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Allegiant · 09-13-2020, 04:02 PM

A Draftee's Experience: The Jari Heikkinen Example

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Introduction

Around this time last week, you probably would have gotten a confused look if you mentioned the name Jari Heikkinen. In most parts of the hockey world, that much is probably still true. But in today’s SMJHL Entry Draft, the Finnish defender managed to take the first step towards an SHL career by being selected fifth overall by the Quebec City Citadelles. On the eve of the draft, consensus around where Heikkinen should have fallen was clearly split: for some scouts, he was rated around four to six. For others, he was closer the fourteen to twenty spot. But, draft stock only went so far this season: we saw some of the more highly ranked prospects such as Wen Baters and Rude Sniff fall into the second round, while other players saw huge jumps, such as Jonathan Granstrom who managed to claim the third overall position.

To some extent, these sorts of surprises are to be expected. The SMJHL Draft is perhaps even more of an uncertain affair than the SHL Draft proper: on the one hand, you have players who are considered to be proven commodities who may have personal reasons for not wanting to be associated with certain teams, players who come from a long legacy who might be showing the beginning signs of being a bust — but whose name value might carry them to a high pick, and players who are largely unknowns but have the promise to exceed expectations. It may be a generalization, but in a lot of cases those known players go on to be decent to good players, while the unknown players go on to be both the most spectacular busts, and the most spectacular successes of the draft.

Oftentimes, it’s the player with less clout heading into the SMJHL Draft that proves themselves to be a franchise player down the road.

Jari Heikkinen was, of course, not one of those players. Although he isn’t well known himself, the agency representing him is a little bit more familiar. That may be one of the main boons for Heikkinen’s rise in draft stock over the course of the past week, but it was probably also the main thing keeping it down to begin with. Heikkinen comes from an agency that has produced a couple notable successes in the past, but its most recent high-profile acquisition in Will Windsor had an unremarkable career: going in the fourth round of both the SMJHL and SHL Entry Drafts. Although he did set the standard for shot blocking at the SMJHL level, that kind of statistical success only goes so far.

It will be the upcoming season that really determines whether Quebec City made a good choice in selecting Heikkinen so high in the draft, but clearly they felt that his particular style of play could benefit their roster overall. But while there will be ample time for Heikkinen to prove himself (or not, as it were), it’s worth taking the time to reflect on the past week — using Heikkinen as a case study into the experience of an SMJHL draftee, from start to finish of the whole, whirlwind process.

September 6th

It was late Sunday evening last week when Jari Heikkinen declared himself formally for the draft. The Newfoundland Berserkers had just defeated the Maine Timber in the SMJHL playoffs by a final series score of 4-2. It was then that the call came in, spelling about the end of one player’s SHL hopes in Will Windsor, while sparking the beginnings of another player’s journey in Heikkinen. There has already been enough written on Heikkinen’s style of play and his hopes for the draft, such that this article does not need to cover any familiar ground. Instead, we’ll look at how the week of training, being scouted, and in some cases talking to team management played out. This is not a story likely to be unique to Heikkinen: rather, it’s a part of every player’s pre-draft experience, albeit in different forms.

The first talk of any prospective draft destinations came not from SMJHL scouts, but from late-night discussions between Heikkinen and familiar managers that very Sunday. It was only short hours after the Maine Timber learned of the departure of Windsor that they also received notice that Heikkinen held some interest in joining the team to help fill that gap. Around the same time, friends of Heikkinen’s from another SMJHL team reached out in the hopes that he might be able to join them as their own team sought additional depth to continue on their success.

This is perhaps one of those aspects of Heikkinen’s draft that sets players coming from familiar agencies aside from more unknown players: while Heikkinen himself was new, there already existed a social network there from which to draw on to both explore the prospective interest of teams that hadn’t reached out, and for teams to reach out in turn by leveraging friendly faces. This social aspect to the SMJHL, and indeed the SHL proper, is one of the greatest tools in the back pocket of any player with a prior agency or legacy heading into the draft. It can also be, as noted, one of the main drawbacks.

