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‘Look where nobody’s looking’: 3 days on the road with a Penguins amateur scout, searching for an NHL draft gem
Matt Vensel
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jan 31, 2025
ONTARIO, Canada — Brandon DeFazio is in his Ford F-150 truck barreling across the snowy plains between Toronto and Nottawasaga Bay toward Owen Sound, Ont., when over the radio comes a reminder of where his Penguins stand as a franchise.
One of 10 amateur scouts for Pittsburgh, DeFazio is on his way up north to watch an Ontario Hockey League battle between Owen Sound and Barrie. Two promising draft-eligible defensemen will be playing, along with a few potential trade targets. The hope is DeFazio will identify a future difference-maker for the Penguins tonight.
“That excitement is what drives us all, really,” he says, sipping a Tim Hortons coffee.
As we roll through one-intersection towns and pass several snow plows and a random taco place in the middle of nowhere, he turns quiet once former NHL goalie Marty Biron begins to discuss the plight of the Penguins on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio.
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The Penguins are going nowhere fast, Biron says. It’s time for them to start selling.
DeFazio listens intently, as that would affect him directly, but he does not say a word. He knows the Penguins are in the early stages of a rebuild. After trading Marcus Pettersson and Drew O’Connor on Friday, they could have 11 picks in the 2025 NHL draft.
Talent evaluation will determine whether team president Kyle Dubas will transform the Penguins back into contenders. That is where scouts such as DeFazio come in.
To shine a light on the diligent work done by these scouts, anonymous to fans but so important to the team’s future, the Post-Gazette traveled last week to Ontario to shadow DeFazio as he scouted three OHL games in three days. We covered more than 700 miles of frozen ground and laid eyes on close to 100 teenage players.
There was so much to observe about the daily grind of a young scout who is sifting through Ontario, trying to find the Penguins their next draft gem. But the main takeaway is that in many ways scouting comes down to drive — and, well, a lot of driving.
Hitting the highway
DeFazio’s truck pulls up outside my hotel in Oakville, Ont. — his hometown and the Toronto suburb where he lives with his wife and two young daughters. One of them has left in the backseat a sparkly headband with cat ears. He wears sunglasses and a long gray overcoat with a Penguins pin on the lapel. His thick brown hair is slicked.
We make his usual stop at Tim Hortons then head west toward Kitchener. He is excited for a prospect-packed matchup between two OHL powerhouses. Over the next three nights, we will check in on four defensemen who are in the top 40 of NHL Central Scouting’s midseason ranking of North American skaters. Two will be in this game.
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Penguins amateur scout Brandon DeFazio (left) chats with mentor and fellow Penguins scout Chris Roque before an Ontario Hockey League game at North Bay Memorial Gardens in North Bay, Ont. on Jan. 23. (Matt Vensel/Post-Gazette)
Plus, the 36-year-old adds, the Rangers have one of the OHL’s best meal rooms.
The first thing DeFazio does when we get inside Kitchener Memorial Auditorium is purchase tickets for the 50/50 raffle. He scoops lasagna onto his plate and sits near a few other NHL scouts. This is the only OHL game on Jan. 21, so it is packed.
They are all men, many of them in their 50s or 60s with gray hair and battle scars. They mostly talk about travel logistics and wonder where the teams’ lineups are.
At 5:45 p.m., we scurry to his preferred perch. It is first come, first serve at this rink. He is relieved to find good seats. Two Western Conference scouts park next to us.
One is a chatty character. He played in the NHL. He lightheartedly complains about the mileage he put on his truck — 140,000 miles in four years — and the caliber of prospects at a recent showcase. “A bunch of NFGs,” he says. “No [expletive] good.” Scouts can be coy with each other, though. DeFazio is learning whom he can trust.
He opens his red notebook. On one side he’s listed the names of four London Knights players. On the other are four from Kitchener. Seventeen players in his game have already been drafted by NHL teams. DeFazio will still file reports on a few of them so Dubas has more information should he consider trying to trade for one of them.
“The reports are critical for where we are as a franchise right now,” DeFazio says.
As we wait for the puck to drop, the Jumbotron highlights the OHL’s stat leaders in several categories. Penguins prospect Finn Harding paces the league in plus-minus.
This game meets the hype. The home team jumps out to a 2-0 lead. London rallies, with Easton Cowan tying Mario Lemieux for the longest junior point streak ever. Then Kitchener’s top defense prospect, Cameron Reid, sets up the eventual winning goal.
Meanwhile, it’s a quiet night on a crowded London blue line for Henry Brzustewicz. He is projected to go in the first round and ahead of Reid. But Reid — a savvy player and a superior skater who is seen as a second-rounder — is more impactful on this night.
“If you watch a guy play 10 times, throw the three best games out and throw the three worst games out,” Penguins scout Chris Roque, who splits up the OHL region with DeFazio, will tell me later in the week. “And that’s what you’ve got as a player.”
