The Life of an NHL Scout | FEATURE

Monday

Scott Lachance’s alarm fires off around 4 a.m. He rises from bed, dresses and collects his suitcases, packed the night before, backpack and other items he’ll need for the next seven days. He hops in his car and makes the all-too-familiar drive to Logan Airport in Boston.

From there, the routine takes over. He parks in the same garage and same parking area every time, often the same parking spot. He takes his usual pathway through the security line, sometimes recognizing the workers and staff. He arrives at his gate, boards his flight and gets airborne. After a quick connection in Detroit, he finally arrives at his destination in Seattle at 1 p.m. PT after seven total hours in the air and 12 hours after his alarm went off.

Lachance shuttles to pick up his rental car and darts off to his hotel to drop his things, get a bite to eat and get ready to attend that evening’s Western Hockey League action between the Seattle Thunderbirds and Red Deer Rebels.

As Scott Lachance’s 14-year pro hockey career was winding down, he had to figure out what he would do next.

Lachance, who played with the NY Islanders, Montreal, Vancouver and Columbus from 1991-04, played the 2006-07 season with Lowell of the American Hockey League, the Devils’ minor-league affiliate. At the conclusion of the year, then-Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello brought Lachance onto the staff as an amateur scoutm starting in the New England region.

Eighteen years later Lachance remains in the Devils organization, but with a much-elevated role. He is currently the team’s Head of US Scouting. But don’t let the “US” in the title fool you. Lachance is a cross-over scout that covers the entire hockey world.

“I basically do the whole globe,” he said. “(Our group) does the top 50-60 players depending on the draft. So, wherever the players are, we travel to. It just changes from year-to-year.”

Lachance’s group, the cross-over scouts, consists of Chief Scout Mark Dennehy, Director of Amateur Scouting Paul Castron and Head of CHL Scouting Greg Royce. The regional scouts do most of the heavy lifting in their area and become experts on the region. They submitted recommendations for certain players that the cross-over scouts then come to evaluate themselves.

“Our regional scouts in every area do a tremendous job and they put lists together,” Lachance said. “So, (the cross-over scouts) put our schedule together in pockets. We try to get 7-10 days in one region. That’s the way I try to do it. Everybody does it differently. I’d rather not bounce around from league to league.”

Tuesday

Lachance spends Monday night in Seattle at the hotel after the game. He has another game scheduled on Tuesday between the Everett Silvertips and Kelowna Rockets. After completing some work Tuesday morning, he makes sure to get on the road to Everett before 1 p.m. to avoid heavy traffic (one of the many tricks he’s picked up over the years).

Despite a later puck drop, Lachance prefers to arrive at the rink pretty early to get the roster in his book, enjoy a coffee, chat with other scouts and get ready for warmups. After the game is over, he returns to his hotel, files all his reports and completes his work before resting his eyes for the night.

When Lachance sits down in the press box to view a game, he has certain criteria for which he is looking. He evaluates players based on five different traits: skating, skill, sense, size/strength, spirit.

“You usually already have a list of guys you want to watch,” he said. “But I think I almost do it reverse. I like to let the game come to me. I like to see who stands out, who are the best players on the ice, and you then you hone in from there.”

Inside of those five categories are many subcategories. For example, skating entails things like edgework, speed, fluidity and more. But what NHL scouts are looking for are traits that translate to the NHL.

“A lot of it is projection,” Lachance said. “Some kids could be the best right now, but who’s the best in five years? That’s basically what our job entails. That’s probably the toughest thing. How to have a crystal ball on kids that are 17, 18 years old.”

Every scout has their own unique way of conducting themselves during a game. Some will mark things down into an iPad. Others use their phones or other digital devices. For Lachance, who has been a scout for nearly two decades, he prefers the old-fashioned notebook.

“I’m still old school,” he laughed. “I jot down notes, that way I feel like I can retain more. So, during the game I’ll watch who I’m supposed to watch, evaluate, take notes.

“Most times I prefer to soak the game in.”

Wednesday

Lachance wakes on Wednesday in Seattle. There’s a game this evening in Vancouver between the Giants and Portland Winterhawks. Lachance has to make the three-hour drive north while also allocating time to cross the border into Canada. He gets on the road in the early afternoon, logs 150 miles to the hotel and drops his belongings. It’s then off once again to the arena for the game. After the game, he spends the night in Vancouver.

Lachance and the rest of the cross-over scouts rely heavily on the work done on the ground by the regional scouts. The regional scouts are embedded in certain areas which covers specific teams, leagues, etc. They can really dig in on players with a lot of viewings. They also do a lot of leg work with talking to prospects, coaches, team staff, billets, etc. They have a chance to get beyond what’s on the ice.

The cross-over scouts are busy going from city to city, league to league, or even country to country to hit the highest level of players. So, the dirty work is entirely done on the regional level.

“We’re really busy going from town to town,” Lachance said. “Our regional scouts do a tremendous job of giving us background information, whether it be interviewing trainers or billets or coaches.”

While the regional scouts are putting together a list of the best players in their region in order, the cross-over scouts are trying to bridge all those regional lists into one main list.

“Early in the year, you’re just more evaluating and trying to put players in an order of where you think they should be,” Lachance said. “It’s a process that goes on throughout the year.”

Halfway through the season, the entire scouting staff comes together for mid-term meetings. This is where the larger group begins constructing the larger list.

“At your midterm meetings, you then prioritize based on where you’re picking in the draft,” Lachance said. “This year (2025), we were picking 50^th and 63^rd. By the end of the year, you want to make sure you evaluate all the top guys, but you don’t want to spend the time and energy and money to watch players you have no real chance of getting.”