This also brings us to an interesting phenomena, one that marked much of Heikkinen’s early conversations with SMJHL representatives. That is, the couple of instances in which it was familiar players on particular teams that most wanted their team to consider drafting Heikkinen, even if it wasn’t with a particularly high pick. While sometimes interest came from general managers themselves, just as often a player with a traceable reputation will have members of a particular team lobbying for them to be drafted or, in more negative instances, lobbying against their inclusion on the team.

In some cases, the players provide a spark of interest for a manager to look into a certain player. In other cases, the team’s interest in that player could be cursory, something explored only to satiate the desire of the players to play with their friends: it’s better, after all, to at least express interest in a player than it is to admit that you don’t think that they fit the team’s needs. The push and pull between familiar players and unfamiliar managers is perhaps one of the most common dynamics inside most organization’s scouting teams, and is at least part of why some player’s draft stock is so difficult to truly ascertain.

September 9th

It was on the Wednesday before the draft that direct conversations between Heikkinen and team management really started to pick up. As the week’s pre-draft festivities began to enter full-swing, there was more opportunity for managers to get firsthand experience with him outside of what their players may or may not have said behind closed doors. At this point, it was still early in the process, and much of the conversation remained in the form of simple questions and answers. The SMJHL Draft is, even moreso than its SHL counterpart, a game of last-minute cramming and last-minute conversations.

Despite the relatively quiet start to the week, Heikkinen’s name began to circulate around league media a little more. While he largely escaped lists and rankings of those players who were the furthest along, and he never really came close to scraping that celebrated top three, the process of participating in, producing, or encouraging the production of league media is another important step in any rookie’s draft experience. It isn’t mandatory by any means, but sometimes the appearance of activity is all it takes to take someone’s draft stock from around the bottom to somewhere closer to the top.

Of course, it’s no guarantee: even a player who gives it their all and dedicates untold hours to working away before the draft can easily burn out a week or two after they make it to their team. Overactivity can be as much of a warning bell as can underactivity. Again, the SMJHL side of the draft is woefully imprecise, and a draftee seeking to raise their stock must at once appear committed to improvement, without seeming so committed that they’re liable to burn themselves out before they can really make a difference on the ice.

September 12th

Conversations with SMJHL teams remained infrequent over the next couple of days. Another new team reached out on the 10th and held sustained discussions with Heikkinen over the next couple of days, but for the most part the time was dedicated to either returning to old conversations with scouts, partaking in surface level discussions, or simply rifling through the rumour mill. Many players want to try to figure out their own draft stock before the day rolls around, and such was no different for Heikkinen — but unless a team outright states it intends to draft a player, that stock can be impossible to really accurately predict. Every team rates players differently, and while one team might feel a player is only worth a second or a third, another team might look at them at a first round lock.

The Saturday evening of the draft was dedicated to more social activities between players and managers. Some conversations were held, e-mails were sent back and forth, and Heikkinen attended a couple fun-focused meet and greets. Events ran late into the night, and both players and managers alike were given every opportunity to get more comfortable with each-other before the big day. But contact doesn’t stop at the end of the night, and occasionally messages may come in past midnight, or even early morning, as teams try to work around often mismatching personal schedules.

September 13th

The final discussions Heikkinen had came mid-morning on the day of the draft. With teams finalizing their draft boards a few hours before proverbial game-time, any remaining personal questions had to be cleared up. It’s around this time that questions really have to be clear and concise. While scouts who build relationships with players at the start of draft week have a little time to get a feel for a player, last-minute talks often center around a few of the most important questions: what is the player looking for in a team, and how do they feel about being drafted by that particular organization.

The late-hour approach has an obvious drawback in that there isn’t much time to build a relationship with the player, but it does have a couple hidden advantages. Key among them is the tendency for managers to try to glean information on which other teams might be after a prospective player. If you don’t show your hand until the last few hours, there’s less chance that the player you’re after will speak up to another team and inspire a trade or two to shut you out of a pick you want.

