Scouts

[molarmite]

I don't know anything about how hockey works behind the scenes like I do with baseball so I'm hoping this game will help me learn. Scouting is one area that I'm having problems with. The easiest question would be how many scouts should I have? If someone wants to go more in depth or show me to a good place to learn, that would also be appreciated.

[KevT90]

What league ?

[Habitant4Life]

As many as you want/can afford. You can never have too many scouts in my opinion. Your hockey scouting budget doesn't compare to your typical baseball scouting budget obviously, but you can make the best of it. I load up on scouts even when I do historical seasons.

If you're playing a current season and want to know who to scout or what region to scout, your priority should be scouting the three major Canadian junior hockey leagues (OHL, WHL, and QMJHL) and your second priority should be scouting the overseas hockey hotbeds (Russia, Sweden, and Finland)

If you have scouts left or you've saved them up to scout other regions, I'd say just freestyle it. If you focus on those two scouting priorities I mentioned, you'll be fine. I would recommend setting the scout assignments to quality instead of quantity. It gives you a more accurate report on the prospects, rather than just mass-evaluating prospects without a clear reading on how good they are.

[Adam B]

Originally Posted by Habitant4Life

As many as you want/can afford. You can never have too many scouts in my opinion. Your hockey scouting budget doesn't compare to your typical baseball scouting budget obviously, but you can make the best of it. I load up on scouts even when I do historical seasons.

If you're playing a current season and want to know who to scout or what region to scout, your priority should be scouting the three major Canadian junior hockey leagues (OHL, WHL, and QMJHL) and your second priority should be scouting the overseas hockey hotbeds (Russia, Sweden, and Finland)

If you have scouts left or you've saved them up to scout other regions, I'd say just freestyle it. If you focus on those two scouting priorities I mentioned, you'll be fine. I would recommend setting the scout assignments to quality instead of quantity. It gives you a more accurate report on the prospects, rather than just mass-evaluating prospects without a clear reading on how good they are.

Depends on how many Scouts you have, and particularly what league you're looking at.

Scouting differs vastly by what league your in, so there's no definitive blue-print to success. Scouts also vary in quality, and even if you don't have the best ones, you can still get good reports.

So for the time being, let's assume you're playing in the NHL. If you haven't checked out any of our YouTube series, it's probably a good starting point as we've discussed it quite a bit, especially in the Wild one, but Habitant4Life is right - ideally you want as many Scouts as you can get. Roughly you want 2 or 3 in most big leagues. Typically I look for at least "Above Average" or Better (ie: Good, Very Good, Great) and have them Scout Quantity - but I make sure to look at Current Ability for 1 and Potential with the other.

Typically, my Scouting breaks down something like this:

1-2 Scouts Dedicated (CA - P) in each North American League:

NHL
AHL
ECHL
WHL
OHL
QMJHL
NCAA
USHL
NAHL

(For the last 3, and the 3 big leagues, find guys who are good at scouting the all of USA and Canada)

3-5 Scouts assigned Solely to (2 NA based - at least 1 European):

NHL Entry Draft


Europe can vary, depending on what you want to do. I have previously found Scouting Leagues can be good, but now I typically try and find guys to focus on Regions instead. So I look for:

Europe:

1 in the KHL. 1 in the VHL (typically just potential).
~ 6-8 in Nordic Europe. (3/3 to begin).
~ 6-8 in Central Europe (3/3 to begin)
~ 4 in Former USSR.
~ 1-2 in West/South Europe


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Other regions: If you have additional $ to spend, there's a few spots I would start with to add One Scout each (and you could expand)

Free Agents
Atlantic Canada
Western Canada
Western USA
Alberta
Ontario
Liiga
SHL
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