Mark Yannetti on If Size is Back in Style for NHL Teams

When Mark Yannetti visits Kings Of The Podcast, based on fan feedback, he ranks among the best guests to be featured on the show. His breadth and depth of answers are second to none. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a more open sports executive, who effortlessly educates those paying attention whenever he speaks.

Over the past 18 years, Yannetti has served as the central figure among the LA Kings various scouting groups focused on NHL prospects. As the current Director of Amateur Scouting, he has proven to be one of the most knowledgeable people in the game.

As such, there was a treasure trove of insights and behind the scenes nuggets that were shared during his 75+ minute interview last week. Although that’s far too much to transcribe, we’ll share some select highlights via a series of articles over the next few weeks.

First up, let’s tackle one of the trendy topics around the league this month. A few years after the Kings won their championships in 2012 and 2014, there was a push by most clubs to go for ‘speed and skill’ over size; a notion that seems to be seeing the pendulum swing back the other direction throughout most of the chatter during this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs.

With that in mind, Yannetti was asked if size was back in style heading into the 2024 NHL Draft:

[ed. note: the below transcript is a 95% word-for-word recap, with unmercenary transitions and misc. words removed, along with some minor paraphrasing done for clarity when reading]

“When everything is equal, size matters,” began the veteran hockey mind, speaking through his occasional thick Boston accent. “Size doesn’t matter for size-sake, but you certainly would rather be big and fast than small and fast, or even average size and fast. You want to be big and smart, rather than average size and smart. So, size matters. But there’s heavy size and there’s soft size. I would love to have a bunch of 6-foot-4 Drew Doughty’s running around our blueline, with a little sprinkle of [Victor] Hedman and maybe some Darian Hatcher thrown in.

“There are certain things we have to do to fill out the roster and I hope each year […] we learn some lessons along the way about how to build a better mousetrap for next year. One of the things would be to get — and Rob [Blake] said it, it’s not like it’s a secret — we have the skill part down. I think we have the speed part down. So, yes, size is important; but it’s a scale. At what point does size and skill hit a tipping point, or size and skating hit that balance point? At what point does the smaller, better player win out? And at what point does the size mute some of the other things, and the size win out?

“Size matters, up to a point. Then it doesn’t. Size can’t trump a big gap. It can trump a smaller gap. But, at the end of the day, if you have a bunch of [tall guys] who can’t get the puck up quickly or they can’t gain a zone, then it doesn’t do you any good. When we won our Cups, everyone thought we were this big, heavy team. We were, but that’s not what we were building. We were building a team to do two things: a team that got the puck up the ice as fast as possible — out of our zone and into [the opposition’s] zone as fast as possible, and [we wanted guys who] when they lost possession or didn’t have possession, got it back as fast as possible. Those were the two things that we were really looking to do.

“And the fact that some of the guys had size was great, but Drew wasn’t really big, [Slava] Voynov wasn’t really big, [Alec] Martinez wasn’t really big. Matt Greene was; he was the right guy in the right role on the right side. Having Kopitar as your center [was great]but he has all the other attributes too.

“There are plenty of teams out there that tried to [copy us]. They got what we were doing wrong. They tried to mimic the big, heavy thing, or the truculent thing or the tough thing. It doesn’t work when that’s the first ingredient. When that’s the primary attribute you’re looking to do, I don’t think it works.”

When it comes to the Draft, Yannetti is still convinced you go about things in a more systematic way than simply saying, ‘Draft bigger players.’

“You create tiers,” he explained. “Then, if you have five players in a tier, now size matters. If you have three smaller players in a tier and a big player in a tier, it’s obvious. If that’s what you want to do, you take the big player in the tier. Then it works, then it’s sound and that’s logical. Size is not the primary factor, but it’s the separating equal factor between four or five fairly assets.

“Then again, size in itself doesn’t necessarily mean heaviness, doesn’t necessarily mean competitive, doesn’t necessarily mean ‘hard to play against.’ We can think of 10 big soft guys offhand who don’t really impact the game. And we could think of 5-foot-10 guys who impact the game like a bigger guy does, like a heavier guy does. Then style comes into it. There are so many subtleties and layers to the size argument or the size debate. But people get fixated on just the obvious ‘size’ thing.

“Are Florida’s big defensemen more important than their small D? I don’t know. I think you could make a really good case for either. Now, you get into team building, the blend of it is really good. You have a perceived smaller guy — and it’s possible roster construction, and it’s a little bit of luck too — where the right-handed, or the left-handed smaller D, fits with the right-handed tall D, and they complement each other . When it works like that, now you have all the ingredients working together.”

“It’s a longer process to do it like that. It’s a good process, but if you have another team with three small guys, and three big guys that don’t fit, now the size is lost. The complementary, the cohesion of it, doesn’t work. So, there’s a lot of things that go into it. In the Draft, I would want every guy in the tier to be 6-foot-4 to make things easier. It’s just not often the case.”

