Of the many interesting remarks Craig MacTavish made yesterday, none caught my attention more than his interesting asides on “development.”
For reference, here’s the presser in its entirety:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk7Mruzdjj4&w=560&h=315]Development Part One: We’ve Got to Look Elsewhere
Question (Jason Gregor): Craig you mentioned you’re not going to look for kind of a middle of the road defensemen…what about your forward group, your top 4 produced a lot, but you didn’t get a lot of secondary scoring. Smyth is not gone, will you look elsewhere to improve that, or do you think you’ve got some guys in your system that you use to fill those roles offensively?
Answer (GM MacTavish): We’ve got to look elsewhere for some of the help in those positions. That’s an area that we’ve identified that we would like to improve in. I mean, the draft, you develop players, you sign players and trade players. So, we’ll be trying to do all those things to try and get us a more productive second line.
If Hall, Eberle and Hopkins are going to continue to play together, we’re going to need a more productive second line than what we had this year. We’d like to get more secondary scoring out of a third line than we had this year. So, as I said, there’s lots of work to be done.
I’ve highlighted the portion I want to discuss here. The question is about filling forward positions internally, i.e., with players graduating from the Oilers’ development system. The target is 2nd and 3rd line players (presumably, players he can add to Yakupov and Peron, if he doesn’t trade them. I’m also assuming Gagner is traded and that Gordon and Hendricks form part of the 4th line). For the most part, MacTavish is definitive here.
“We’ve got to look elsewhere for some of the help in those positions.”
So, who of the current bunch of Oilers prospects might fill a role? The obvious candidate is Mark Arcobello––barring an influx of centers via free agency, trade or draft (perhaps one of Draisaitl, Reinhart or Bennett)––who looks poised to assume the role of 3rd line center. Beyond Arcobello, I think it’s plausible some combination of Lander, Horak and Pitlick find their way onto the NHL team, although more likely they’ll be fighting for spots below the top nine.
In another article, I’ll have a look at UFA forward targets. For now, I’d like to highlight some more of MacTavish’s comments on development.
Development Part Two: At What Point Are We Responsible?
Question: the scouting staff, are they following the evaluation process this offseason (garbled that’s the best I can make of it)
Answer: The amateur scouts… Steve Tambellini put a lot of detail into the amateur scouts that maybe wasn’t there currently. So, the leg work and the level of detail that the amateur scouts have on players to me is impressive.
And, I mean the knee-jerk reaction is to, ok bring in, continually fire somebody and bring somebody else in but at what point are we responsible to continue the development of the group that we have?
And, I’m satisfied with the pro scouts and the amateur scouts that we have good people in there. They need good leadership. They need to be supported by leadership and we need to continue to get better and develop and that’s very much where I am at as a manager right now in terms of focusing my attention on helping the current group we have and give them all the resources necessary so that when we’re spitting out selections, we’re making the right calls.
There’s a couple of interesting things to take from this. First, the line––”at what point are we responsible?”––is a real standout.
For years the Oilogosphere has had a running joke. The short version is:
Tank. Draft 1st Overalls. Bam! Stanley Cup!
To all the world the Tambellini years looked like they thought this was how to run a successful hockey organization. The evisceration of the veteran core (esp. on D: Pitkanen, Lubo, Gilbert, Souray all turned into nothing); the rushing of top prospects (Gagner, under Lowe started the trend to which we could add Magnus and Lander); playing people above their ability (near everyone); the failure to graduate top prospects; and, the endless searching for a coke-machine supporting cast.
The point being, it certainly appeared that no responsibility was being taken to actually guide the ship. The prevailing sense was that the Oilers operated as though a terrible team will eventually rebound through he natural course of events (drafting high, getting superstars, winning cups).
I think we can say with some certainty that Tambellini helped the Oilers by sorting out the AHL affiliate situation and putting good people at work on the farm. MacTavish also credits him with getting the amateur scouting in order. We know that Stu MacGregor (head of amateur scouting) was promoted to his current job by Lowe in 2007. And, that under Tambellini’s direction the Oilers spent a lot of top 100 picks on big players with little promise (Abney, Hesketh, etc). However, under Tambellini the team saw some key additions to their European scouting staff: Pelle Eklund and Matti Virmanen. In general, however, I think we can pay credit to MacTavish’s other assessment of Tambellini, i.e., when he referred to the previous regime as “management by neglect.”
So, what kind of responsibility are we talking about and what kind of support from leadership and resources? Before trying to sort that out, I’d like to highlight one more portion of MacTavish’s presser:
Question: You’ve talked about development. Are you pleased with the process between the farm to the big club and the way that transition has been working? [followed by a question about Yakupov I’m bracketing off]
Answer: I think that our development process and our development department in my mind is the best in the game. We’ve been able to, through ownership, to have at our disposal the resources necessary to make sure that our players… And, that department continues to evolve. [interlude on Yakupov]
We are seeing that we’re getting results through the development. Our coaching staff in the AHL, led by Todd Nelson is exceptional. They’ve overcome a pretty significant deficit and are competing now in a playoff position, which is incredible given the turnaround that Todd and his staff has had down there. I’m very happy with that part of our organization.
