Soft diffraction phenomena in elastic nucleon scattering are considered from the viewpoint of the spin dependence of the interaction potential. Spin-dependent pomeron effects are analyzed for elastic pp scattering, and spin-dependent differential cross sections and spin correlation parameters are calculated. The spin correlation parameter AN is examined on the basis of experimental data from s=4.9 GeV up to 23.4GeV in the framework of the extended High Energy Generalized Structure (HEGS) model. It is shown that the existing experimental data of proton-proton and proton-antiproton elastic scattering at high energy in the region of the diffraction minimum and at large momentum transfer give the support of the existence of the energy-independent part of the hadron spin flip amplitude.