When I was a paid scout, I would evaluate players numerous times. I really wonder how they will put next years draft together considering so many players/leagues are not playing or playing reduced schedules. How do you properly evaluate a player you have hardly seen? this will be very interesting. Yes, I know videos are there, but seeing live is always better to notice the intangibles. How does he behave arriving at rink, how does he treat those around him, how does he do his pregame warmup, how does he behave after a bad shift skating to his bench, how does he react when coach speaks to him on bench, etc and etc. I have spoken to several scouts and they are finding it hard to slot certain players. A minimum of 10 players must be added in order to publish team, I just clicked on first ten players.
scouts gotta be banking on the 25 or so game seasons happening (i know that's the WHL's plan)
Okay, so lets say a player gets really hot and plays well for 25 games, is that a true assessment of his future NHL talent/potential. I mean, I understand, guys that played at World Juniors did not have long NHL careers. I predict some players will be over and under evaluated. A good scout that does the extra work may pay off in find a good player. One example, in 2006, I was scouting a game at a tournament, the organizer asked if we would pick the 3 stars of the game. I scouted at the OHL/QMJHL level, to my left was a veteran NHL scout, he spent the entire 1st period talking about his golf game, he watched the 2nd period and by the 3rd he was in the scout room eating the free food. He came back out for the last 3 minutes and when they organizer came around to ask for the 3 stars of the game, he looked at my selections and circled my three players. My point is if a scout digs deeper he may find a gem.