NHL Draft Former Rangers GM Neil Smith on the process

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Note: In an interview conducted prior to the 2019 draft, the former Rangers general manger peeled back the curtain on the ins and outs of drafting the next generation of NHL talent, insight that still holds true today. Friday night at 8 p.m. ET, the NHL’s next wave of superstars will find out which sweater they will be donning when they join the profe sional ranks. Neil Smith knows all about the draft proce s. Over the course of more than 20 years with the Detroit Red Wings, New York Islanders and New York Rangers, Smith shaped the future of the NHL. Before this years draft, Sporting News caught up with the former Rangers and Islanders GM on thephone to take us inside how the draft works, if he could take back any pick he madeand what New Jersey Devils GM Ray Shero will do with the number one pick on Friday. NHL Draft 2019: (Editor’s note: These responses have been edited for length and clarity.) Sporting News: So when exactly does a team start preparing for a draft? Neil Smith: It’s an ongoing proce s that goes on year round and it’s certainly thechicken before the egg because there’s always a draft coming up. You go to the draft one year and as soon as that date pa ses it’s usually on a Friday, Saturday Sunday, you start worrying about the next year’s draft. SN: So literally the day after, you’re already moving on. NS: Yea, you really are…becauseyou have a scouting staff and all that scouting staff is responsible for is that draft. And so, they’ve done their job, you’ve selected our players and there’s nothing more than can be done for the players for the 2018 draft;you got to start worrying about the 2019 draft. SN: But it’s definitely a moving boardthroughout the year, right? Because Charlie Brown Jersey someone might have slipped in there in their production and someone else might have picked it up. It’s always a moving board, correct? NS: Yes it is. It’s very fluid, you know,things go up and down, at least as far as, say, the top 10 guys in the draft. That moves around quite a bit. I think that after you get through the first half of the first round, you basically have a lot of different opinions on who would be taken at that point. It’s pretty, pretty obvious in the top 10 who’s it going to be butafter that, it’sreally a projection of what you think the kids could be [in the future]. SN: Beyondthat first round, what are you then looking for?Is it just filling spots that you need in your farm system andmaybe finding a diamond in the rough for the NHL? NS: No, what you’re doing is, or what I always did was,you want to draft players that you can envision have a chance to play in the NHL. Soregardle s of what position they play, your thought proce s should be: I could see where Jeremy Lin Jersey one day this guy could if this improves, and that improves he could play in the NHL. If you don’t think that someone would ever be able to play in the NHL and you should never draft them. You shouldn’t draft players for your American League team, you should be drafting potential NHLers even if that potential is minimal; you gotta have some potential to make it. SN: So who actually makes the decisions on the pick?Does it fall onto you as thegeneral manager? Or do you rely more on your head scout? Who ultimately says this is the guy we’re going to take? NS: Organizations have different structures and different personalities. So in some places, the general manager will actually be part ofthe evaluation proce s; in others, the general manager has noinvolvement in the a se sment and evaluation proce s. He hasn’t seen the players and he’s totally depending upon his chief scout or director of player personnel . . . Whether or not the general manager isinvolved, the burden of selecting amateur players in the draft falls on the chief scout, or whatever title the person has that’s in charge of the entry draft. SN: In general, is there a prioritization over, we need a center or a winger or goalie type of thing? Or is it really just the best? NS: That’s not the way I did it because you because you’ve got to go on talent. But the one thing that I wouldsay is that it doesn’t ever happen that every time your pick came up, the best guy by far was a forward or every time it was a defenseman. It usually didn’tgo that way. But one thing that can happen is you can get into the fifth or sixth round, and say, “you know, holy crap, we haven’t we don’t have a goalie, we haven’t picked a goalie.”So we are going to mi s play somebody into the development cycle. So you might think everything’s close to even, let’s pick the goalie. You might do that and take a chance on the goalie so you get the guy in the system.Because when you get to the sixth and seventh round, if you can get an NHL player there, you know, you deserve a gold star. At that point, you’re hoping that your thoughts are right and that you hit the mother lode. 2019 NHL draft prospect rankings: SN: So what happens when there’s a disagreement? NS: I’m giving you the way we did it.Where it’s important that is that you have cro sover during the season. What I mean by cro sover is, let’s say you have a scout that lives in Montrealand a scout that lives Toronto and you have ascout that lives in Calgary. Those three are the main guys covering the major junior ranks.And then you have a scout in Stockholm and then you have a scout living in Boston who’s covering colleges. Those guys are in charge of those areas and you have other scouts but those are your main guys. What’s really important is that you have cro sover once or twice a year, to see what the other guy has in his area. So in other words,a guy that lives in Steve Smith Jersey Calgary will go to Ontario and see the Ontario league for a couple of weeksso thathe can compare what Ontario has to what he’s got out West. Now. I know, we’re probably predicting what your next question is, what you would do from there? What we did was we had a rating for all the different areas that the players come from. You could have a European list, you could have a Quebec list, you could have an Ontario list, you could have a Western list, you could have a college list, and everybody’s responsible for their areas. The chief scout has seeneverybody, and you’re just cro sing over. So when it comes to your first pick, [let’s say]you’re picking 15th, you’re going to make sure that you got 15 guys, that you’ve mixed them all together meaning, college, Europe, Quebec, Ontario, Western