Kings’ amateur scouts await ‘Super

The scouts who are shaping the Kings’ future have driven through snowstorms on twisty mountain roads in British Columbia to see games and have crept across the Canadian prairie guided by hope and a GPS device telling them the next turn is 120 miles away.

They’ve looked at gangly, teenaged defensemen for glimpses of what they might become, sought signs that a scrawny winger will develop broad shoulders and tough skin. They’ve projected who’s destined to be a difference-maker, a sixth defenseman at best, a career minor-leaguer.

What they do is less a science than a passion.

It’s the eve of the NHL draft, which begins Friday at Staples Center with the glamorous first round and concludes Saturday with six for-real-fans-only rounds, and the Kings’ amateur scouts are gathered around a table in El Segundo with a visitor observing.

They’re tired. The circles beneath their eyes are the smudgy black of hockey pucks. They’ve worked 20-hour days for weeks but are alert and enthusiastic.

“This is our livelihood. This is our Super Bowl,” said Toronto-based Michael Futa, the Kings’ co-director of amateur scouting.

So although they have 120 kids on their list, they watch videos of a kid one scout saw five times, another saw seven times and a third saw three times. He was highly touted at the start of the last junior season but has slipped, they think.

They watch isolated views of his shifts and decide he lacks poise under pressure and doesn’t pivot well. They assign him a layer, grouping him with players of similar ability.

General Manager Dean Lombardi borrowed the layer concept from the Dallas Cowboys’ Jimmy Johnson, renowned for finding gems in the NFL draft. Some layers have one or two players and others have five or six, especially toward the middle and bottom.

“It’s all about valuing the slot,” Lombardi said, and about having a ready alternative when another team takes a player he had wanted.

The Kings’ first pick Friday is 19th. Unless they move up -- and Lombardi said he saw “the possibility” of going back as part of a trade rather than improving their position -- they won’t get near budding superstars Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin and Cam Fowler.

“The top 10 is a pipedream unless we want to give up a great prospect,” said Boston-based Mark Yannetti, the other co-scouting director. “We rate Hall, Seguin and Fowler. We do our work but we spend the bulk of our time on guys we have a chance to see.”

So they repeatedly scrutinize a kid who might not be chosen until the seventh round. You just never know. Hall of Fame left wing Luc Robitaille was picked 171st in 1984. Center Andrei Loktionov was a fifth-round pick in 2008 but might win a job with the Kings next season. Defenseman Alec Martinez was a fourth-rounder in 2006. And the staff likes the potential of forward Nic Dowd, chosen 198th in 2009.

They go over reports again and again and get insight from those who saw games in person. Tony Gasparini, responsible for scouting the U.S., drives about 60,000 miles each season from his home near Minneapolis. Brent McEwen, who scouts western Canada, drives about 40,000 miles a year.

A few scouts have elite status at major hotels but there aren’t many luxury resorts in junior league or U.S. Hockey League towns. Lombardi joked that pro scouts stay in posh places but amateur scouts rough it.

“These guys are grunts,” he said. “They get Dunkin’ Donuts. These guys are at the Red Roof Inn.”

Each scout files reports on a laptop loaded with special software, but some also take notes by hand. Jack Ferreira, special assistant to Lombardi and a longtime scout, said if he writes an autobiography he’ll call it “Every Other Seat,” for the way scouts position themselves at games.

No one at the table said he had seen a rival scout peek over his shoulder at his laptop, “but you don’t leave it open, either,” Yannetti said.

The Kings’ amateur scouts meet five times a year. They don’t always agree on player evaluations, but that’s healthy. “There are five or six instances where we never come to an accord,” Yannetti said. “Mike and I usually find a way to resolve it. We might break it by position or intangibles or organization need.”

Lombardi trusts them enough to have cut back his scouting trips last season. “We’re going to make mistakes but I don’t want to make mistakes in how we do things,” he said. “The best staffs have been together a while. I think this group works well together.”

We’ll see for sure this weekend and in the coming years.

--

helene.elliott@latimes.com

twitter.com/helenenothelen