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It can be tough, man. I would suggest controlling your AHL affiliate, and also handling the training yourself at both the AHL and NHL levels. That's not something I did until I had some seasons under my belt, but once you handle the training decisions you get a better feel for the factors that make a prospect progress.
Level of competition is one factor I didn’t know existed, for instance. Half-star players really shouldn’t be in the AHL. They aren’t really good enough to see ice-time, which makes them unhappy, and they aren’t ready for that level of competition, which doubly holds back their training. Of course, some guys just don’t progress very much -- they’re busts and that’s realistic. But other players need care so they go from overseas to AHL to NHL when the time is right.
If you’re not going to handle the affiliate, that’s one solid piece of advice: don’t sign players from overseas until they’ve gotten to 1 or 1.5 stars overall.
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