EHM The Blue Line

I play in the ECHL and at the start of the season scout a few leagues.

Sometimes the scouts will tell me someone is an excellent player and I should sign him, then I check him out and he's awful!!

What do you guys do in this situation?

I trust them most of the time, but only to look for prospects from the lower Finnish leagues and Juniors. (I play Finnish SM-liiga).

Attributes don't tell everything, though. If the visible attributes were the only aspect that makes a difference on the ice, you wouldn't need any scouts at all to tell you otherwise, no?

well all my scouts said that Kahnberg is awful to play in the NHL but his stats were mint as a winger so i signed him my scouts and coach still saying hes shite.
now he got 85 points in 67 games and hes my second best scorer,
so after this i only trust scouts based on their general impressions they give.

Well as I am a ECHL coach I scout the LNAH, CIS, SPHL and a couple of others where players you want have mainly 9's, 10's and a few above...........

Some players they say are excellent but only have 6's and 7's yet they say a guy with 10's and a couple of 12's are not worth signing. lol

I trust my evaluation, but the scouts are for me used as a veto. Just like Tasku says, they might see something I can't. If they say a guy just can't cut it, then I trust them.

I use them for potential ratings. Only I decide when a guy is good enough to make the team though.

How much I trust a given scout depends greatly on his management & coaching attribs. Typically the only opinion I truly pay attention to is my head scout and only then if both his judgements are 90+ (18+). If the scout has less than outstanding attribs, I simply use them for scoping visible attribs of players.

Honestly, most of the time I only use scouts to check out players and be able to see their masked attributes.

Prospects are a different ball game, though. I usually scout extensively through the junior ranks, separate those consensus by my scouts (mainly 4 and 5 stars prospects) and then check out the best players in terms of attributes, who has the most lines, who is said to be a No1 Forward/Defenseman more often, and all that.

Another interesting tool is the players history, specially in minor leagues and European leagues, where players are more unknown and player movement is more frequent from season to season. There will always be that guy with good attributes for that Swedish 3rd Division League of yours, who your scouts say you should sign, but this guy hasn't been able to consistently crack the lineup of similar-powered teams for the past 3 years. So, I usually let another team bit the dust.

when a scout says that a player needs seasoning to reach his potential, what does this mean? that i should send him to play in the minors or that i should play him more in the NHL?

it means to let him develop in the lower leauges.. should probably play out his whole junior career then spend about 2-3 years in the ECHL or AHL (Depending on if you think he is AHL ready)

well he played in the echl but then i got report from the coach that he developed ok and we should call him up. so i did, he played some of the season in the nhl and then in the report i'm said that he needs seasoning to reach the potential...