NHL scouting staffs rarely garner much media attention. They work long hours and log countless miles in near anonymity, with their one moment in the sun coming at the NHL Draft. This is the third story in a series about the Coyotes’ amateur scouting staff — a series that will shed light on the lifeblood of the Coyotes’ rebuilding efforts by profiling the staff members and examining individual and collective roles. The series will conclude before the 2022 NHL Draft in Montréal. You can read the first and second stories in the series by following these links.
Ryan Jankowski flew from the IIHF World Championship in Finland to Buffalo on Monday, marking the first time that he has been back in that city for the NHL Scouting Combine since the Sabres purged 22 staff members in June 2020 after the team missed the playoffs for an NHL-high ninth straight season.
GM Jason Botterill, assistant GMs Randy Sexton, Steve Greeley and 13 members of the scouting department were released, including Jankowski, who was in his third season as the director of amateur scouting.
“It was really disappointing because I really felt we were onto something special with the people that we had, and some of the players we had drafted, and some of the players that were there before,” said Jankowski, now the Coyotes associate director of amateur scouting. “I just wanted to see the thing through.
“It’s strange going back for the first time with the Coyotes but we have all moved on to other opportunities and that excitement of what we have in front of us is what overrides the disappointment of the past.”
GM Bill Armstrong hired Jankowski in October 2020 to work alongside director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski in what Armstrong terms a complementary relationship. Unlike the Plandowski hire, however, the Jankowski hire drew less fanfare and even some criticism. It was a guilt-by-association analysis that barely scratched the surface of Jankowski’s abilities, or delved into the nuance surrounding the Sabres’ situation.
If analysts had looked a little deeper, they might have drawn different conclusions. Jankowski oversaw a total of two drafts in Buffalo; 2018 and 2019. To suggest that he was in any way responsible for the Sabres’ playoff drought is, to put it bluntly, moronic analysis. The players that his staff drafted such as Rasmus Dahlin, Dylan Cozens and Mattias Samuelsson hadn’t even had a chance to prove whether they were good picks before his tenure was over, and they arguably still have not had that chance. Moreover, if you ask Armstrong, he will tell you that he believes the Sabres are not far off being very good, with their 14-7-3 finish to the 2021-22 season a possible tease of what’s to come.
“People are so myopic,” said TSN analyst Craig Button, a lifelong Jankowski friend. “The New York Rangers just got to the conference final and I’m hearing lots and lots of praise for (their former GM) Jeff Gorton — deserved praise for Jeff Gorton — but that wasn’t the case when the Rangers fired him. It was, ‘Oh, the Rangers underachieved.’
“So you tell me: What did Ryan Jankowski do wrong in Buffalo? I’m not on the inside where I can say positively that he didn’t do anything wrong, but let’s be honest. He was just part of a purge. That happens when a GM gets fired but other people knew what he was capable of. Bill knew what he was capable of, and one of the things that I’ve always seen with Ryan is he takes responsibility for the things that don’t go right and he’ll give praise to all the other people for the things that do go right. To me, that’s a leader.”
That’s precisely what Armstrong saw when he hired Jankowski, and it’s what Botterill saw when he hired him five years ago to lead his staff.
“There’s a passion that you have to have as a scout,” said Botterill, now an AGM for the Seattle Kraken. “As great as it is that Ryan gets paid to go watch hockey games, traveling as a crossover scout is an immense job. He’s crossing over different time zones into different cultures, working long hours and somehow he still has an upbeat personality when he interacts with his staff.
“When he’s running the meetings, he’s sharp, he has done his homework, he has a great library of information on those players in his mind and he’s energetic. It’s not fake at all. It’s natural and it sets the tone for the rest of the staff.”
The apple and the tree
You could make the argument that Jankowski’s scouting career began at age 8. His dad, Lou, scouted for the St. Louis Blues and Washington Capitals before spending 15 seasons with the New York Rangers (1979-94). Ryan loved playing hockey, but he loved accompanying his dad on scouting trips even more.
Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Kamloops, Seattle and his hometown of Calgary were the most frequented cities, but Jankowski saw hockey at multiple levels, and he watched plenty of players on their rise to the NHL ranks, including Sutter brothers Ron and Rich, who helped lead Lethbridge to the WHL title in 1983. When the weekends were over, Ryan would always make it back in time for school; somehow well rested despite some harrowing trips through the western Canadian winters.
“I would just sleep in the backseat while my dad drove home,” he said, laughing. “I just wanted to watch hockey, but watching my dad network with the other scouts left an impression on me. My dad was so well regarded by the other scouts and other people in the league because he cared about people, but he also cared about his work.
“I remember him sitting at the kitchen table writing out reports with his hands and he would make triplicate copies. Two copies would go to the office, one copy would stay at home, but when he watched games, he wouldn’t take any notes. He just sat back and watched the players play, keeping everything in his head.”
With the help of Tim Speltz — then the Spokane Chiefs GM; now the GM of the Henderson Silver Knights — Ryan got his first scouting gig in 1997 for the Chiefs, where Mike Babcock was coaching. He spent six years in the minor leagues before he got an opportunity to scout for Hockey Canada in the western provinces. That led to a similar position with the New York Islanders, before his career took an impactful turn.
