The Neutral Zone staff take incredible pride in our work and we love what we do. Throughout the course of the season, we often get asked by players, parents, and regular hockey fans alike, “What do you look for in a player?”
It is a fair question, but honestly, it is hard to pinpoint anything specifically. In the world of talent scouting, most scouts are looking for something specific that the team they are working for may need. While everyone needs/wants players who can put the puck in the back of the net or goaltenders who can just flat-out stop the puck, there are plenty of other intangibles that scouts may look for in a player. Neutral Zone scouts, however, are looking to report on players as a whole and their development. And even include some honest constructive criticism from our years and years and years of experience playing, coaching, developing players, and watching an incredible amount of hockey for the sole purpose of evaluating players and bringing to light the athlete’s strengths and abilities that may need some work. We want to provide information on the athletes that depicts the player’s abilities and tendencies so that coaches at the next level can potentially paint a fuller picture of the player reported on. Then come to a more complete conclusion from the data that we provide from seeing these players in person regularly that the coaches/GMs may not get to see often.
So what are Neutral Zone Scouts looking for? We surveyed many of our top scouts from both the Women’s and Men’s side of the game to see what they had to say and how scouts can differ. We asked, “What are the top three things you look for in players that you scout? Some answers you may expect, some answers may make you think about your own game, some may just surprise you, and some are more detailed than others. But every scout’s response should show a variety of levels of details to the game Here is what some had to say (in bold were the most common statements among scouts):
- Pace of play/Speed to process the play
- Do they win puck/ice battles?
- What are they doing with puck possession?
- Is their skating strong enough to advance to the next level? (This has so many dimensions)
- Anticipation/Deception
- Situational Awareness/Hockey IQ
- Compete Level
- Confidence with the puck
- What do they do when they don’t have the puck?
- Consistency
- Upside (Where does the player project in a year – three years from when I am seeing them? Can they get bigger or stronger, can they benefit from coaching, are they super skilled and young but have yet to be tested, etc)
- Body language
- Versatility
- Athleticism
- Fundamentals – can they move efficiently? Handle the puck? Shoot quickly?
- Creativity – I want to see where they are looking, and if they are looking. Did they anticipate pressure? Do they know their next move when they receive the pass? Can they adjust quickly if that option dissolves? (Some of this also falls under “Situational Awareness”)
- Second effort
- Do they understand the D-side of the game? (Are they in good defensive position, are they on the D-side of the puck in battles, do they have their head on a swivel, are sticks in lanes, are they making proper contact or flying by, do they block shots or flamingo?)
Let’s dive in a little deeper on a few of these and get some more clarification/elaboration. First off, we’ll talk about the big one and that’s skating.
In today’s game, skating is of the utmost importance, and whether a Scout, Coach, or GM says it, they are all looking at skating ability. But the skating factor of a player can come in a variety of ways. Strong skating ability does not always mean Kendall Coyne-Schofield-like speed. Sometimes it translates to edgework and quick direction changes, sometimes it is just the ability to create some space or separation from opponents, other times it is lateral movement and the ability to escape tough situations by using your feet. When referring to speed, that does not always translate to how fast a player can go when the puck is on their stick. Speed can also elude to the ability to win foot races for loose pucks, catch an opponent on the backcheck or pressure pucks on the forecheck, and even the ability to quickly find open ice when the puck is not on a player’s stick. While any one particular part of skating ability is not always found to be better than another part, it is certain that if a player has none or even very few parts of the criteria of a quality skater, then that player will easily get overlooked without a very strong other dimension to their game (example: coaches overlook skating if a player is a pure goal scorer. In which they say, “we’ll teach them to skate”).
Hockey IQ is also in bold print. It gets talked about a lot by scouts. This means, decision-making at speed, knowing where to be when the puck is not on the player’s stick, attention to details of the game, game management, and situational awareness. Does that player consistently turn the puck over at the offensive blueline or do they get it deep when they run out of ice? Do they recognize that 2 of their teammates are battling below the goal line and do not let themselves get sucked in, rather remain high and be an option if they win the battle or defensive support to prevent odd numbers against? Does the player make high-risk-low-reward plays or are they managing situations to create the best possible outcome for their team? Is the player paying attention to the details of the game and doing the little things that may go unnoticed by the untrained eye, like ticking sticks, making contact to create space, setting subtle picks, and even communicating are all part of the details of the game are recognized when scouts ask themselves about a players Hockey IQ.
Everyone and I’ll repeat it louder for those in the back, EVERYONE wants a competitor. But just going hard and scoring goals or racking up points does not make a player a competitor. What makes a compete level high is that no matter the situation, the player is visibly showing that they are giving it their all, putting it all on the line each shift, for their team, for their coach, for the win. Not everyone is going to put up 100-point seasons. But the high-level competitors will not have a 100 against them either. Those players work hard at both ends of the ice, want the play to come to them so that they can help be a factor in a positive outcome, they block shots, they backcheck as hard as they would forecheck or join a rush up ice, they stop on pucks and at the net, and more often than not they make their teammates better. Now, some players have a strong competitive level, but it ebbs and flows with the game situations, with their opponents, or even their environment. All of which scouts will notice and take note of. While some players just have the switch turned on all the time and know no other way.
The “upside” is an interesting one to think about as a scout. At Neutral Zone, we start scouting players at the U14 level in both Men’s and Women’s hockey. So we get to see players progress as they grow in stature, as players, as humans, improve, mature, succeed, fail, and get up and go at it again, all while in pursuit of their dreams. So, when thinking about the upside of a player, we venture into the realm of predictions based on what we have seen from that player each year and what we know has happened with other similar players. Sometimes these factors are environmental (coaching they get, organization they are playing in, competition they are playing against). Some of it though, is a player’s drive. Are they driven to improve their game, their skills, and their game? All of these factors lead us to think about that player’s “upside” and we can justifiably say a player has an “upside” and will be able to play at the next level.
Athleticism may be a surprising one because all of the players we scout are considered “athletes”. But just because a player is an athlete does not make them athletic. This can be witnessed in nearly every sport. The wrestler who can not throw or catch a ball, the pitcher who can not throw to first base, the swimmer who has “two left feet”, the soccer player who trips over the grass if they are not handling the ball, the hockey player who can stick handle in a phone booth (if you are reading this and too young to know what a phone booth is, please Google it to understand the reference) but is awkward in much of their movement and/or stiff in their other movements. As scouts, coaches, and advisors, we always encourage players to play other sports, especially at a younger age. This translates to better movement in the coronal, sagittal, and transverse planes of the body, which in turn translates to better movement on the ice, injury prevention, and elusiveness. The bottom line is, to move as much as possible to be as athletic as possible, as it will translate to a player’s game and the scouts do take notice.
These have just been some abbreviated bullet points to what we as scouts look at in a player. However, we often dive much deeper so that we have as much information about a player as possible. But this scratches the surface and should give players a better understanding and allow them to read this, take a look at their game, and make improvements, adjustments, or just build upon what they have already done. There is always room for improvement, spend some extra time on areas that might need improvement, but never rest on the the areas that are giving success. Those successful areas of a player’s game will always need to be maintained, fine-tuned, or adjusted as their careers move on.