There is also, simply put, not enough time in the course of a week or two to actually talk to every potential draftee to your team. Sometimes there just isn’t time to get to all of the players you would like to, especially when it comes to those you’re looking at as a back-up selection, or someone who you didn’t know particularly well to begin with, but who came onto your radar with their efforts in training later into the week.

The Draft

This probably goes without saying. The Draft is simultaneously the most exciting, and the most stressful moment for anyone involved in it. While managers get to deal with the anticipation and anxiety of trying to make good on all that scouting to refill their teams, players have a unique perspective on it. If a player is brand new and doesn’t know much about the league, it’s likely to be more exciting than it is stressful: if you have no prior history with teams, then the most you’re liable to judge anyone on are the surface level discussions you held throughout the week, and the aesthetics of their team.

For returning players, even those who state they will play for any team, there are almost inevitably going to be deep-seated preferences. Without getting into any names, Jari Heikkinen certainly had them: there were simply some teams that he wanted to play for more than others, and maybe one or two that he had only limited interest in. This can be a trap for players such as Heikkinen, as sometimes the team reputations that are passed down to them by their respective agencies have long since given way. To use an SHL example, would it be fair to judge the San Francisco Pride of Season 56 by the actions of the Portland Admirals during their trade-a-day phase? Probably not. But a lot of players inevitably fall into it.

Today’s draft was perhaps a more uncertain experience than most, as several trades were announced in the first two rounds. Rather than the usual fare of late-round picks being swapped for other late-round picks as teams try to recoup assets they can’t use right away, this year saw teams actively trying to move up or move down: some teams clearly viewed the draft as shallow, and not without merit. Others were able to pick out those players without much attention that they had pretty good reports on, and were able to make use of that ‘shallow draft’ stigma to their advantage. For Jari Heikkinen, there was at least a little panic or anticipation each time a draft call was made before that selection at fifth overall.

The Destination

For Heikkinen, the end result of the draft was a positive one. Going into the event, the Quebec City Citadelles had established themselves as one of his favoured destinations. Although he would have played for any team, there’s something satisfying about going to a team that you had already had promising discussions with, and that you had at least had a chance to establish some kind of relationship with beforehand. For Heikkinen, that means less of a learning curve as he looks to join the team in the next couple of days for training camp. But that isn’t the case for every player. Rather, many players are drafted by teams that had no prior stated interest in them, and which they really don’t have a feel for until a few days into training camp.

That experience also falls to the differing strategies of scouting teams and whether or not teams were actually able to get their targets: the farther down the draft you go, the less likely you are to have had a real chance to get to know the team drafting you. A glance at mock drafts are enough evidence that people really don’t have a good indication of how SMJHL prospects are valued by other scouts, and the same can likely be said for scouts working inside teams.

Conclusion

The key take-aways from this case study should be that the experience of a player in the SMJHL Entry Draft is, at its core, an uncertain one. There isn’t enough time for players to prove themselves, and there isn’t enough time for teams to really get a feel for the players they might trade. Joining the SMJHL is an experiment in last-minute conversations, awkward meetings, and uneasy first steps. For a player with enough pre-existing contacts to put out feelers in different teams, things are a little more settled. But even then, the week before the draft speaks to one obvious truth: you can’t do your homework before that homework exists. Players declare for the draft a week or two before the big day hits, and unless a scouting team has a lot of extra man hours to throw around, even the best organizations will struggle to truly be thorough with it.

But, that’s also what makes it interesting as a player — and everyone who went through it should expect some real differences when it comes time to interact with SHL teams. Anyone who hasn’t gone through it yet should expect, as indeed has been the theme of much of this article, for a lot to happen at once. The keyword that best describes the whole process remains the one we started this article on: ‘whirlwind’.

LordBirdman · 09-13-2020, 07:38 PM

Great read, best of luck to Heikkinen

Evok · 09-14-2020, 01:03 AM

God that was amazing to read, thanks for writing this @Allegiant

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