In 2003, the Islanders promoted him to head European scout, a role that required him to move to Prague where he coordinated scouts in multiple European countries. He spent three years in that role.
“It was an unbelievable time in my life,” he said. “You’re going to all these countries for the first time; being alone in Moscow. You’re learning the different aspects of the countries.
“My apartment in Prague became home. I’d go for a walk to the castle, and you’d walk to the bridge and see all the sights of Prague. I remember I had just finished my first road trip and I just couldn’t wait to get home and flip on the TV. Well, there’s nothing more frustrating than being an expat living in the Czech Republic, being away for 28 days, coming home, flipping on the TV and seeing Seinfeld dubbed over in German. It only truly became home for me once I got high-speed internet and I got satellite TV from Britain so I could watch British and North American shows.”
Learning multiple cultures wasn’t the only type of education that Jankowski absorbed as he watched the likes of Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Anže Kopitar develop into high draft picks.
“From his time over there, and then being a part of Hockey Canada and all these international tournaments, I think he’s gotten a very good feel for the different styles of the countries and what a European player goes through; some of the challenges that they have to experience in making an adjustment off the ice from going from Europe to North America,” Botterill said. “It’s an incredible tool for a scout. That ability to further understand where people are coming from and what adversity they might be feeling just allows him to, one, make a proper evaluation, but then also help the player enter the organization when they do make the transition over to North America, and help them to become a successful NHL player.”
Jankowski deepened his global understanding of the game with stints as the Islanders assistant GM (2006-10), a scout for the Canadiens (2010-13) and a four-year run with Hockey Canada (2013-17) in various roles that expanded his knowledge of team building and management processes.
Through it all, Jankowski maintained that positive and open approach that numerous people in his past cite as one of his most notable personality traits.
“We’re doing the World Junior tournament in the bubble and (eventual Sabres 2020 draft pick) JJ Paterka is really playing well for Germany,” Button said. “Ryan sends me a note saying that the scout in Buffalo (Frank Musil) deserves a lot of credit for really pushing for JJ Paterka because Buffalo has a really good player there. This is just after he’d been let go by the Sabres. He didn’t sit there saying ‘Well, yeah they’re using our draft list.’ He wasn’t bitter. He was looking at the positives for a team that just fired him. I think that encapsulates Ryan.”
Fortifying a long neglected foundation
When the Coyotes hired Armstrong as the seventh GM in franchise history, he sought to fortify the foundation of the franchise by focusing on a long neglected area: scouting. He knew he wanted Plandowski, but when Jankowski also became available, he had a giddy thought that few outside of the scouting world could have understood.
“I thought to myself, ‘Good, gosh, if we can land these two guys with this type of experience, that would be huge for the organization because it would allow us to hit the ground running,’” Armstrong said. “It’s like we put yin and yang together. Ryan’s really good at managing, he’s really good at the details, he’s really good at getting stuff organized for all the meetings and making sure the schedules work. Darryl is more about aligning players and making decisions and lists and examining our evaluations; that kind of stuff.
“They work really well together. Their personalities really complement each other and bring out the best in each other and I think their energy has filtered down to the staff.”
Jankowski understands how vital the 2022 NHL Draft is to the Coyotes’ future. With seven picks among the first 45 selections, the Coyotes could acquire several pieces for their rebuilding efforts.
Both he and Plandowski have spent an inordinate amount time in Europe this season because many scouts believe that continent will be particularly fruitful this season, along with the Western Hockey League and the USA NTDP. But the scouting staff has also pounded the pavement, taking to sources in prospects’ lives, trying to cull every bit of information that they can.
“For sure, you are going to get biased opinions,” he said, when noting the challenge in talking to parents, teachers and coaches of prospects. “What you have to do is you have to filter through that. It takes years, but over the years, you know who’s telling the truth, who’s lying, who’s fudging the truth and who you can really trust at the end of the day. That’s a little bit more of an art and you just learn to kind of weed through all that.”
That’s where experience comes in.
“Experience is huge but even after years in this business you’re still learning,” he said. “I’m still maturing, I’m still growing as a scout. Talking with Darryl and hearing his experiences helps. Talking with Bill and hearing his experiences helps. And talking to Larry Pleau; he’s been around a long time. He’s been a general manager and he worked with my dad back with the Rangers so he’s an unbelievable resource.
“Look, we’re gonna make mistakes. Hopefully they’re not catastrophic mistakes in the first round, or with a high pick, and you do everything you can to reduce the risk, but you’re gonna make mistakes. I’m not a super scout. Darryl is not a super scout, but we have to believe in our opinions. We have to believe in the work we put in and the process. And we have to believe in our guys.”
As the Coyotes put the finishing touches on their pre-draft work this week at the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo, Jankowski is eager to put the hard work that his scouting staff has conducted into play.
“I want the guys to be the ones that get the recognition because at least I get to stand on a stage or announce a pick or do an interview here or there,” Jankowski said. “That never happens for Cory Banika or Teal Fowler and they deserve it. They’re the ones tramping all over their areas and watching their players and weeding through a lot of bad hockey and some players that don’t make the cuts to find the players. That’s just the way it operates.
“It’s all about the team and we deserve credit as a whole when we draft a player who has success because it shows that the process is working and that we’re all kind of challenging each other to be better.”
