With the stupid gimmicks that have been baked into recent NHL Entry Drafts, the idea of seeing the old way of how the drafts used to be are likely long gone. I still vividly recall seeing players like Alexandre Daigle, Roman Hamrlik, and Joe Thornton standing up in having their name called first, huggling friends and family, and descending the stairs to the stage where they stood as the first-overall selections in their respective drafts. Needless to say, I was captivated by the subtitle of today's book review as Teebz's Book Club is proud to review
Draft Day: How Hockey Teams Pick Winners or Get Left Behind, written by Doug MacLean with Scott Morrison and published by Simon & Schuster Canada. If Doug MacLean was penning a book all about how the NHL Entry Draft works from an insider's perspective, he sold me with the title. Was that the case, though?
You likely know Doug MacLean already if you're a hockey fan, but his Simon & Schuster biography reads,
"Doug MacLean is a former professional hockey coach, general manager, and team executive. He was the president and general manager of the NHL Columbus Blue Jackets and was also the head coach of the Florida Panthers. He became a sportscaster for Sportsnet, eventually cohosting the popular Hockey Central at Noon radio show and regularly appearing as a panelist on Hockey Central television. He splits his time between PEI and Florida." It should also be noted he coached junior hockey in Prince Edward Island, was the head coach of the University of New Brunswick Reds, and an assistant coach with all of the St. Louis Blues, Washington Capitals, and Detroit Red Wings. He was also the assistant general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, the general manager of the Adirondack Red Wings, and a pro scout with the Florida Panthers! He's certainly done it all in his hockey career!
Knowing that Doug MacLean has done virtually every front office role in hockey made me wonder if
Draft Day would truly reveal what goes on down on the floor during the draft and behind the scenes in a team's war room. While there is some room for debate about how successful MacLean was in his various roles in the NHL and at the draft podium, he certainly has enough experience and stories from a number of NHL Entry Drafts to put together a book on the subject.
Draft Day spends a lot time looking at past drafts and how general managers seemingly approached those drafts. MacLean goes into great detail about former Montreal Canadiens general manager Sam Pollock and the success he had based on a couple of key principles that guided him, but it seems pretty clear that Pollock's approach to the draft would be a lot harder to replicate in a 32-team league.
Admittedly, there are a lot of stories from MacLean's career in
Draft Day that will resonate with hockey fans as a lot of these stories take you inside the thought processes that go into drafting certain players. MacLean explains the process that led them to select Gilbert Brule over Anze Kopitar in one draft, and how the interview process done by teams with players should have led him to choose someone other than Nikolai Zherdev. It's an interesting reflection that MacLean has on his own draft success in his career after all these years.
As MacLean maintains throughout
Draft Day, the purpose of the NHL Entry Draft and having draft picks is to improve one's team. Shockingly, he reveals that a major NHL star was almost traded three times early in the book when he was in Detroit. He writes,
"Interestingly, before Yzerman won his three Cups, three times he was nearly traded, once before Bowman had arrived and twice after. The first time was in 1991 when Bryan and I thought we had a deal with the Islanders for LaFontaine. One night Bryan told me the deal was going to be done and announced the next morning. It was LaFontaine and some other pieces for Yzerman. But the next day nothing happened, and it was never mentioned again. The second time was in 1992 when he was rumored to be part of a blockbuster offer to Quebec for Eric Lindros. The third time was in 1995 to Ottawa, supposedly for a package that included a young Alexei Yashin."
It's incredible to think that Yzerman could have been an Islanders forward if something hadn't changed overnight. Of course, we find out later in
Draft Day that Detroit's package wasn't close to what Quebec was being offered, and that deal with Ottawa would have been bad for Detroit if things played out as they did with Yashin on Long Island. There are a number of these stories like this in
Draft Day, and MacLean deserves credit for taling about these failed deals!
MacLean also includes a chapter on analytics in
Draft Day that feels slightly dated considering this book was published in 2023. As we know, analytics are an important tool for a number of teams when evaluating players, but MacLean speaks about it like it's still in its infancy in this chapter. There's also a whole chapter on what went wrong with Nikolai Zherdev in Columbus, an incredible chapter that examines all the angles involved in the Eric Lindros trade, and there's a solid chapter for players and parents about the many paths to the NHL and how being a good person matters as much as talent.
Overall,
Draft Day is a fantastic read with lots of player and personnel references that people will know, and Doug MacLean has always been a good storyteller. While I would have liked more examination on the science of scouting and drafting, there's no doub that
Draft Day does an incredible job in bring the front office experience to light. Because of MacLean's insight and experience, his hockey knowledge, and his incredible way of telling his stories,
Draft Day absolutely deserves the
Teebz's Book Club Seal of Approval!
Draft Day was published back in 2023, so it should be available at all bookstores and libraries. It's a solid read that became harder to put down as one got deeper into each of MacLean's stories and chapters.
Draft Day is a clean read with no salacious stories nor crass language, so it's absolutely recommended for all hockey fans of all ages!
Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!
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