Note: In an interview conducted prior to the 2019 draft, the former Rangers general manger peeled back the curtain on the ins and outs of drafting the next generation of NHL talent, insight that still holds true today.Friday night at 8 p.m. ET, the NHL's next wave of superstars will find out which sweater they will be donning when they join the profe sional ranks.Neil Smith knows all about the draft proce s. Over the course of more than 20 years with the Detroit Red Wings, New York Islanders and New York Rangers, Smith shaped the future of the NHL.Before this years draft, Sporting News caught up with the former Rangers and Islanders GM on thephone to take us inside how the draft works, if he could take back any pick he madeand what New Jersey Devils GM Ray Shero will do with the number one pick on Friday.NHL Draft 2019: (Editor's note: These responses have been edited for length and clarity.)Sporting News: So when exactly does a team start preparing for a draft?Neil Smith: It's an ongoing proce s that goes on year round and it's certainly thechicken before the egg because there's always a Dylan DeMelo Jersey draft coming up. You go to the draft one year and as soon as that date pa ses it's usually on a Friday, Saturday Sunday, you start worrying about the next year's draft.SN: So literally the day after, you're already moving on.NS: Yea, you really are...becauseyou have a scouting staff and all that scouting staff is responsible for is that draft. And so, they've done their job, you've selected our players and there's nothing more than can be done for the players for the 2018 draft;you got to start worrying about the 2019 draft.SN: But it's definitely a moving boardthroughout the year, right? Because someone might have slipped in there in their production and someone else might have picked it up. It's always a moving board, correct?NS: Yes it is. It's very fluid, you know,things go up and down, at least as far as, say, the top 10 guys in the draft. That moves around quite a bit. I think that after you get through the first half of the first round, you basically have a lot of different opinions on who would be taken at that point. It's pretty, pretty obvious in the top 10 who's it going to be butafter that, it'sreally a projection of what you think Mikkel Boedker Women Jersey the kids could be in the future .SN: Beyondthat first round, what are you then looking for?Is it just filling spots that you need in your farm system andmaybe finding a diamond in the rough for the NHL?NS: No, what you're doing is, or what I always did was,you want to draft players that you can envision have a chance to play in the NHL. Soregardle s of what position they play, your thought proce s should be: I could see where one day this guy could if this improves, and that improves he could play in the NHL.If you don't think that someone would ever be able to play in the NHL and you should never draft them. You shouldn't draft players for your American League team, you should be drafting potential NHLers even if that potential is minimal; you gotta have some potential to make it.SN: So who actually makes the decisions on the pick?Does it fall onto you as thegeneral manager? Or do you rely more on your head scout? Who ultimately says this is the guy we're going to take?NS: Organizations have different structures and different personalities. So in some places, the general manager will actually be Brent Burns Jersey part ofthe evaluation proce s; in others, the general manager has noinvolvement in the a se sment and evaluation proce s. He hasn't seen the players and he's totally depending upon his chief scout or director of player personnel . . . Whether or not the general manager isinvolved, the burden of selecting amateur players in the draft falls on the chief scout, or whatever title the person has that's in charge of the entry draft.SN:In general, is there a prioritization over, we need a center or a winger or goalie type of thing? Or is it really just the best?NS:That's not the way I did it because you because you've got to go on talent. But the one thing that I wouldsay is that it doesn't ever happen that every time your pick came up, the best guy by far was a forward or every time it was a defenseman. It usually didn'tgo that way. But one thing that can happen is you can get into the fifth or sixth round, and say, "you know, holy crap, we haven't we don't have a goalie, we haven't picked a goalie."So we are going to mi s play somebody into the development cycle. So you might think everything's close to even, let's pick the goalie. You might do that and take a chance on the goalie so you get the guy in the system.Because when you get to the sixth and seventh round, if you can Dalton Prout Kids Jersey get an NHL player there, you know, you deserve a gold star. At that point, you're hoping that your thoughts are right and that you hit the mother lode.2019 NHL draft prospect rankings: SN: So what happens when there's a disagreement?NS: I'm giving you the way we did it.Where it's important that is that you have cro sover during the season. What I mean by cro sover is, let's say you have a scout that lives in Montrealand a scout that lives Toronto and you have ascout that lives in Calgary. Those three are the main guys covering the major junior ranks.And then you have a scout in Stockholm and then you have a scout living in Boston who's covering colleges. Those guys are in charge of those areas and you have other scouts but those are your main guys.What's really important is that you have cro sover once or twice a year, to see what the other guy has in his area. So in other words,a guy that lives in Calgary will go to Ontario and see the Ontario league for a couple of weeksso thathe can compare what Ontario has to what he's got out West.Now. I know, we're probably predicting what your next question is, what you would do from there? What we did was we had a rating for all the different areas that the players come from. You could have a European list, you could have a Quebec list, you could have an Ontario list, you could have a Western list, you could have a college list, and everybody's responsible for their areas. The chief scout has seeneverybody, and you're just cro sing over. So when it comes to your first pick, let's say you're picking 15th, you're going to make sure that you got 15 guys, that you've mixed them all together meaning, college, Europe, Quebec, Ontario, Western you'vemixed them all together to figure out okay, when our pick comes at 15 who are the 15 guys that we'd pick.So as guys get picked, you cro s them off and let's say for whatever reason the guy atnumber eight is still available Sharks Blank Kids Jersey at 15, but all s