In case you didn’t see it, Sens TV has a new edition of their behind-the-scenes look at scouting meetings. It has less intrigue than last year’s Senate Reform (TM Silversevens and janked by everyone else), where the Sens had several picks and needed to kick off their rebuild right. But I’m glad to say that the overturned milk crates with mics taped to them make their glorious return.

Also, check out the cabinets full of scotch in the background:

Is there a better job in the world? It’s like Mad Men, except nobody has a particularly impressive vocabulary. At one point one of the scouts says “warrior. battler. fighter.” or something to that effect, apparently not caring that these all mean the same things.

What I find most interesting is that these guys even spend time arguing over the semantics of whether a guy is going to be second line or third line. Why don’t they just have some formula mocked up wherein they plug in each scout’s assessment of each player’s tools, combine the values and weight them appropriately relative to 1) how much that scout saw of that prospect, and 2) the importance of each tool to the team’s overall system, and then have the formula spit out a value to rank each player. I don’t know, maybe they already do that, and this scrum is just the process of refining each scout’s individual ranking. And of course it’s a two minute thingy on the promotional website, here for our entertainment. But the process seems frustratingly inefficient. “Let’s argue about every single available player and then rank them.” It would be a fun job, but a silly process.

Interesting to note that the players available at 15th overall are probably third liners and defenseman who can move the puck but aren’t top pairing, and the scouts seem to bear this out. They reveal about everything they can without giving away who they prefer, but none of what’s being said is particularly electric. All this to say that the pick this year is ripe for a trade. Just as Murray traded the 16th overall pick for David Rundblad, perhaps you see management trade this year’s pick for a prospect a year ahead in their development. Or maybe you see it packaged with one or more of Ottawa’s prospects or roster players to make a big splash for a player like Rick Nash, though obviously I wouldn’t bet on that.

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It’s been a while since we updated. Sorry about that. I want to take this opportunity to express some admiration for both SilverSeven and The6thSens, who have been updating almost daily, somehow, despite the utter lack of anything to write about. And they’ve made it interesting, too. Those guys know what they’re doing. But back to us.

One thing I noted was this Puck Daddy piece on how the Wild are expected to outbid everyone for Zach Parise. We also know that Carolina is going to spend to the cap to try and bring him in. My thoughts on this are well documented.

I feel so, so sorry for the fans of franchises like Minnesota’s. If Brad Richards could get the kind of deal he got – he scored 66 points and was a -1 last season, and he made TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS on the first year of a nine year deal – then we can expect the bidding to get absolutely nutty for Parise, who is younger and has a higher ceiling. What do you think it gets up to? Could we see another deal of Kovalchuck-ian proportions, topping $100 million? If the league is open to deals that take the player to 42 years old, Parise could get 15 years.

And all this after the Los Angeles Kings win the Cup after years and years of patient building and drafting. Sure, they brought in expensive free agents, but they waited until their window of contention was open before they traded those prospects and spent that cash. Not only did they win, they could repeat with most of that lineup intact. Hell, they can even afford to go after Parise if they wanted to. Will the Wild and Hurricanes ever learn? Hopefully Sens brass take the lesson to heart.