On July 9, Alain Chainey hopped on The Sick Podcast with Tony Marinaro to discuss his scouting experiences with an NHL organization.
Chainey spent 20 seasons with the Ducks, three as a scout from 1993 to 1996 before becoming their director of amateur scouting. He then became the director of player development in 2008 and remained in that position until 2012.
Given his work, Chainey has plenty of stories from his time with the Ducks and shared some of these stories with Marinaro.
“If you want to draft a top-6 forward in the NHL, first of all, for us, it was hockey sense first,” Chainey said. “Even if you’re not a great skater, if you can compensate by having great hands (or) great hockey sense or lots of creativity, you’re going to have a chance to be a hell of a player in the NHL.”
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Hockey sense was and still is an attribute that the Ducks greatly value when targeting players in the draft. They did it last season with Leo Carlsson and again this year with Beckett Sennecke and Stian Solberg.
“To say your hockey sense, you’re born with it, yes it is,” Chainey said. “But you can also have help from your coach. It’s just a question of maturity with the puck and making the right decisions with and without the puck––and also defensively.”
Martin Madden Jr., who is currently the Ducks’ head scout, was tabbed by Chainey for that position as Chainey began to ease off on his workload toward the end of his tenure with the Ducks.
“I told my GM: ‘I have a man in mind who could do a good job for the Ducks and replace me’ and I suggested Martin Madden Jr. and Martin Madden accepted the job and since then, he’s done a hell of a job. He’s the best in the business.”
Madden joined the Ducks in 2008 after several seasons as a scout for the New York Rangers and the Carolina Hurricanes. He took over as the director of amateur scouting from Chainey with Chainey moving to become director of player development.
“I know Martin very well, obviously he’s a friend of mine,” Chainey said. “What he’s doing in Anaheim is absolutely incredible. Year after year, drafting great players. The projection is perfect for them and he likes to go with upside, meaning that the player has a chance to get better.”
Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry were both selected by the Ducks in the first round of the 2003 NHL Draft, arguably the best draft class in NHL history given how many of those players went on to become All-Stars, Stanley Cup champions and Hall of Famers.
For Chainey, it was a surprise to see Getzlaf––whom Chainey had sixth overall on his list––still available at 19th overall when it came time for the Ducks to pick.
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“We loved Ryan Getzlaf,” Chainey said. “The problem with Getzlaf was not the fact that he didn’t have great upside, it was the fact that some nights, he was not showing a lot of intensity. But, as a group of scouts, we’d been lucky enough to see Getzlaf play. And most of the time, he was very good.”
The Ducks traded up to select Perry with the 28th overall pick, sending picks No. 36 and 54 to the Dallas Stars. Perry slid in the draft due to his poor skating. Diagnosed with clubfoot when he was six months old, Perry had to wear a cast on his foot to correct it.
“He couldn’t skate,” Chainey said. “Corey Perry was a bad skater. From a scale of 1 to 5, he was a 1. Bad skater. But he had very good hands and a lot of character. A lot of dedication.”
Trevor Zegras has been at the forefront of many trade rumors over the past several months. The Montréal Canadiens have been one of the teams rumored to be interested in Zegras, so it was unsurprising for Marinaro to query Chainey about the Ducks’ No. 11.
“He likes to put on a show on the ice and he’s very spectacular with the puck, he’s a very good player, a lot of talent,” Chainey said. “He’s going to gain in maturity, he’s a very young player.”
If all that is true, Marinaro asks, then why would the Ducks want to trade him? Chainey doesn’t think they want to.
“I think they want to keep him. I really think they want to keep him,” said Chainey. “The Ducks have drafted many defensemen and they had a chance to move one of them, Jamie Drysdale, to get one of the best players outside of the NHL in Cutter Gauthier.
“Maybe Zegras will end up on the (wing), Gauthier being a center. So they have some possibilities that they can do. But I have the impression (the Ducks) want to keep (Zegras).”
Gauthier played on the wing in the singular NHL game he got into this past season and projects as a winger this upcoming season with Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish down the middle. Zegras too may return to the wing after he played center to finish out with 2023-24 season when McTavish was hurt.
You can watch Chainey’s entire interview with Marinaro on YouTube here:
