First of all I want to clarify that I'm Thomas Roost, Scout Switzerland/Germany, for Central Scouting Europe. I do write this in my personal name and not in the name of Central Scouting, means the following statement is my personal opinion and not an official Central-Scouting-Statement, but still I want you to know who I am and not hide behind a pseudonym.
I do know for sure that all my colleagues at CS work pretty hard for this list, go to hundreds of games, write game-reports and fill in skill-checklists and think very critical about criss-cross-rankings. We all have a great, great job and are very proud to be a small tiny part of the NHL. I want you to know that Central Scouting has to finalise theses lists always already by the end of March, means, the lists don't take into consideration about what happens in the playoffs. Our lists are always first and all other lists can adjust to it, can put in what they see in the playoffs and what they see in the WJC-U18 and in the NHL-combine. The NHL-franchises have to finish their lists even later, just shortly before the draft. Of course, their lists have this time-advantage, so it's unfair to compare a March-list with a May- or June-list.
The typology of a scout is that he always knows an unbelievable amount of players, he did watch them three times, four times, ten times or whatever and he did watch the same amount of games of other players. But you will ALWAYS find some guys who know a certain player or certain players better than the scout (e.g. a season-ticket-holder, a coach, assistant-coach). For these people it's quite easy to criticise the one or the other ranking of a player, but the same people never have a complete overview, so they always can cherry-picking their critics. To make is short. We scouts know a lot about a lot of players but there are always people who know more about certain players. Fair enough if they give critical comments but it's unfair to badmouth a whole list or a whole organisation. Yes, it's also business, yes, Central Scouting wants to market the upcoming draft and yes this is entertainment-business but what's bad about this? I think it's a very good idea to promote our sport, to promote the NHL and to promote the yearly draft. Yes, I'm 100% sure that a lot of scouting-staff of NHL-franchises don't follow our lists and have different, sometimes even quite different opinions and lists. No, don't believe that their lists are much better or even better. If all the franchises would open up their books with their lists and you would compare it with Central Scouting or other published lists I'm also 100% sure that the critics could be very well criss-cross and if you analyse what happened in the past I give you easily a good amount of NHL-players who where never on a CS-list...but...I could also give you easily a good amount of NHL-players who were on our lists, year by year - didn't get drafted by an NHL-team but later still became NHL-players... This is the way it goes. This doesn't mean that we don't want to be accurate and good, of course we want to be the best in predicting players but everyone has to understand that these predictions are very difficult and basically on very thin ice. If someone tells you that he knows for sure that this or that player will play or will not play in the NHL...you have already a good indication that this someone is not a good expert... It's usually not the big-mouth people who are the best experts because they do know that they know much less than what they would like to know...
So, I just want to support my colleagues in telling that I know that they are all passionate hockey-guys who do a very good job and work very hard, in the end there is a list to discuss and if we discuss it's a perfect hockey-time but we should never lose the respect about the work of other experts, of other scouts, journalists and fans. Nobody knows the truth in hockey, everybody is some sort of expert and everybody is right in a way and we all can learn from eachother, every day.
Enjoy the lists, discuss and have fun!
Thomas
