More than 100 NHL draft hopefuls will descend on Buffalo this week to take part in the NHL's annual scouting combine. Despite the large volume of hockey players, there will be no sticks or skates in the building for the largest and final pre-draft event.
Why there is no on-ice component is one of the more common questions from fans. If the players are supposed to be drafted for their hockey skills, wouldn't it be better to see how fast a player skates instead of how many pullups he can do? There are at least a few NHL executives out there and probably even more scouts who wonder the same thing.
These questions have grown a bit louder since the combine was moved to Buffalo four years ago. The on-ice component wasn't even an option at the previous combine spot, a convention center. Buffalo, however, is uniquely set up to handle both the large volume of players and the potential for on-ice testing.
The physical testing portion of the combine, which includes things like pullups, bench presses, vertical jumps, agility tests and a host of other events that don't look terribly fun to endure, is held at the HarborCenter, the Buffalo Sabres' practice facility. With the physical testing equipment taking up the spot where the ice would normally be, the HarborCenter would not be able to also host on-ice drills. However, it is located directly across the street from KeyBank Arena, where the Sabres play their home games. Player interviews are actually held inside the KeyBank suite level, allowing players to go from one interview to the next in the most intimidating version of speed dating that exists today.
"I've always wanted to have that element," Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen told The Associated Press in 2015 regarding on-ice testing. "This is all great. These guys can be as impressive or not impressive as whatever. But they can't play if they can't skate."
Kekalainen and others at least expressed public support at the time, but that was four years ago and there is still no movement to add on-ice testing.
Why the players don't skate at the combine
Dan Marr, the director of the NHL's central scouting services, is charged with planning the annual combine. It's a big part of a job that does not begin or end with the execution of the event. Marr, who has been on the job since 2012, used his first year to observe how the combine operated. After that, he looked for ways to better serve the member clubs with this event, so he took a comprehensive survey with input from all teams. Among the questions on that survey was if there was an appetite to add on-ice testing.
According to Marr, two-thirds of the respondents did not wish to add an on-ice component to the testing, especially after learning what that would entail.
"You have to have guys to bring the equipment. You need proper support staff. You also need the proper insurance," said Marr, noting the introduction of equipment requires the need for equipment managers and potentially more athletic trainers on staff. "There's just not a whole lot of time anyway. [The teams] are already tied up with meetings."
Essentially, the benefit was not viewed as significant enough to outweigh the challenges that would come along with on-ice testing. Marr also noted that agents and advisers have expressed concerns about adding an on-ice component, wondering what their clients ultimately would gain from it.
Another key issue is the time of year that the combine is held. Some players have been out of action for over two months, while some have either participated in the recent world championship or the Memorial Cup. It creates a further imbalance among the players that could ultimately skew the results.
The top junior circuits in North America, including the CHL, CJHL and USHL, host games for top prospects that include a day of on-ice testing in which players go through a series of drills to showcase their skating and on-ice agility. With those events typically being held in January, Marr says that this particular timeline offers a better picture of the players. It's the prospects in midseason form, rather than at the end of the long season, when most players are unlikely to be at their physical peak. The NHL clubs receive the results from each of those events.
Having attended some of those on-ice testing events myself, I can absolutely see the value in them. It's a unique look at a player's edge work, explosiveness and overall technical skating abilities. It has to be taken with a grain of salt, of course, as these are not game situations. That's why it's also telling that the number of NHL scouts attending those on-ice testing events is low compared with those who will attend the actual top prospects game the following night.
What on-ice testing could look like
If there ever were to be on-ice testing at the event, there's a pretty good template already in place.
The testing at the various top prospects games has been run by a company called Sport Testing, which uses high-tech sensors on the players to provide accurate timing. The drills are relatively simple as well and allow for a pretty large number of players to be tested at once. Players perform a variety of tests that focus on their skating, including straight-ahead speed, backward skating and agility. All of the events are timed and the results are sent to NHL Central Scouting and all 31 NHL teams.
The closest thing hockey has to the NFL's famed 40-yard dash is the 30-meter skate, separated into runs with and without the puck as well as forward and backward. This helps measure a player's ability to get up to speed quickly and is just long enough to gauge his top speed.
I'm also a big fan of the weave and transition agility drills that test a player's edge work and ability to weave in and out of pylons, showing how quickly he can move his feet, how smooth he is on his edges. It's a very small window into a player's skating ability, but it can show you what he's capable of on his feet.
There is also a reaction drill, in which testers light up certain gates green and red. The player has to quickly identify which is the correct gate to go through with and without the puck.
Goaltenders are tested in a different set of drills that showcase their reaction time and explosiveness across the crease. They also are reacting to a series of lights. The goalie results are not often made public, so it is a little more difficult to gauge the effectiveness of those drills.
There likely is not as much value in testing things like a player's shot or passing ability in a static environment compared with skating. There's also no great way to test a player's hockey sense, which is one of the primary attributes teams care about. All of those things are best observed in game situations.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of adding a skating element to the combine at this point would be getting the European players tested. With NHL executives having less time to make the trek to see a large swath of European players, this could be another data point to be used in their evaluations, seeing as it is already available for the North American junior players. It also might help players from the high school and prep ranks show where their technical skills are relative to their peers who are playing at more advanced levels of hockey.
Who makes the decisions going forward
One of Marr's duties tied to the combine is leading a committee that includes two NHL general managers, two assistant GMs and two scouting directors. The strength and conditioning coaches from around the NHL also have a committee that reviews the combine. Those groups are charged with tweaking the event to make it as effective as possible.
They have brought several advancements to the event, including the force plate vertical jumps that offer a more technical measure of a player's leg strength and explosiveness. The NFL recently changed to a similar format for its own vertical jump testing. The VO2 max and Wingate bike testing has been tweaked on the suggestions of strength and conditioning coaches in recent years, and the combine has also eliminated things like pushups and bench press for maximum reps through the work of this committee. There's always some level of evolution.
As long as the event is in Buffalo, the potential to have on-ice testing at least exists, however unlikely it may be.
"If the NHL clubs wanted it, we would have to find a way," Marr said. "Right now, the consensus is that it's not something that needs to be done."
This is also the final year of the NHL's agreement with Pegula Sports and Entertainment to host the combine in Buffalo, but it is widely believed the league will remain in Buffalo for the foreseeable future due to the overwhelmingly positive reviews for how the city has helped refine the process. What Indianapolis has been for the NFL's combine, Buffalo has become for the NHL, and there appears to be little appetite to leave.
Whether there is skating or not, the combine remains a valuable event, especially when it comes to player meetings and medical examinations -- which Marr believes are the most important element of the entire event. The combine as a whole, though, is merely another mile marker in the two-year marathon of scouting and evaluating these players, and the last one before teams get ready to call players to the stage.