And talking to him fresh off the Erie Otters’ season, he seemed to embrace the preparation for the combine even if it was going to be like cramming for an exam when others had half a semester of getting acclimated the various work stations. He had about 10 days longer in the break between his last game and the combine than Crosby did. He never said that he had nothing to prove and no one would have contradicted him.īut McDavid did do the testing. He never said he was dinged up but at that point he had to People say McDavid-Eichel isn't potential rivalry cuz they'll play only twice a yr.
He would have been testing four or five days after his last game and he had played a lot of hockey. Sidney Crosby didn’t do the Wingate or VO2 or anything else too demanding in his trip to the combine back in ’05, but he had an unimpeachable explanation: His Rimouski team was fresh off an appearance in the Memorial Cup final. The Oilers will take him first overall and what’s there to prove? Their advice would have been to the point: Go ahead and take the medical, get measured, pose for pictures and then get fitted for a suit to wear to the draft. Scouts I spoke to this week said that, if their teams were standing in the shoes of Edmonton GM Peter Chiarelli, they would have told McDavid to politely decline to test at the combine. It’s a long way from Magnitogorsk to Western New York if you’re just looking at a couple of pounds of wings and a half hour of suffering. And frankly, I can’t say that Samsonov was wrong. More than 100 prospects were invited and the only name player who didn’t show up in Buffalo was goaltender Ilya Samsonov, who tops many scouts’ lists at the position (albeit, in a very soft year for goaltenders). Thankfully, for the readers’ edification and posterity, I was able to have conversations with a couple of scouts who had the test results at their fingertips. The results are something along the lines of classified info, stored in the NHL’s state-secrets file. (In fact, the VO2 testing, the most excruciating of tests, was held a day before media were allowed on site.) The public is basically shut out of anything but a few video highlights.
The media get to watch most of the stuff, only at a distance. You only know when the final numbers come out, which they did on Monday.Īnd when I say “you” I mean “scouts,” given that NHL Central Scouting Services provides results to the teams and their strength and conditioning coaches. Results of the physical testing aren’t posted or announced at the venue. I’ve gone to it for 15 years or so and every time I watch it, I say: “I know why they’re here, but why am I?” For entertainment value, it would rank somewhere behind the average beer-league game and an NHL warm-up.įact is, you don’t even know what it is you’re watching. Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE | Stanley Cup Playoffs Fantasy Hockey STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS: | Broadcast Schedule
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