you’vemixed them all together to figure out okay, when our pick comes at 15 who are the 15 guys that we’d pick. So as guys get picked, you cro s them off and let’s say for whatever reason the guy atnumber eight is still available at 15, but all seven above him are gone, then obviouslyyou should be picking that guy that was at eight if you’ve done your meetings properly and everything else. So there shouldn’t be any discu sion, except let’s go get number eight. When it comes to the second round, this is where it gets a little bit more involved.You’ve got everybody cro sing off their list . . . then you’ll say, “Ok, who has the best player here”as you’re coming up to your pick. So if the guy in Quebec is saying, “so and so hasn’t been picked yet and I had him third in my whole area” and then the Ontario guy says “no, I don’t really have anybody that can help.”The western guy and the European and the college guy all say that then they all talk and say, “okay, Joe Blow in Quebec. Yeah, I saw him play. I like him,” and the Ontario guy says the same thing, they all sort of consensus agree that Mr. Quebec’s guy is the best guy now. That’s how you get it. SN: So what is it like five minutes in between picks,or even le s, I think in the later rounds. So do you really do need all that time? NS: You don’t really need it, and I’ll tell you why because as it’s coming to your pick, it becomes more and more obvious with you who you’re going to pick. And if it’s not obvious, because let’s saytwoscouts have a guy that they really, really, really, really want andget closer and closer and closer, those two guys are still available. Yeah, that’s where it might take Dominique Wilkins Jersey a minute or two to say, okay, the chief scout and the GM and everybody that’s cro sed over, let’s make this decision. Who are we taking? Is it the defenseman? The forward? The goalie?Whatever the discu sion may be, but itshouldn’t come as a huge surprise to you if you’ve done everything right. You should have been able to do thisas it came to your pick. I think in all the years that I did the draft there were very few timeouts that I took. Very, very few and usually that was because the GM was talking to another GM about a trade. SN: So all the times that we see teams really not going up [to the dias] until the last minute, it’s just maybe for dramatic flair. NS: I don’t know what system everybody uses, but it probably they’re either talking to another team about trading the pick. Or else they’re saying, “okay,there’s so little difference between these two guys, what are we going to do here? C’mon guys make a decision? What are we going to do?” And I know that there are teams that mix everything together and have one long list of everybody mixed together. But, in my opinion, it’s really hard to compare somebody playing in the Swedish Elite League, to somebody playing at Boston College, to somebody playing on the Medicine Hat Tigers and say, okay, well, this is this guy is one this guy is two, this guy is three. It’s much easier to say, I’m going to compare apples toapples and oranges to oranges then I’ll figure out when it comes: Do I want the orange? Or do I want the apple? Final NHL Mock Draft: SN: Is there this great, immense pre sure to saywe’re taking this guy, he’s going to be an NHLer; because you don’t know, right? Like, how many guys have you picked over the years that just never made it? So is that pre sure? NS: I think there’s tremendous self-imposed pre sure, just pre sures that you put on yourself. Self-imposedpre sure on the teams that mi sed the playoffs the year before and on their first pick, because they want to show their fans and their owner that they’re headed in the right direction. And so you don’t want it, if you’repicking in the top 10 you don’t want to get it wrong. That’s a huge setback if you get it wrong. And a lot of times you do get it wrong, but you’re dealing with 18-year-olds that aren’t going to reach their potential until their 23 or 24. So it’s very hard to get that projectionright on your first pick, let alone get it right on your third pick or fourth pick. It’s the future of the organization. So yeah, there is pre sure. SN: There have been number offirst rounders that have noteven made the NHL. Is there anybody, looking back, you think maybe wasn’t the best choice made at the time, or that you wish you could do anything differently? NS: Oh yeah, of course. If I could look in the rearview mirror, or look back in time there’s lots of players that I would have done differently. And sometimes, the players that turned out to be stars, you’re like, going like, how could I have not taken him earlier? I got him in the second round, he should have been in the first round. But, you know, we picked in 1999, my last draft with the Rangers; I mean, we thought theywere really doing well, andI think everybody in the room thought we were doing great. We got Pavel Brendl with a high pick in the first round and he’dscored 92 goals in the Western League and was going to be the next Mike Bo sy for the New York Rangers and we weren’t the only one thinking that; that’s what everybody thought involved in the draft and it turned out he barely played in the NHL. So, yeah, if I could do that one over again, of course, I would do that. I mean, I think that in that same year, Brian Burke did a great thing in taking the Sedins in that draft; look at how they changed that Vancouver franchise. So yeah, there’s lots of things you would do differently if you could, you know, be able to predict the future. SN: That’s the beauty of the draft, right? You just really don’t know. NS: You don’t. You hope for the best and you’ve done all your work, you’ve worked at it, you’ve compared, you’ve talked, you’ve given it everything you’ve got you really don’t know. . . . It’s not an exact science. SN: Is there pre sure on Ray Shero and if you were him who would you pick? NS: I can’t make that call but I can tell youthat the pre Khyri Thomas Jersey sure is, that if anybody in the draft turns out better than the Devil’s pick Ray Shero will be criticized ‘oh my gosh, you know, so and so was in that draft and they took so and so, you know what I mean? Likethe pre sure is thatyou gotta pick the Mario Lemieux. There’s a lot of pre sure and the other thing, A lot of pre sure on the other thing that’s even more pre sure on Ray is that whomever he doesn’t pickis gonna end up with the Rangers and God forbid the Rangers end up with a better player.

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