[FlamesAddiction]

This is where scouts earn their money the most. It's easy for me to look as stats and figure out which players are the most talented at their level, but it is another to look at a player and try to figure out which ones have the most potential for growth or have skills that they think the player can transfer to the professional level more easily.

It seems that some scouts really feel that Crouse has the HIQ, motivation, and physical attributes to better translate his abilities to the NHL than some players that might have more favourable stats. As a simple fan, I consider myself reasonably knowledgeable, but I am pretty clueless about the finer nature of scouting. I have faith that people know what they are talking about.

There are players from junior that score at a PPG pace or higher, but never manage to take their game to the next level, but then there are modest 20 goal scorers that manage to bring that same level of production to the NHL. I know that is pointing out the obvious, but it is always impressive to me to see when a scout can identify the latter players.