With 15 minutes left, DeFazio makes a veteran move. He uses an app on his iPhone to start his truck. It is minus-3 degrees outside. The Rangers win, 5-2, and hilariously the scouts waddle hurriedly across the icy parking lot. We beat the traffic, too.
Overlooked, undeterred
If you ask DeFazio, he would not be scouting right now if he himself had not been overlooked by OHL scouts two decades ago. His dad, Dean, was picked fifth in the 1980 OHL draft and went on to play for the Penguins. His uncle was a high pick, too. DeFazio assumed somebody would take him. He was “crushed” when no one did.
DeFazio used that as fuel, headed to Clarkson and produced. A power forward at 6-foot-2 and 205 pounds, he worked his tail off and went to the net without fear. But …
“I don’t know if anybody gave me any percent chance to play in the NHL,” he said.
Randy Sexton did. The former Penguins head scout grew fond of DeFazio while he watched his son, Ben, play for Clarkson. Sexton had an opportunity for DeFazio with Wheeling of the ECHL. A young agent named Kyle Dubas negotiated that contract.
DeFazio was in the Penguins organization for a year, rubbing shoulders with Sidney Crosby in training camp. At 26, he made his NHL debut in 2014. Vancouver Canucks captain Henrik Sedin made sure he got his rookie lap. DeFazio spent the final six years of his career overseas. At one point, he played for “Iron” Mike Keenan in China.
He played pro for 12 seasons and made countless connections that come in handy now. He’s proud of what he accomplished despite skating in only two NHL games.
“My feet weren’t good enough,” he said, “but I [expletive] worked as hard as I could.”
As heavy snow makes a mess of a Canadian highway on Jan. 23, Penguins amateur scout Brandon DeFazio carefully steers his Ford F-150 pickup truck to his next scouting assignment in North Bay, Ont.(Matt Vensel/Post-Gazette)
DeFazio’s experience as a player has led him to place extra weight on work ethic and heart. He saw many skilled guys get a taste of the NHL then get sent back down.
“I want the competitive guys,” he said, “and I know Kyle and the Penguins do, too.”
When Pittsburgh hired Dubas in 2023, DeFazio was on the fence about playing one more year. He sent a text to his former agent to ask Dubas to consider bringing him along as a scout or a development coach. Two months later, he finally heard back.
Dubas was hiring an OHL scout — a scarce, coveted position. He offered him only an opportunity to do a scouting assessment, writing up reports on two players who had just been picked in the NHL draft. To avoid bias, each assessment did not show the name of the candidate. DeFazio, despite no experience, charted out the best.
A year and a half later, Dubas praises DeFazio for his determination, fresh ideas and willingness to learn from veteran scouts such as Roque, an OHL staple for 20 years.
“He’s ambitious about learning, not so much ambitious about climbing the ladder,” Dubas said of DeFazio. “He’s very focused on doing a great job in his current role.”
Making sacrifices
DeFazio’s truck is gassed up and toasty inside when I arrive at his house on Jan. 22. First, he invites me inside to see his office. His 3-year-old girl, Llewyn, sits on a cushy chair in the corner watching TV. She shows me a picture she’s drawn for her dad.
On his wall are jerseys from a few of his former teams plus a photo of him grinning proudly ahead of his NHL debut. There is a sign that boldly says “trust yourself.” On a whiteboard near his multi-monitor setup, DeFazio has scribbled “target late” and “don’t get outworked.” On another wall is his name placard from last year’s draft.
This is where DeFazio uses the Sportlogiq platform to supplement his live viewings. Instead of driving through a blizzard, he will watch a few games in one day or filter video to watch, say, every zone exit for a prospect on the season or all of their puck battles. Other times, he uses Sportlogiq to crosscheck prospects in another region.
Penguins amateur scout Brandon DeFazio is photographed in December of 2022 with wife Colleen and their two daughters, Llewyn and Quinn, while DeFazio was a professional hockey player in Germany.(Courtesy of Brandon DeFazio)
On this morning, DeFazio is operating on only a few hours of sleep after the game in Kitchener. He was up around 5 a.m. to get going on his scouting reports. He took Quinn to catch the bus to kindergarten, made a few phone calls and then hit send.
Now it’s time to say goodbye again. Llewyn is in tears as we head out to the truck. His wife of eight years, Colleen, is left to calm her down. She will also take the girls to soccer practice and problem-solve when the water heater breaks later that night.
“You have to have someone who believes in you and is willing to make sacrifices,” DeFazio says. “You need that strong person at home, and she’s been that for me.”
One perk of living in Oakville is its proximity to many of the OHL’s arenas, allowing him to often be there in the morning when the girls awake. He estimates he stays at a hotel four or five times each month. Meanwhile, scouts for the Western Hockey League are essentially living out of rental cars and racking up frequent flyer miles.