Thursday

One quirk in the schedule for the WHL is that the league doesn’t play on Thursdays. This is the perfect day for Lachance to catch up on any outstanding work that needs to be done. It’s also the perfect day to travel by flight. It would take 11-14 hours by car from Vancouver to Calgary. With no games on Thursday, Lachance can make a leisurely trip to the airport. Landing in Calgary, it’s the usual trip to the rental car and another night in the hotel.

(Another likely next stop would be Kelowna. It's a 4-5 hour drive from Vancouver. It's a pretty safe travel early in the season but can be treacherous during the winter months with snow and road conditions. This is part of the extensive planning and calculations scouts make when determining their travel).

NHL scouts share a lot of similar traits. They all have an intense passion for the game. You would have to in order to pour so much time and energy, and so much of their lives, into traveling and evaluating players.

But a lesser-known trait is that many of them are also amateur meteorologists. As best they can be anyways. After all, when so much of your job is dictated by traveling, knowing weather patterns becomes an essential part of your job. Charting the weather is just another trick to the trade.

But despite their best efforts, even for professional meteorologists, the weather can be unpredictable.

“Going through Ontario, you’re sometimes chasing a lake effect snowstorm home and trying to beat it,” Lachance said. “In those instances, it could not be snowing and all of a sudden you get a foot of snow in an hour. I’ve been in a few of those.”

One year, Lachance was attending the World Junior Under-18 Championship in Europe. And getting there required overcoming some obstacles.

“Massachusetts had a ton of snow. I ended up flying out of a blizzard on Monday to the tournament,” he said. “Then when I was flying home, there was another blizzard. So, I left through a blizzard and came back in a blizzard. We almost got diverted to Maine.”

Beyond weather, there are also the usual travel issues.

“There’s always plane cancellations, where you get on the plane, are waiting, then there’s a mechanical problem and you have to deboard and wait four or five hours for the next one,” Lachance said.

Scouts are all too aware of these possible issues and always have contingency plans (driving or carpooling can be options). But in some circumstances – such as flying from a remote spot like Halifax to Boston – you’re only option is to wait.

“Some places it’s tough to get another plane to those areas,” Lachance said. “So, you end up waiting a long time to get home, But I wouldn’t change it for the world. This is what I love to do.”

Friday

On Friday, Lachance uses the morning to comb through reports from many of the regional scouts and takes in their latest assessments. He will make occasional touchpoints with those scouts to dig in further on some prospects. That evening, he’ll attend a contest between the Calgary Hitmen and Kamloops Blazers.

An entire year’s worth of scouting, evaluating, rating and debating all comes down to two days in the summer at the annual NHL Draft. The months of time spent on the road, away from home, in hotels, in arenas, on planes, in rented cars, in foreign countries, all for these two days.

“It’s an exciting time,” Lachance said. “Your work is done. You’ve gone through all those meetings and put your list together. You’ve already done all the work, the planes, trains and automobiles. It’s the scout’s Super Bowl.”

In 2025, the draft was held remotely. So, Lachance and the entire Devils scouting and hockey operations staff were set up in the team’s official locker room inside the Prudential Center.

In years past, the Draft was held in one centralized location. Each NHL team had a table on the draft floor with a select number of staff seated at the table – for the Devils that included Lachance. The remaining staff typically were set up in a suit somewhere inside the arena.

While the change had mixed feelings throughout the league, it did have some benefits.

“You can speak freely, and you don’t have to worry about someone seeing your list,” Lachance said. “You can get up and go speak to analytics, you can go speak to one of your regional guys and try to pick their brain on the pick that’s coming up four for five spots away.”

The Devils made seven selections in 2025: Conrad Fondrk (2^nd round, 50^th overall), Ben Kevan (2^nd, 63^rd), Mason Moe (3^rd, 90^th), Trenten Bennett (4^th, 99^th), Gustav Hillstrom (4^th, 114^th), David Rozsival (6^th, 161^st) and Sigge Holmgren (6^th, 178^th).

And just like that, a scouting year comes to an end.

“The work’s done, the travel’s done and you’re sitting all around a table just trying to pick the best players for the New Jersey Devils,” Lachance said. “That’s what we work for.”

Saturday

Lachance will finish his trip in Edmonton. He checks out of the hotel in Calgary on Saturday morning and makes a 3-4 hour drive to Edmonton. He makes sure to time his drive between the morning and afternoon traffic rushes. It’s another stop in the hotel to drop his things and another trip to the arena to watch the Oil Kings play the Lethbridge Hurricanes. After the game, he files his final report and has one final sleep on the road in a hotel for the trip.

Lachance took a leap into scouting 18 years ago looking at college free agents in New England. That expanded to more of the United States, and then into Canada, and now he’s gone global.

Nearly two decades have past and Lachance loves every bit of the job as much as he did on Day 1, if not more. It’s what he lives for.

“I was fortunate enough to get hired by Lou right after I stopped playing,” Lachance said. “It’s not a 9-to-5 job. You could ask most of us NHL or hockey players, they’d say they’re not cut out for 9-to-5 jobs. We’re doing something we love. It’s worth it to have a chance to help the team you work for. And hopefully, we achieve our goal and win a Stanley Cup.”

Sunday

Sunday morning comes. Lachance rises from bed, dresses and collects his suitcases, packed the night before, backpack and other items to return home. He hops in his rental car and makes the drive to the airport.

He arrives at his gate, boards his flight and gets airborne. After a quick connection in Minnesota, he finally arrives at his home destination in Boston at 6 p.m. ET after five total hours in the air and 10 hours after his alarm went off. He spends the night in his own bed for the first time in a week.

And gets ready to do it all over again tomorrow.