While all eyes will be on which player the Kraken select at No. 8 in the upcoming NHL Draft, for Kraken scouts Jeff Crisp, Mike Dawson and Tom O’Connor, that isn’t the half of it. The team’s “crossover” amateur scouts are charged with deep-diving on the “top half” or first three rounds of the draft, which unfolds first-rounders on June 28 and rolls the second through seventh rounds on June 29.
Along with weighing in on who joins Seattle at No. 8, the team’s crossover scouts are squarely focused on second- and third-round picks, of which, barring any trades, the Kraken have two in each round. The extra second-rounder came via this spring’s swap of center Alex Wennberg to the New York Rangers, while the additional third-rounder is the final asset in GM Ron Francis’ trade with Toronto, receiving three picks in exchange for defenseman Mark Giordano and forward Colin Blackwell.
During late May’s amateur scouting meetings at Kraken Community Iceplex, the hockey operations group ranked a list of nearly 200 prospects over four days of open deliberation (“don’t tell us what you think we want to hear, tell us what you think,” said Francis to open the meetings). Crisp, Dawson, O’Connor and European scout Pelle Eklund (who takes on some crossover duties on that continent) stayed on an extra day to refine that list with Francis, Kraken assistant GMs and director of amateur scouting Robert Kron ahead of the team being on the clock numerous times in Vegas in late June.
Crossing Over to ‘Compare’ and ‘Collaborate’
By design, Crisp, Dawson and O’Connor have seen all of the higher-ranked players on the list in person as “crossover” scouts. Dawson says the job title is “about travel, crossing over to other territories and countries” to evaluate players identified by area scouts as potential top three-round picks in the draft. Crisp said it is not about checking the work or recommendations of the area scouts but being in a position to provide more direct comparisons of one player versus another.
“The area scouts give us an idea what they think the player is all about,” said Dawson, who was head amateur scout for North America over seven seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes before joining the Kraken in the fall of 2020. “We go in and look for that, but also do our own assessment. We have the benefit of seeing all the players on our list in all of the different leagues. We have that reference point of being able to compare what a guy is doing in this league versus a guy in a different one.”
Crisp, who has been an NHL scout for 25 years for Calgary, Anaheim, Buffalo and now Seattle, said the crossover role differs based on the season’s timeline but always considers the must-haves of skating ability and high hockey IQ espoused by Francis and director of amateur scouting Robert Kron.
“The second half of the year, you might be dialed in on directly comparing one player versus another,” said Crisp. “We all agree he's a good skater. Maybe now we’re dialing in on a hockey sense. Mike or I will go with the area scout and say, ‘let's really watch how many decisions are good decisions or bad. You focus on that one component. For the most part, we are collaborating. This is what you saw four times; this is what I saw three times. What does it mean overall [on the team’s draft board rankings].”
So Far, So Much Potential in Second and Third Rounds
In the franchise’s first three NHL draft classes, the Kraken hockey operations group has made eight second-round picks (four in 2022 via trades and three more last summer) and four third-round selections (the extra one in 2022). That’s a dozen total, or twice the allotted six.
No Kraken staffer is going to claim full-fledged success with those picks because the ultimate goal is drafting and developing NHL contributors who appear in a significant number of games and seasons for the Kraken. Nonetheless, there are lots of positives to ponder for Seattle fans, such as 2021 second-rounder Ryker Evans (35th overall) appearing in 36 NHL games this past season playing with toughness and poise in all zones.
