How NHL combine participants prep for their ‘biggest job interview': Wingate, weighted chin-ups, more

New York Times

2 days ago

On June 7, at Buffalo's LECOM Harborcenter, Asher Barnett, Will Belle, Kristian Epperson, Sam Laurila, Will Moore and Charlie Trethewey will pull on their tank tops and shorts and jump as high as they can. The teenagers will have an audience: NHL general managers and their hockey operations cabinets.
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'You've got every scout in the NHL and every GM in the NHL watching you,' Joe Meloni, head strength coach at the U.S. National Team Development Program, said of the annual NHL Scouting Combine. 'They're literally picking you apart with their eyes.'
It's why, for a four-week block, Meloni trained the six former U.S. NTDP players at GVN Performance, the Plymouth, Mich. gym inside USA Hockey Arena. The combine is their final opportunity to display their speed, power, strength, agility, willpower and professionalism to prospective employers before the 2025 NHL Draft.
'The NHL combine,' Boston Bruins director of performance Kevin Neeld said, 'is part of the biggest job interview these players will go through in their lives.'
Practicing for the combine, then, is non-negotiable.
NHL teams have been watching these six U.S. NTDP players closely for the past two seasons. All six have secured NCAA commitments. They have aspirations beyond college hockey.
To complete their draft profiles of players like those Meloni is training, NHL teams use combine results to complement their on-ice viewings. Every year, players cycle through 10 off-ice physical tests that capture who they are as teenagers and how they could grow into NHL veterans.
The NFL Scouting Combine features college football players on the cusp of becoming professionals. As such, a participant who blows up stopwatches in Indianapolis could hear his name called sooner at the NFL Draft.
In comparison, an NHL combine performance does not usually influence when a player is selected. It is an early snapshot of data that will be accumulated for years, in most cases, before NHL entry. The intelligence teams gather during interviews preceding testing is just as important, if not more so.
The primary value is for teams to initiate an informational foundation. Once a club drafts a player, it adds more data at post-draft development camps, preseason testing and year-end physicals throughout the player's career, all with the intent of maximizing performance.
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'There's not a ton there that's predictive of future NHL success. We recognize that,' Neeld said. 'But I look at it more as: What information would you want to know about a player that you're about to make an investment in?'
NHL performance coaches will be eyes up at Harborcenter instead of staring at their laptops at home. They will monitor technique and body language. A player who stumbles through the 5-10-5 shuttle (five yards one way, 10 in the other, five back in the initial direction) could be signaling compromised commitment.
'When a player looks wildly unfamiliar with everything they're about to go through, that warrants some follow-up questioning from our scouts and front office of, 'Is this a potential reflection of the player's attitude?'' Neeld said. 'It may not be. But it's worth looking into that area a little bit to see, 'How much does this player care?' 'Are they going to be a player that certainly fits into the culture that's in this organization?'
'There's an expectation that you compete hard, you're a good teammate and you're part of a group that's working together to pursue the goal of winning a championship. If you have guys that don't care enough to at least go through a practice round of combine testing, that may be a red flag.'
Force plates, timing devices and metabolic masks gather data at the combine down to the hundredths of seconds and inches. So for Meloni, mimicry is critical. It would not have helped, in other words, if he'd had the players do squats to prepare for the combine's no-arm-swing force plate jump, even if the same muscles are used.
'We have a saying here: Training is testing, and testing is training. That's exactly what you're going to get tested on,' Meloni said. 'To me, it doesn't really make sense to do anything different. That's going to be the same pathway you're going to have to do at the combine. So let's just do that. You want to make it reflect what you're going to actually be asked to do as much as possible.'
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Barnett, Moore and Trethewey played their final game on May 3 in Frisco, Texas at the World U18 Championships. Team USA won 4-3 over Slovakia to take bronze.
After a week off, they reconvened at U.S. NTDP headquarters. They were rested but not deconditioned. Meloni's job was to reintegrate them to a specific band of training emphasizing the combine's primary outputs: speed and power.
Meloni began his charges' days at 7:30 a.m. After warming up, the players trained for approximately one hour.
During the NTDP season, Meloni's workouts targeted objectives such as strength and endurance to get his players through the grind. For his combine sessions, because speed and power were the two pursuits, Meloni devised narrower training windows.
Meloni operates under a principle initiated by Illinois track coach Tony Holler: feed the cats. The philosophy emphasizes purposeful training, good health and positivity. The athletes should not train more than necessary.
'If somebody's a cat, they don't really need a lot of work to change things,' Meloni said. 'It's more along the lines of just giving them a small dose and making sure not to overcook the steak, so to say. The best thing for training these qualities is being fresh and feeling good.'
Meloni was not necessarily pursuing significant adaptations during the four-week session. Technical mastery, however, was required. A player will perform better on the bench press, for example, with the right form.
Each day, Meloni ran his players through several of the tests. Mondays following weekends off were optimal for the players, who were at their freshest, to test their legs with the standing long jump and the three jumps (vertical with arm swing, no arm swing, squat start) using force plates.
These are not straightforward movements. Practicing mechanics occupied each session. By the end of the program, Meloni expected the players' technical abilities to be down cold.
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Other days were designed similarly to practice specific tests. They were not always identical.
One chin-up session mimicked the combine test: maximum reps before failure. Meloni also incorporated strength-focused chin-up days. For example, he loaded the players up with 20 or 30 extra pounds. When they removed the weights, standard chin-ups felt easier.
After each session, players consumed recovery shakes. Some stayed around the gym for stretching and treatment. Post-training fueling was mandatory.
'Thankfully, there's a Chipotle about 10 minutes away,' Meloni said with a laugh. 'That gets quite a bit of volume from us.'
Of all the combine tests, Neeld likes the Wingate: a full-gas bike ride that measures anaerobic power in watts per kilogram.
'They're on a bike, which is a low-skill movement,' Neeld said. 'So you get a really clear picture of what their engine looks like.'
Meloni knows this. His players practiced the Wingate every week. By the conclusion of the program, their performance was expected to peak.
'The goal isn't to make anyone puke,' Meloni said, referring to how some combine participants push themselves to sickness. 'But we do our best to build up to it. The first week, we're doing a little more sub-maximal style of training. The last two weeks before they leave, we just do the test one or two days a week.'
For teams evaluating results, the Wingate can be a helpful data point in projecting a player's ceiling. This is the exercise 32 organizations are attempting to master: identifying teenagers with the most potential to grow into NHL contributors.
'You're trying to get an idea of where this player is right now on their developmental pathway,' Neeld said. 'To the extent that it's possible, to look at their frame and their build and try to get an understanding of maybe where they could get to.'
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One of Meloni's objectives was to improve performance during the four-week block. Practicing technique and executing repetitions cannot help but produce adaptations.
'You definitely see change over a four-week period,' Meloni said. 'Maybe it's not reasonable if you broad jump 100 (inches) that you're going to jump 120. But we could add six to eight inches in four weeks, for sure.'
But the primary purpose of combine preparation is to show dedication. Players will be competing, just like they do on the ice.
'You're not showing up to the combine and having anything be foreign to you,' Meloni said. 'You know what's expected of you. You know the technicalities of the test. You know how many attempts you have. We give them a dosage before they get there so they don't get on the bike and freeze up.'
(Photo of now-Buffalo Sabres prospect Brodie Ziemer on the Wingate at the 2024 combine: Ben Ludeman / Getty Images)