From there, the conversation turned off to talk about roster construction in LA for a bit and then circled back to a pair of tall prospects that should be arriving in the NHL soon — Andre Lee and Sammy Helenius.

It was pointed out that the duo formed Ontario’s best line during the recent AHL Calder Cup playoffs, with both elevating their game down the stretch of the 2023-24 regular season and then again in the post-season. Lee, specifically, seemed to find the balance of playing physical, aggressive, and yet contained, to where he doesn’t take a lot of penalties. Yannetti was asked if he agreed with that assessment.

“Absolutely!” he declared, without any hesitation. “And take into consideration [Lee had] two major injuries. Imagine if he had the full season to build on. I think it’s remarkable that he was able to [do what he did this season]. He’s a guy who had to work on his transition game. Don’t forget, when he was drafted, he was still more of a skill guy, less of a physical guy. A lot of times, when you draft these guys, you’ll hear people talk about ‘backup games.’ One of the things that made us excited about him then is the fact that he had a backup game. Should he not fall into a middle-six role, he has that bottom-three role, a third line role.

“You’re seeing a bit of that coming together now. He and Helenius seem to play very well together, they read off each other well. It’s really hard to play against two guys who are that big, that are honestly physical.

“Helenius is probably a little more physical, Lee is probably a little bit better with the puck. They each have attributes in other areas that complement each other. Lee had a great Rookie Camp. Really, I was surprised more people weren’t talking about him earlier in the season. Before he got hurt early, he looked really good. You never know, but I wouldn’t have been shocked if he had earned himself a short-term call-up this [past] year. You see the prospects a lot of times get called up for a short-term, and then go back down to hone the things they learned. Then they come back up again later.

“You saw it with [Tyler] Toffoli. You saw it with [Tanner] Pearson, [Jordan] Nolan, some of those guys came up longer than others, but they came up, they got their taste, learned what it’s like and what they need to do to stay up the next time. I think Lee might have done that, and it would have been really interesting. You don’t want to put unrealistic expectations on players, but if Lee hadn’t gotten hurt, it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had a similar call-up like [Akil] Thomas did.

“Now, Thomas knows what he has to do next year. I fully expect him to be [on the Kings roster] next year. It would have been nice for Lee to have a whole season last year, but he certainly looks like he’s putting himself in the conversation for making the LA Kings next season.”

The conversation also offered plenty of commentary on Helenius — both the idea of him and Lee making the NHL as a package deal, as well as what Helenius’ overall development looks like moving forward.

That full conversation can be heard here. We’ll share a small taste of what that part of the conversation included…

“I think Helenius creates a little bit more room out there and I think Lee takes advantage of it,” explained Yannetti. “I think Lee does a little bit of things with the puck slightly better than Helenius, but Helenius is able to take advantage of that. I think the things that each guy is better at complements the things that the other guy isn’t quite as good at. Playing against guys that size, even if they’re just leaning on you — you go through half a game, by the second half of the game, second half of the season, that stuff starts to accumulate.

“Way back when, when we envisioned Kopitar, Byfield, a 3C, and then Helenius at 4C someday, you hope that timeline comes together at some point, because there’s just no relief. It’s just wave after wave of having to deal with big guys; and no matter what, it pulls you out. It tires you out during the season, it tires you out during a game, and it certainly tires you out in a seven-game series.”

Eventually, the conversation turned to some younger players who also have size — including Jared Wright and Kaleb Lawerence. The latter just finished up a stint at the Memorial Cup and stood 6-foot-7. He plays with an edge, some definite snarl. He recently signed his first NHL contract and will be turning pro this summer, before joining AHL Ontario next season. Read more about Lawerence here.

Wright, on the other hand, came off a National Championship at Denver and decided to stay in school for the 2024-25 campaign. All signs point to the 6-foot-3 forward turning pro next April or May.

“Wright borders on being an elite skater,” Yannetti proclaimed. “In terms of skating, he’s probably not with [Adrian] Kempe gold [Austin] Wagner when it comes to flat out speed, but he certainly isn’t far behind them. He has a strong base, really powerful. Wright is coming; he has size, he plays the game the right way, and he can chip in offensively. Although the main part of his game is forechecking, pressing pucks, and distributing them; not necessarily creatively playmaking, as of now.”

Yannetti also offered up a bold prediction regarding two prospects from LA’s 2022 Draft class — “Barring them getting struck by lightning, [Kenny] Connors and Wright will be NHL players. Nobody is a lock, but there is a high probability of those two guys playing significant NHL games.”

These prospects should all start coming in waves. Lee and Helenius up first, followed by Wright at forward. On defense, there’s also Jakub Dvorak, who came to North America in January and began his post-Draft journey via the WHL. He’s already signed his Entry Level Contract, so he’s pushing to officially join the Kings pipeline soon too. More on that situation during Development Camp next month.

For the full Yannetti interview, be sure to listen at the link below.

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