There are more costs to the scout than actually employing them. I would assume a scout racks up a hell of a bill over an entire season, between hotel stays, flights, per diem (food expenses and such) and car rentals. That cost is probably significantly more than the scout's salary.
It's notable when the Sabres tried to cut costs in the mid-2000's, one of the first things they did was drastically reduce the scouting staff and tried to use video scouts.
I also would say, that it is very notable one of the cheapest/poorest teams in the NHL have one of the smallest staffs, and notably hired the Canucks Army/Draft cohort guys. If they can find guys through analytical analysis, they would significantly reduce their overhead.
The smallest scouting staffs in the league to the best of my knowledge are Carolina, Anaheim, Florida, NYI, Nashville, and Ottawa.