Drafting Strategy Quotes

I've said for years I could never figure out why Calgary ever drafted me. When I got there, I think they had eight or nine right wingers already. These guys were premiere players. It's not like they were extremely late in their careers, either.

When a car's ahead of you, as long as you can see it, you get a tow, just like the draft in NASCAR. Even if it's a long ways down the track, it punches a hole in the air that has to help. When you're running alone, you can feel the difference, and it shows on the clock, too.

You look at the NBA: there's all these young kids that are drafted on potential. They go to bad teams, they're in bad locker rooms, and now we got this analytics stuff that doesn't teach kids how to play. We've got these workout coaches that don't teach kids how to play basketball.

The type of athletes we draft still need types of versatility on the defense side of the ball, run the offense. You should still be concerned on the offense side of the ball.

You have to build your core nucleus of your team through your draft. What that does is you basically introduce them to your culture and your environment. Then, as guys begin to perform and play to that level, then you say, 'You know what? You guys deserve an extension, so here it is.'

If you draft a player to be a backup, why did you draft him? You're drafting a guy because you think he's worthy of being drafted at that spot, but you're also drafting him because you think he can compete. If you're going to say, 'This guy's a backup,' - really? That doesn't make any sense to me.

Listen, we've drafted guys that wouldn't come in for workouts before. It's not the end of the world.

I don't know if six picks in a draft is a record, it's not the kind of thing I would look at, but it's unusual.

I've always thought that having an attractive free agent is better than a guy who was picked in the seventh round.

I mean drafting is a hard process because you're picking between 23-year-olds sometimes and 19-year-olds that have great upside, and some guys that are just great character but have limited physical skills, and some guys that have amazing upside and that are a little more immature, and everywhere in between.

My philosophy is that you don't motivate players with speeches; you have motivated players that you draft. That's where they come in, and those are the guys that are competitive. You can not teach competitiveness.

I think teams make the same decisions every year based on the same information and based on the same decision-making. I think a lot of it is flawed, but it's the way they draft.