With the NHL Draft approaching, director Dan Marr outlines how the Central Scouting Bureau works for all 32 teams

Boston Globe

6 days ago

After some thought, he changed his mind.
'So, I said I would if they gave me a three-year contract and a great pay raise,' Marr said. 'So, they did.'
Marr rose through the ranks quickly as he coordinated Toronto's scouting departments and training camps. His reputation grew quickly, too.
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'Atlanta offered me the head scout's job when it came into the league [in 1998],' said Marr, who stayed with the Thrashers until they moved to Winnipeg.
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In 2011, Marr succeeded E.J. McGuire as director of the NHL's Central Scouting Bureau.
'Hockey moves in mysterious ways,' said Marr, reflecting on his journey.
The CSB is a service for all 32 teams, supplementing the clubs' scouting departments. The Bureau provides critical logistical information, amateur player reports and rankings, and facilitates next month's combine in Buffalo.
Every team has access to the CSB website, which provides updates and information for Bureau and team scouts as they set their itineraries.
'The information pertains to schedules, tournaments, and the status of players,' said Marr. 'We send out alerts to the clubs on player injuries, player suspensions, any changes to the players, any changes to game times, start times, and/or game cancellations.'
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All league personnel get CSB updates.
'So, if we get notified in the morning that a kid in Red Deer [Alberta] broke his ankle last night and then he's going to be out for 4-6 weeks, we can send an alert out within minutes alerting them,' Marr said. 'And there could be a couple of scouts that flew into Calgary and their plan was to go to Red Deer that night and see this kid play. Well, now they don't show up at the rink and find out he is hurt and waste their day. Now they know in advance so they can change their schedule, maybe go to a game in Calgary or Lethbridge or Medicine Hat ... Instead of having wasted the night, they can now go somewhere else and knock a couple of other players off their lists. So, it's quite a cost savings to the teams.'
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Marr oversees an army of scouts across North America and the CSB's European arm, which is led by J.P. Vuorinen. In all, the scouts will see about 3,000 games as they prepare their rankings in anticipation of the NHL Draft.
When Marr joined the CSB, he instituted a grading scale of A (first-round candidate), B (second and third), and C (fourth and beyond).
'We do our comprehensive rankings in midseason, which is Rounds 1-7, and then a final rankings,' said Marr. 'And we have our own philosophy with putting a list together. Whereas teams may have more in-depth philosophy with their drafting [lists], ours, we simplify it, we just take what the player does well on the ice. It's all on-ice. We don't do interviews; we don't do parents. We don't worry about if the player's got a bit of a history. That's for the teams to decide. Ours is just basically what he does on the ice.'
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Marr will get calls from teams inquiring why a player has moved up or down the rankings and why the CSB lists might differ from the club's list.
Communication is key when it comes to putting rankings together. CSB scouts check in with Marr often. Before the final North American lists come out (skaters and goaltenders) the scouts gather in Toronto for lively debate, discussions, and several rounds of voting to come up with a finished project.
Vuorinen conducts a similar process to compile the European lists.
'It's a process that works. The scouts have to be very respectful of each other's opinion because there's a lot of give and take when you put a big list together like that,' said Marr. 'And our guys are very respectful of each other's opinion and each other's experience. And everyone always agrees and says the same thing, that we all have an individual list going into the meetings, but the best list coming out of the meetings is the group list.'
Marr said the league likes to have the final rankings out before the draft lottery. Once complete, his team's focus turns to the combine, which runs June 1-7.
'There's a lot of moving parts when it comes to the combine because it entails a medical evaluation of the player, setting up interviews with the 32 teams for the players, and organizing the fitness testing with the strength coaches and the test vendors,' said Marr. 'So, it's quite a project, but we've got it down to a system to where the teams are happy with it and everything flows.'
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Once the draft ends — Marr noted that 85 percent of players ranked by the CSB get drafted — the cycle begins a week later when summer camps begin.
Marr said the CSB takes being a 'service department' for teams very seriously and is constantly looking for input on ways to improve.
'Anything we do, we survey the clubs just to find out, 'Would you like us to pursue doing this or doing that?' So, I think we're at a pretty good stage right now where the compliments outnumber the complaints, put it that way,' he said.
Jim McBride can be reached at