The drive to Owen Sound takes two hours. We stop to eat at a place called Papi’s. Before we even glance at the menu, a man sitting at the bar notes we are not from around here. DeFazio tells him he’s a scout. The local proceeds to talk his ear off.
“Want to know why the [Owen Sound] team is struggling?” he eventually asks him.
“What do you hear?” DeFazio replies. “I will take information from anyone, boys.”
The man has a couple of theories — fan apathy and a lousy coach. As we zip up our coats, someone else tells us to keep an eye on the big blue-liner they got from Oshawa. DeFazio jots something into his red notebook, and we head back into the cold.
Penguins amateur scout Brandon DeFazio wraps up video scouting work inside his office at his home in Oakville, Ont. on Jan. 22. The Penguins are one NHL team that embraces the use of video scouting. (Matt Vensel/Post-Gazette)
‘Selling the story’
There were three picks to go in the 2024 NHL draft last June and many onlookers were eager to exit the Sphere and hit steamy the Las Vegas Strip. Over the speakers came an unfamiliar voice that said the Penguins had selected Finn Harding with the 223rd pick. That was the rookie scout who for months had fought for the player.
“Finn Harding would have never been on the radar if not for Brandon,” Dubas said.
DeFazio first saw Harding play last October. There can be a stigma with players who are passed over the first year they are draft-eligible, as was the case with Harding in 2023. But DeFazio was new to the gig and walked in without bias. Right away, he saw that Harding had an active stick and could deny entries and make stops on D.
Over the next six months, DeFazio watched about 20 of Harding’s games in person and another 10 on video. He attended three practices. And he interviewed Harding, the Steelheads coaching staff, other team employees, his teachers and more. Turns out that scouting is as much about gathering information as it is identifying talent.
Harding won DeFazio over in his second interview. Not only did he want to prove people wrong, he had a plan for how to do it. DeFazio saw a little of himself in the kid.
“Finn was like a labor of love. It was high and low, then high again,” DeFazio said. “That’s our life, you know? When you’re driving, you spend so much time thinking about what you’ve seen. When I met him, I was taken aback by his character. I think after that I was all-in. I just thought he was too good defensively to be overlooked.”
At their year-end meetings last May, the scouts presented on every prospect with a draftable grade. They had 28 from the OHL; 39 players from the league would be drafted. For Harding, DeFazio produced a three-minute video that started with shortcomings then focused on his strengths. It finished with a look at the player at his finest.
No, DeFazio did not actually pound a table. But he “went to bat” for the blue-liner.
“I’m selling the story,” DeFazio said, “and they’re deciding whether to buy or not.”
Dubas and director of amateur scouting Nick Pryor, who is no longer with the team, first discussed drafting Harding in the sixth round. They took another defenseman, Joona Vaisanen, and then forward Mac Swanson with their first pick in the seventh. When the Penguins came on the clock for the last time, Dubas turned to DeFazio.
“Alright, Faz, take the mic,” Dubas said to him. “We’re going to draft Finn Harding.”
DeFazio gets emotional talking about it, saying that is a memory he’ll have forever.
“It just shows you how much Kyle cares about us and tries to value everybody on the team,” DeFazio said. “He knows that I was putting in 60-to-80-hour work weeks, driving to see [Harding] all over Ontario. And that’s the culmination. For him to step aside and let a first-year guy pick, it makes you want to do the job and do it well.”
One puzzle piece
The talkative man at the bar might have been on to something. The atmosphere at J.D. McArthur Arena in Owen Sound is in stark contrast to Kitchener one night earlier. Less than half of the 4,300 seats are filled. DeFazio has no problem finding a spot.
Penguins amateur scout Brandon DeFazio watches closely as Owen Sound and Barrie play an Ontario Hockey League game Jan. 22 at Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre in Owen Sound, Ont. (Matt Vensel/Post-Gazette)
We will get to see two more high-profile defensemen tonight — David Bedkowski, whom the Attack acquired from Oshawa, and Kashawn Aitcheson. Aitcheson is a bruising Barrie blue-liner who ranked 18th in Bob McKenzie’s recent NHL draft projection.
Boom! Aitcheson makes his presence felt right away. He blows up an Owen Sound player in open ice then rains haymakers when another Attack player challenges him to a fight. DeFazio later says he likes feisty players who initiate such altercations. Aitcheson adds a goal and an assist for Barrie to make it a Gordie Howe hat trick.
Given his first-round projection, Aitcheson is likely what the Penguins call a “priority player.” When it comes to the first two rounds of the 2025 draft, Dubas and Wes Clark will be more involved with those selections than they are with picks in the final five rounds. Clark is a scouting savant Dubas lured away from Toronto last year.
