I wouldn't say he is 100x more knowledgeable, probably 100x more privileged. I mean he has a very comfortable job following a child's game played by adults, a game that he has undoubtedly loved as long as he can remember. He gets to do so and be paid and backed by a massive news outlet, giving him a lot of security. He gets credentialed access to tournaments and events, to have direct contact players, with travel and food that is likely fully paid for; barriers that 99.999999% of the interested population have to clear on their own.
None of that, however, translates directly to knowledge. He watches a ton of hockey, and he has direct contact with a ton of professional and amateur scouts and coaches, yet he routinely misses the mark on what the league seems to value and routinely undervalues the traits that have been proven time and time again to make high quality NHL players. Not to say that there is only one mold of player that works (there are several) but he views everything with the same set of blinders on. He will almost always undervalue the significance of size and strength and how that influences a player climbing levels. He will undervalue the importance of physicality and play along the boards or at the front of the net. He will undervalue the detailed and responsible defensive play of forwards and defensemen alike.
The best way I can dumb it down, the things he values makes it seem as if he scouts as if they are candidates to be selected for the ASG various skills competitions, not to be quality NHL players.
While I respect the amount of time that he puts into his work, I don't feel bad that he is away from his family doing a job that falls under the "labor of love" category in my mind. He chooses to do this work and gets paid to do so, but if it was a big enough drain on his personal life, he could just walk away. His biggest shortcoming is that he just refuses to make actual changes to his process; he writes his self-audit piece on an annual basis about prospects he was wrong about, but never seems to put those lessons learned into action.
And if he is going to continue to operate that way, he should learn to not be so soft when people file criticism of his opinion.
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