Inside the Sabres' pre-Draft process

Jeremiah Crowe was given a clear directive upon being named the Buffalo Sabres' director of scouting in June.
The Sabres front office had been restructured beginning with Kevyn Adams' appointment to general manager earlier that month. The NHL Draft, meanwhile, had been postponed to the fall, giving the Sabres the luxury of time when it came to planning and ordering their list.
So, with three extra months to prepare, Adams asked Crowe to revisit the process in its entirety with an emphasis on merging scouting and analytics.

"He certainly did make more than a recommendation when taking this job about the use of analytics and video to make sure we're supporting our decisions and recommendations based on all available information," Crowe said.

When the Sabres make their selections next Tuesday and Wednesday, it will mark the culmination of an extensive process spearheaded by Crowe and director of analytics Jason Nightingale, who also serves as the team's assistant director of scouting.
The undertaking included a complete re-visitation of the player pool. Scouts were assigned groups of players based on analytics and other information that had been previously collected, with a minimum number of video viewings mandated for each player.
Once the initial viewings were complete, detailed meetings were held with Crowe, Nightingale, and scouts to weigh takeaways from games, projections for a what a player could become, and data-driven insights on a player's impact. Scouts were then asked to conduct a second wave of analysis to answer why their findings may or may not be true.
The idea was to build a system of checks and balances to explain the "why" behind a player's performance.
"We're not really asking anymore if they control the game, because we can measure that," Nightingale said. "We're not asking, 'What is their offensive impact?' because we can measure that.
"It's, how are they doing that? And the way that they do it, how will that translate to the next level? I think that's how the two interact, the scout and the information."
Nightingale, who has been with the organization since 2013, said the amount of data available is better than ever before. That is true league-wide, though in this case the timing coincides with a mandate both from Adams and ownership to implement analytics into the team's scouting strategy.
"We rely on our scouts to make sense of data and vice-versa," Crowe said. "Figuring out if there's some variable that might be misrepresenting either side has been good. I think our guys are getting a grasp of it more and more as we go."
The primary goal, from an amateur scouting perspective, is simple: Select the players who best project to make an impact at the NHL level. Within that objective exists a goal to find players who fit Adams' organizational vision - namely, high-character individuals who are invested in reaching their potential.
Given the timeline that typically exists between a player being drafted and turning pro - which often takes up to three years or longer - questions of positional fit are less pressing.
"What we're trying to figure out is how to acquire the best assets," Nightingale said. "So, I think that's why our priority is trying to find players who project to the NHL level."

The process has given insight into how the Sabres can evaluate amateur players moving forward, particularly with the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic might continue to present during the 2020-21 season. Crowe pointed to the USA Hockey Junior Evaluation Camp, which is scheduled to begin Oct. 8, as an event that has already been closed to in-person scouts.
The pandemic has already thrown its share of hurdles at teams preparing for the draft, none more substantial than the cancellation of the NHL Scouting Combine. The event, held annually at LECOM Harborcenter, presents teams with an opportunity to collect uniform data on players in addition to holding face-to-face meetings.
This year, meetings are being conducted virtually. With no in-person access to players, teams have to consider how much physical development a player has undergone since the start of their draft-eligible year. For 18- and 19-year-olds - and with a long offseason of training - the potential for growth is substantial.
Meanwhile, several draft-eligible players are currently playing professionally in Europe, forcing teams to continually evaluate players and their progression in the days leading up to the draft.
"I think it's actually a unique opportunity," Nightingale said. "In the scouting business and certainly data, you're constantly taking in information and you have to adjust your view of players based on new information, and that's what we have.
"… We put in a lot of hard work as a staff. I think we've gone above and beyond to revisit the draft, including watching things that are happening right now. I'm really hoping that our hard work will pay off and we will find players in the later rounds and make good decisions because of the information that is available and that we're utilizing."