But Dubas and Clark can’t watch every prospect in the draft. So they rely on DeFazio and the scouts to lock in on later-round picks like Harding in the season’s second half. That explains why DeFazio wrote “target late” on the whiteboard in his office.
“[Roque] says you have to find the guys that are taking steps,” he explains. “Do they keep getting better? Because those are the kids that will just continue to develop.”
Beyond Aitcheson’s standout performance and a goal by Bedkowski, this game is a bit of a dud. Another 50/50 raffle ticket gets crumpled up in DeFazio’s coat pocket, and he is “a little disappointed in a few guys” who were not “competitive enough.”
He rarely leaves the rink feeling this way, but he reminds me that this game is just one piece of the puzzle. He will still file 10 reports at our hotel in Gravenhurst, Ont.
When we arrived earlier, two longtime scouts ribbed “Sandy” because we are staying in that resort town tonight. They call DeFazio that because “he’s a real sandbagger at golf.” This playful banter is prevalent among the scouts, who largely all get along.
One scout jokingly laments that his team is too cheap to stay in Gravenhurst, which is on the way to tomorrow’s game. The other says he is too old to drive that far late at night. Plus, he cracks, he would not make it in time for last call at the hotel bar.
DeFazio and I head toward the exit the second the final buzzer sounds. Finding the truck in the lot is easy. DeFazio parked right next to a snow pile about 20 feet tall.
We drive for two hours, keeping an eye out for deer as we trace Nottawasaga Bay.
“Big problem in the scouting world,” DeFazio says. “One of our scouts just hit one.”
If he were driving by himself, he would have called Roque to chat about the game.
“More than anything, you just need company, right?” the road-weary scout said.
We pull up to our icicle-covered hotel a little before midnight. Gravenhurst feels like the setting for a Hallmark movie, which checks out. A bunch were filmed near here.
Penguins amateur scout Brandon DeFazio arrives at a Residence Inn hotel in Gravenhurst, Ont. just before midnight on Jan. 22. DeFazio racks up a lot of Marriott points as he travels all over Ontario. (Matt Vensel/Post-Gazette)
Just keep looking
It is midafternoon on Jan. 23 when we depart the snow globe of Gravenhurst and continue on to North Bay. An hour up the road, we finally see a blue sky. With pine trees and rocky terrain, this part of the drive reminds DeFazio of his time in Finland.
We meet Roque at Burger World. He loves this place. DeFazio jokingly introduces Roque to me as his dad. Roque is right out of central casting, looking the part of the experienced, jovial scout. He’s wearing a Pirates cap, glasses and a blue sweatshirt. For efficiency’s sake, the two rarely attend the same game. Tonight’s an exception.
The waitress has trouble punching in our orders, saying, “Technology doesn’t work for me.” DeFazio nods toward Roque then deadpans, “You two would get along.”
Roque, who was with Dubas in Toronto, has learned to value video scouting. It allows him to get in more viewings of prospects, plus he appreciates that Dubas tells them to put safety and family first. But, he says, you still need live viewings to notice who is engaged and who is pouting on the bench because they’re not on the power play.
The 60-year-old waxes poetic on the art of scouting while we devour our burgers.
“Scouting takes time. And you’re going to be wrong more than you’re right,” Roque says. “It’s like a baseball hitter. Hit three out of 10, you’ll be around for a long time.”
After we walk into the war memorial style rink in North Bay and buy our 50/50 tickets, DeFazio points out the best mascot in the OHL. He says Sarge “brings it every night.” If he scouts prospects as well as he does mascots, the Penguins have a keeper. Sarge will be dancing, fist-pumping and sliding down railings for all three periods.
We see several familiar faces from the previous two nights, including Brzustewicz. He is buried on London’s third defensive pair but scores a goal and drops the gloves.
North Bay, captained by a prospect DeFazio liked last year named Ethan Procyszyn, surprisingly makes it a competitive game. But the stacked London Knights pull away.
DeFazio says goodbye to Roque and we are on the road around 9:30 p.m. The Penguins are out in California, so we listen on the radio as they take on the Anaheim Ducks.
“My old linemate is killing us right now,” DeFazio says when Frank Vatrano scores.
It is another loss for the Penguins. Each one of those inches them closer to a higher draft pick. They have a 7% chance of winning the lottery, per MoneyPuck.com.
We do not get back to Oakville until after 1 a.m. He will still get up bright and early to make the girls breakfast and file another batch of reports. The scout will hit the highway again in a couple of days, continuing the search for his next Finn Harding.
“I want to look where nobody’s looking. I want to get into things no one is thinking about. That’s where I can ultimately help the Penguins the most,” DeFazio tells me. “There’s people of value in places you never expect, so you’ve got to keep looking.”
First Published: January 31, 2025, 5:30 a.m.
Updated: January 31, 2025, 10:23 p.m.
