Paul O’Hagan, Ontario Director of Scouting for Neutral Zone, will be running a live blog during the OHL Draft to give our subscribers a live look at the draft prospects, what they bring to each team and insider information.
We sat down with Paul, a former NHL Draft pick by Colorado; Memorial Cup Champion with Oshawa Generals and USport Champion at Guelph to discuss the OHL Draft Rankings, the scouting process and what is in store for this year’s draft.
Where are your key regions of focus in building a list of 300 players in the province of Ontario?
We see them all. We have dedicated scouts for each region of Ontario and also scouts in all the major OHL eligible regions in the United States. At Neutral Zone our goal is to give independent assessments of all the top players and we needed a breadth of coverage to see players in league play and major tournaments. This season we had scouts viewing the 2002 birth year players in all major AAA regions/leagues – Minor Hockey Alliance, OMHA-ETA, OMHA-SCTA, HEO (Ottawa region), GTHL, and NOHA in Canada and AYHL, T1EHL, HPHL and Prep/HS.
How do you build the top 300 list?
Early in the season the scouts work primarily in their local regions evaluating players. They create profiles for the top 50-60 “players to watch” by league and we publish these watchlists in early November.
As the year progresses and tournament season kicks into high gear we publish an internal working list of top players. The scouts then cross over and evaluate players outside their leagues to build baseline rankings for each of the players using our Neutral Zone star rankings.
The combination of league viewings and evaluations in major tournaments help us build a top 300 list of players in the age group after the Marlies tournament in early January.
We see every tournament during the season and we release a top performers list with evaluations for the major tournaments – starting with the Titans tournament in September.
The player profiles are refreshed and updated during playoffs and a final ordered list is reviewed during the OHL Cup in March. We lock the guys up in a room and don’t let them leave until we get the list right.
Are your scouts hockey guys or writers? How did the scouts get into hockey evaluations?
The staff has a deep hockey knowledge both playing and coaching. In total we have 11 scouts based in Ontario and over 60 throughout North America.
Of our 11 Ontario based scouts we have seven former OHL/NCAA/Usport players; 4 of which went on to play professionally. Many of our scouts were coaches at the OHL/NCAA/Usport level and some continue to coach in junior and midget hockey.
A distinguishing factor for our staff is that these guys played this level themselves, they had similar dreams to these players and they went through the same process. You have experienced eyes watching these prospects who know what it takes to play at the next level because they’ve played there and they’ve coached and scouted there as well.
Do your scouts evaluate based on potential or based on current performance?
Its a good question; I would say we factor in potential but we have to evaluate what we see today. Anyone can predict what someone will be in 2 years or 4 years but we found credible, experienced hockey scouts to tell us what they are seeing each game. How do they react against the tougher competition or how do they do in playoff compared to regular season games.
Quentin Byfield and Owen Powers probably have the most upside of any two players in the draft, but Lleyton Moore was the best player in Ontario this season and therefore got our #1 ranking. Where it gets difficult is trying to factor in the team the player is on and how that impacts the prospect either positively or negatively. You will see GTHL players fly off the board in the early rounds because they are more polished and they play with other very talented players which boosts their game. On the other side you have players from smaller towns who are playing on a line with undrafted prospects who may thrive when they are playing on a line with more talent. That is probably the hardest part.
What is Neutral Zone doing for the Draft on Saturday?
I will be live-blogging the draft as players get picked. We will also be promoting the first round picks with pictures and links to their players profiles on our website. After that we’ll just be running the live blog where I’ll highlight some picks, explain what the teams are getting with these picks and add insider coverage of the entire event. There are first round caliber players like Cole Perfetti, Owen Powers and Dylan Peterson who are committed NCAA and could fall for fear they won’t report to camp. There is a player like Ty Tullio who is the son of Oshawa Generals owner; and you have Antonio Stranges who may be the most talented player in the draft but has an NCAA commitment and an offer to the US National Team where they are allowing him to live at home and be in the program. Where do they fall and who can afford to take risks in the draft and who needs to make the safe plays? We’ll cover it all in the live blog.
Are you thinking about the 2019 draft and the 2003 Ontario age group yet?
Yes. We continue to add to the staff each year with age group focused scouts. We have already added scouts coaching Minor Bantam AAA and Bantam AAA this coming 2018/2019 season. For us it is a great way to build the pipeline for the coming drafts in 2019 and 2020. You don’t want to start too early because things change in their minor Midget year but we have a good start to our list for 2019 already in the works.
Photo Credit: Dan Hickling / Hickling Images
