The Flyers are weighing their options in the NHL draft. Scout Mark Greig describes the grind.

BUFFALO — Mark Greig put anywhere from 37,000 to 44,000 miles on his car since the 2023 NHL draft. And that doesn’t take into account the miles accumulated among the clouds.

It’s a heavy workload for amateur scouts like Greig, who has been with the Flyers since wrapping up his pro hockey career in 2007, which included 30 games across four seasons in Philly.

The work he and the members of the amateur scouting department, spearheaded by assistant general manager Brent Flahr, have done in the past year comes to fruition June 28-29 in Las Vegas at Sphere when the Flyers select the next generation. It’s the endgame of a long arduous, carefully-plotted process that goes into building the organization from the ground up.

Then it rinses and repeats. Once the NHL version of Mr. Irrelevant is called at the 2024 iteration of the NHL draft on June 29, Greig will get about a three-week break. But then the Western-based scout, who does travel internationally too, is back at it as Hockey Canada will hold a selection camp for August’s Hlinka Gretzky Cup in Calgary.

And so begins Greig’s next stack of books.

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“In the industry, we call it the book or the profile of the player,” he told The Inquirer at the NHL Scouting Combine. “In a perfect world, if you can start your book early in the season — in August or September — and have a consistent evaluation throughout the end of the year. The journey, the highs and lows, peaks and valleys, the progress, and you monitor it throughout. Usually at the end of the year you feel really connected to the player. His trials and tribulations of the year, the overall evaluation, of where it may go for him and you start to project going forward.”

Greig has met with a number of guys on the Flyers’ radar in the past year, including defensemen Carter Yakemchuk, who plays for Calgary of the Western Hockey League, and Harrison Brunicke, who patrols the Kamloops blue line. Yakemchuk is expected to go in the first round — right around the Flyers’ No. 12 spot — while Brunicke could go late first round, where the Flyers draft No. 31 or 32, or early in the second. The Flyers could have the No. 36 pick if the Columbus Blue Jackets opt to send their second-rounder to complete the Ivan Provorov three-team deal from last June.

“I’ve been telling my family back home, the most nerve-racking part is just waiting outside [before an interview with a team at the combine] and seeing the logo,” said Berkly Catton, who plays junior hockey in Spokane, Wash, and also could be available in the 12th spot. “Then, I think, once you get in there and get talking about hockey, that’s where I’m comfortable.”

Generally speaking, for guys like Catton, Yakemchuk, and Brunicke, Greig would be the guy to lead the chat for the Flyers at the combine. It’s a way to increase the level of comfort for guys as they sit in front of a packed house. According to Flahr, the Flyers had eight guys at the combine; some teams rolled way deeper to Western New York.

Does Greig ask an easy question for a player from his region to crush? Sure. Are players usually asked open-ended questions like, what is your favorite candy? Or what is your favorite movie? (Two of the Flyers’ known interview questions.) Absolutely. But the players also have to face hard ones.

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“They come in and right away you just try to take the edge off and introduce yourself, get them to start talking about their families or something they’re comfortable with,” Flahr said. “You can sense kids who are nervous or some guys that are comfortable. But we’re very aware that there’s a difference — like a college kid feels more comfortable talking in front of us versus a high school kid, or a top junior kid that’s been interviewed in front of the media all his life. Some kids haven’t.

“It’s a little bit challenging, but we try to make them feel comfortable and ask them general questions and we dig in a little bit. We ask some of the tougher questions and then throw a couple of curveballs at them and see how they react. But it’s mostly a fun process.”

The scouting combine is a chance for the Flyers group to meet with several top prospects. Greig is “in the trenches,” Flahr said, and general manager Danny Brière is involved but allows the scouting department to do its job, according to Greig. Overall, they chatted with 60-65 players — they did not meet with projected No. 1 Macklin Celebrini.

But for regional scouts like Greig, he already has seen some of these kids eight to 10 times or more over the course of six or seven months. He and the Flyers staff have pored over videos and reports and have spoken to everyone from billets to teachers.

“We rely on our own experience, instinct, and vision for the player,” said Greig, who had a hand in the Flyers’ drafting Travis Sanheim from the Calgary Hitmen in 2014. “Now, that being said, we speak with coaches, agents, previous coaches, off-ice people that they’re training with in the summer, mental coaches that they might be using. So any resource that they’re using with, or engaged in, we simply listen to try to use that feedback and integrate that into what we’re seeing on the ice.

“You try to leave no stone unturned but, at the end of the day, what we see and believe in, and use from our experience and instincts — and also our organizational philosophy at times — is what will determine where that player maybe fits on our list.”

That list was done after the Flyers brass spent time in Buffalo. The group reconvened last week in Philly and formulated a master list through a “long, methodical, diligent process,” as each regional scout created his own list and then everything was merged. It takes a while, but the hope is that when a pick comes up — especially on Day 2 — the list is strong enough to either have a name ready to go or a tier of players to pick from.

There will be some small tweaks here and there as time ticks down to the draft. Because, after spending three or four days in a board room for eight hours at a clip, when they are able to take a step back, things can sometimes get clearer. There will be some work done on video to “reconvene and reconnect” before the staff hits Vegas four days early to lock things in right before the 11th hour.

But Brière did tell The Inquirer the Flyers are “open for business” when it comes to the possibility of trading the 12th pick. That does shift things — a smidge.

“It’s an interesting dynamic and I’ve had a year where we traded up to the eighth pick overall to [draft Sean] Couturier,” Greig said. “We weren’t dialed in, but we were prepared for that area, which is always a challenge, but not specifically dialed into it. I think that year we were picking in the teens; well, we switched gears in a hurry and that’s why I think the process has to be so diligently put in order.

“Like, we’re picking 12 and we probably know the three or four guys that are there at 12. But we’ve got to make sure five and six are in order in case Danny switches gears and for, whatever unforeseen circumstance, is picking there. Or vice versa and Danny wants to add another pick and go back to 20, which happens in this business a lot. So OK, we’ve got 12 dialed now and if we go back to 19, are we ready? Are we diligent here?

“So, it’s a lot of dissecting a lot of consistent conversation about pockets of the draft and players that we feel fit.”

After months and months of learning the details about the 17-to 20-year-olds available to be drafted, everyone hits the floor (The 2024 draft is expected to be the last centralized draft). There can be a rush of adrenaline as everything unfolds in front of the staff, seeing who goes in the spots right before and who will, eventually, be available to be selected. The draft is Flahr’s show. He is the vice president making the deciding vote when it’s 50-50. He has “the hammer,” as Greig called it, at the end of the day.

“In the War Room, things do get intense. There’s passion and you have your beliefs in the player, or maybe your disbelief in a player that’s being challenged. So I would call it respectful debate with passion,” Greig said with a laugh.

“I haven’t seen any fistfights. When I first started 15 years ago, I got my eyes opened to some of the intensity that can go behind some of the debate and conflict, and different reasons for the argument or evaluations. But at the end of the day, we always revisit.

“We’re all in this together and we all want the best player available for the Philadelphia Flyers for the greater good.”