[On Yakupov, but I want to highlight the point broadly] There’s lots of upside in Nail and it’s up to us and our organization to get that from him.
Tying the Threads Together
1) It sounds an awful lot like a disconnect to say on the one hand: we don’t have much in the system to fill secondary scoring roles, we’ll have to go outside the organization to fill those spots. And, to say, on the other hand: our development process is the best in the game.
Is there a way we can square the circle?
Well, in part the results-oriented circle is squared by pointing to the blue line. Petry, Schultz, Marincin and Klefbom have all come up through the AHL ranks (NB: Schultz by accident––the lockout––more than by planning) and have proved, by and large, successful.
Another mitigating factor no doubt depends on when you think MacTavish’s starting point is. If he’s only referring to the development process he’s instituted since taking over a year ago, it’s hard to fault him for not developing last year’s draft class into bona fide NHL players.
But, the key question for me is not a matter of results, but of process. Results can be and are (esp. in something like hockey) incredibly luck-dependent. In the extreme, there are cases like the sad story of Kristans Pelss. More commonly, however, players are derailed due to injury, which simply can’t be accounted for.
Without buying into the hubris about “best in the game,” what can we say about the Oilers’ development process?
2) As I’ve pointed out before, MacTavish’s short tenure as GM shows the lessons he’s learned from his short stint as Senior VP of Hockey Ops. That is, the importance of investing resources in scouting and development.
Some of the key moves MacTavish has made since becoming GM reflect a leader putting a premium on finding the people he has faith in (he showed his faith in his team yesterday from the coaching staffs––NHL and AHL––to the scouts, to Howson, etc.) and supporting them. We can see this in a couple of ways.
The most important move (again, that I’ve discussed before), in my opinion is the hiring of Bob Green to essentially perform MacTavish’s old Senior VP of Hockey Ops job (amateur free agent scouting). He’s also added Billy Moores as Director of Coaching Development and Special Projects. I think we can infer from MacTavish’s comments on Oilers’ Assistant Coach Steve Smith––”Steve Smith, who I really feel is developing into an exceptional coach”––that Moores is offering exactly the kind of “support” and “resources” MacTavish has in mind.
Adding to these personnel resources, MacTavish has also overseen the purchase of the ECHL affiliate The Bakersfield Condors. It’s clear that MacTavish sees league depth are valuable resources for development. Indeed, we’ve seen a readiness to send prospects to the ECHL under MacTavish’s watch (Under Tambellini prospects Arcobello, Davidson, Cornet, Pelss and Rajala all spent time in the ECHL) . Both David Musil (31st, 2011) and Martin Gernat (122nd, 2011) have spent time with the Condors this year. And, goaltender Laurent Brossoit (164th, 2011, Flames) has spent most of the season with the Condors after coming over from Calgary in the Smid trade. Recent amateur free agent signing, Mitch Holmberg, has also been added to the Condors for this year’s playoff push.
3) Another way we can look at the development process is in relation to decision making. A big part of the decision making process appears to be simply an insistence that development is the responsibility of the team. This, I believe, is more than simply a rhetorical gesture. While, one effect of this public insistence is certainly to remove pressure from the players, I don’t believe this is MacTavish’s main intent.
By insisting that the development of players is the responsibility of the team, by arguing “it is up to us and our organization” to develop players, MacTavish is signalling that the team is taking ownership of the development process. That is, it is not simply a matter of finding (through draft, trade or signing) good players and leaving them to their own devices. While, this is obviously true––i.e., that a development model has a large effect on a player’s success/failure––I believe we can point to some significant areas where the taking of explicit ownership over development is evident.
While a strong case can be made that the blue line has been playing above its paygrade all year, one has a harder time arguing that the team rushed its recent prospects to the NHL. Starting with sending Nurse back to junior, the team has been relatively patient. Marincin spent a full year and a half in the AHL before enjoying his long stay with the Oilers. Klefbom spent 46 games in the AHL and may start in the AHL next year. I think we can say this patience reflects an overall strategy of supporting players and putting the burden of their success on the organization’s shoulders.
The message is, even regarding the young NHL players: these players are raw talent and it’s our job to maximize their potential. Moreover, we are focused on surrounding these players with people and resources to give ourselves the best chance of maximizing their potential.
Final Thoughts
I think it is open to interpretation whether MacTavish has put the right people and the right processes in place to develop the future of the Oilers. For the purposes of this article, I’m not terribly interested in the specific personnel and infrastructural moves and their credibility. What I’m interested in is the overall approach, the process. It appears to me to be holistic in its mandate. That is, MacTavish is keen to surround every question, whether it be about coaching, scouting, league depth, etc., with as many flying buttresses as he can. He clearly values a deep and heavily-integrated organization.
Moreover, the process he’s put in place is clear about where responsibility lies. Whereas, the Tambellini era often left observers unclear about the development process, its goals and who to praise/blame for a player’s success/failure, the MacTavish era looks to be taking ownership over an intensive development process.
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