Post interview:

"Skill, instinct and competitiveness are the key traits we look for. We try to prioritize instinct and hockey sense as the key criteria."

Things cratered with Patrick Roy's arrival who was highly critical of the team's lack of size and organizational depth. Gospel According to Patrick Roy: Size Does Matter

Fascinating to see Jeff Jackson move this quickly and targeting amateur scouting as his first priority to change ... hopefully upgrade.

I’ll take skill over size. Patrick Roy is a moron

 

[Anarchism]

I doubt that Holland would turf his long time scout 2 weeks after the new guy comes in, if he felt that Wright wasn't doing a good enough job, why let him draft for us this summer? I think that Jackson has guys in mind that he is reaching out to and if/when they are ready to commit he pounces on them.

If this is true ...what does this say about his (Jeff's) thinking about the current GM?

 

[Anarchism]

I’ll take skill over size. Patrick Roy is a moron

You realize who we lost to in the playoffs right? And your aware of the of the 4 or 5 guys they have for forwards and a couple of guys on defense right? Big and they can skate.
You also seen how they used this advantage against the Panthers and dominated them...or maybe you didn't watch?
Not saying this is the way to go but certainly it is one philosophy?
You realize this guy your calling names started pulling his goalie quite a bit earlier in games....something that many(most) teams are now entertaining now adays...at least at times.
You should be careful making broad sweeping statements like this.
Everything is relative...Patrick Roy from one perspective might be seen as a genius and its you that is ....

 

[guymez]

Tried to look into Pracey's draft philosophy. Found this in an old 2011 Denver Post interview:

"Skill, instinct and competitiveness are the key traits we look for. We try to prioritize instinct and hockey sense as the key criteria."

Things cratered with Patrick Roy's arrival who was highly critical of the team's lack of size and organizational depth. Gospel According to Patrick Roy: Size Does Matter

Fascinating to see Jeff Jackson move this quickly and targeting amateur scouting as his first priority to change ... hopefully upgrade.

This really highlights why we have no way of knowing if this was a quality hire.
Drafting isnt a one man show and there are a lot of background factors that we are just not privy to.

We really need to see how this plays out.

 

[Anarchism]

What does the director of scouting do? There seems to be a lot of comments that this guy, personally, has a shitty hit rate. Do we care about that if the director is a more administrative role? Does he hire and direct other scouts, or is the director of scouting actually spending all his time scouting players himself?

I feel like the job should be making sure the scouts are looking for the type of skills the GM is interested in. Communication/managerial role to make sure both sides are on the same page. If that's the case, why do we give a shit if this guy sucks at going to OHL games and finding good players himself? Wouldn't he just be there to use his connections to hire useful scouts that actually do the scouting?

I genuinely have no idea but it seems like missing the forest for the trees worrying that he doesn't find hidden gems all by himself, if he's not being brought in to be an on the road scout.

Boy are you ever struggling.