Vlad The Impaler said:
It could be fear of photocopying.
Come to think of it, you're probably bang on here, although with scanners now, I'm not sure it really protects them that much. But you're probably right.
How about accuracy? Have you been satisfied (particularly on the lesser known players) with that?
Is there a noticable difference in quality between their Euro and North American reports?
Finally, you spoke of depth... how many players do they describe in the draft guide?
In terms of accuracy, they have hits and misses for overall likes and dislikes. I've only seen two of the draft guides. One was three years ago, which I only saw at the time of the draft and haven't had a chance to see again. The other was last year, and it's too early to tell on most. They were particularly high on Vrana and Kastistsyn and those don't look particularly accurate right now, but it's too early to tell. They were VERY high on Stewart (top 10 - which looks good), but had Staal rated lower (barely top 10 overall as I recall). They loved Phaneuf, and they also were very big on Dave Brown, who went inexplicably undrafted last year, which looks good on RLR, given he is rated in the 2nd round by many publications now. To think any team could have had him for 9th rounder last year. That's off the top of my head. It's actually a friend's, so I don't have a copy with me, but I'll try and take another look before the draft to post a few other hits and misses. I did order it myself this year based on what I've seen (the $40 version).
And they have over 100 prospects, with better depth in terms of real feedback on the player. But it is also VERY opinionated, which is what I like about it. You wouldn't want it as your ONLY draft guide, but having RLR combined with THN is a very interesting comparison. Where THN takes a poll of scouts to get the 'average" opinion without really formulating one themselves - which even THN admits, is often inaccurate because teams may love a player (top 10 rating) and others hate him (not even first round), so THN will slot them in at 15-20, because what else are they going to do? Meanwhile, RLR will say we love this guy, the way he works in the corners and with an edge, and see him as a 20 goal scoring checking machine in four years. Or they'll say they hate the way a guy stays on the perimeter and really question whether he'll ever have the willingness to compete in the NHL slot. It's basically the kind of thing we would see if we got a behind the scenes look at an individual team's scouting reports (albeit with different opinions, depending on the team). Where THN will cover their but by saying "he could..., but he may also..." in every profile, RLR takes a bigger stance one way or the other.
And I found the reports for Europe and North America equally in depth. They have scouts in all markets (whether the scouts are exclusive to RLR, I don't know).