Laying The Foundation

While it's hard to be excited for a team who doesn't yet have a name nor an arena to play in, the Seattle NHL franchise seems to be laying the foundation for what they hope is a solid team. Seattle NHL scouts at current NHL games is nothing new as the team has been visiting rinks, reviewing video, and doing their due diligence on current NHL and AHL players, but their efforts may go a long way in determining whether they'll be the next Vegas Golden Knights in terms of first-year success or the current version of the Ottawa Senators. In hearing what they're up to, it seems the former is a more likely scenario than the latter.

According to an Associated Press report, "Seattle's primary goal for the first year is building the database of information that existing franchises already have in hand. Some of that info is readily available, but there are specific things Seattle is looking to build into its player profiles tied in with Mandrycky's focus on analytics."

"Mandrycky" is director of hockey strategy and research Alexandra Mandrycky, and it appears that Seattle is looking beyond the normal analyses and building the analytics into their database of information on players. This should give the Seattle group some very good insight on players made available to them when the expansion draft takes place, but also allow them to possibly pursue players that have gone undrafted or playing in college who have aged out of the draft.

Last week, Seattle's five pro scouts - John Goodwin, Dave Hunter, Stu Barnes, Cammi Granato, and Ulf Samuelsson - got together with Mandrycky, Seattle GM Ron Francis, and Seattle assistant general manager Ricky Olczyk to discuss who they had seen, what they had seen, and begin work on the database from which they'll base their player decisions. Whether it be an NHL player, an AHL player, an amateur player, or a player at some other level, the Seattle team sounds like they'll know as much as any other NHL team - maybe more? - when it comes to assembling their initial NHL and AHL rosters.

"With what you're doing for an existing franchise, you're looking for perhaps a specific player in a specific role. Whereas now we're looking, I wouldn't say for specific players, but players with skills and abilities and characteristics that we want," Hunter told the AP. Those characteristics include how specific players interact with teammates, how they play away from the puck, and both offensive and defensive zone awareness. Each of those players who have been on Seattle's radar will have their own detailed report on the key things that the team is looking for in building that roster, and the management staff will undoubtedly lean on that information.

"We have a base of nothing right now when you talk about compiling data of NHL players, AHL players, amateur players," Mandrycky said to the AP in September. "So a lot of the two years has to be spent making sure you have the right infrastructure in place so as we get to making decisions on the expansion draft and free agency, we can do that with as much education about the players as possible."

Five months later, the database is growing and the Seattle management team and scouts are running mock drafts. Is it realistic? For now, it's as real as the Seattle group can get, but it's pretty clear that they're testing the database of information as much as working through versions of a fantasy draft.

What is real is that the hard work being done now will translate into reports on more than 2000 players when the day finally comes to selecting their first player in the expansion draft, their first player in the entry draft, and signing their first free agent. Whether or not they'll end up in the Stanley Cup Final in their first year will remain to be seen, but expect Seattle to be much more competitive than Ottawa was in their expansion year thanks to the building of their database that's happening now.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!