How the NHL Scouting Combine has grown and evolved: From hotel ballrooms to VO2-max tests

New York Times

9 hours ago

Ken Holland remembers a time when evaluating an NHL Draft prospect meant watching him play live or on tape, talking to his coaches and family members and then sitting down with that player for an interview.
And that was basically it. Thirty years ago, there were no VO2-max bikes or Wingate ergometer tests to help project players' performances. Those are now featured elements of the NHL Scouting Combine, which concludes on Saturday in Buffalo, N.Y.
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The combine, which brings together 90 top draft-eligible prospects for physical testing, interviews and medical examinations ahead of the draft on June 27-28, has expanded since its humble beginnings in 1994. Holland recalls a much simpler time.
'You just called the agents and you set up meetings,' said Holland, a Hockey Hall of Fame executive recently hired as general manager of the Los Angeles Kings. 'I can remember going to the draft and I'd go in four or five days early. You just met with players in advance of the draft. That's what everybody did.
'I can remember when they brought some players into Toronto. There was a hotel by the airport. It was just up the road there. And there'd be some players. Basically, you'd meet them in your room.'
There wasn't even a combine in 1992, when Holland was the director of amateur scouting for the Detroit Red Wings before his 22-year run as their GM. Interviews with prospects now can involve many scouts and front-office personnel, and even psychologists. It wasn't always like that.
'I remember sitting in a room with Darren McCarty two days before the (1992) draft, the year we took him in the second round,' Holland said. 'It was just Darren and I, with me asking Darren some questions for a half hour, maybe 45 minutes. I made the call to Pat Morris, his agent, and I said our Ontario scout Paul Crowley really liked Darren. I'd love to sit down.
'Between Pat and I, we set up a time. The draft's on Friday. It might be Wednesday at noon. He's coming up to my hotel room at whatever hotel I'm staying at. He and I talked, there's no real time frame. Pat would make his itinerary (for the week). I remember Darren left the room and I thought to myself, 'I'd love to have that guy as part of the organization.''
McCarty became a four-time Stanley Cup champion and fan favorite in Detroit. Draft preparation for prospects and teams has evolved since the combine was initiated in 1994. It has gone from hotel ballrooms and a convention hall in Toronto to what now seems to be a permanent home in Buffalo, where the Sabres' facilities are used. All 32 teams are set up in KeyBank Center for the interviews, which are conducted across five days, while disciplines to measure physical fitness — including the VO2 and Wingate — are done in the adjacent LECOM Harborcenter rink.
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It is now a significant event on the hockey calendar, but it's not open to the public. But it's treated that way, with media providing on-site coverage to go along with the evaluations being made by executives, scouts, strength and conditioning coaches, medical staff and sports performance coaches. It is information-gathering ratcheted up.
While the combine may not be crucial for the draft positioning of top prospects such as Matthew Schaefer, Michael Misa, James Hagens, Caleb Desnoyers or Porter Martone, it can provide clarity on other players. And with major hotels near the facilities, it's become a destination for pre-draft business.
'The agents appreciate the fact that they don't have to have the players traveling all over the place,' said Dan Marr, director of NHL Central Scouting. 'The players generally enjoy it. The scouts like it. The interviews run smooth. You're on the suite level. They just go around the deck from suite to suite for the interviews. Lunch is right there at the arena. We have refreshments, beverage stations at a couple different spots there. Really, the players have no reason to go outside the entire time that they're there. You can get everywhere. It's all interconnected.
'Agents like it. They come in and have their meetings with the GMs and all that. They get to spend some time with their clients in the after-hours. The media seems (to) like the setup availability with the players. Stakeholders that broadcast it, we schedule (their) interviews. (Networks) get a lot of their pre-draft B-roll film done. It seems to be a win-win, and the facility works.'
Don Waddell said that when he was a first-time NHL general manager with the expansion Atlanta Thrashers, reliance on amateur scouts — and the reports they filed on their viewings of prospects — was paramount in guiding who would be drafted. On two occasions when he held the No. 1 overall pick, Waddell brought a few top prospects to Atlanta for a day of interviews.
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The scouting influence remains a major component of draft preparation. But the combine has grown to where teams can learn both about a player's personality and how they react to physical exertion.
'Before, it was height, weight, jump up and try and see how high you can jump and how far you can long jump and that was about the extent of it,' said Waddell, now the Columbus Blue Jackets' GM. 'And then it's evolved into we send our strength coaches there now, which they never used to go there, to watch all the stuff. All the bike tests they do. The endurance tests.'
It goes far beyond physical strength. Waddell said teams, including his, are putting prospects through a 15-minute test to measure their reaction times. Teams are placing greater emphasis on cognitive ability and problem-solving.
'You're doing it on an iPad and it'll give you three objects,' Waddell said. 'When those objects pop up, you hit the button and it sees how fast your reaction time is. They throw maybe three things that you're supposed to hit, but they also throw three other things in there that you're not supposed to hit. It's a reactionary test. And you've got to think. You got to make sure you hit the button you're supposed to hit. Just not hit the button every time something flashes up.'
Memory tests are also conducted, whether it's remembering what numbers are associated with objects that appear on a screen, or arranging pieces of a puzzle together. 'Everybody's going to be different,' said Waddell, who took the tests in addition to some of his Blue Jackets staff. 'It's a little bit to do with speed but it's also with, how fast does your mind think to be able to do something like that? It is pretty interesting.'
What does a team gain from putting players through those mental paces? Waddell said it can help illustrate how a player might react in various situations they encounter on the ice. For instance, how might a defenseman process his next play with the puck, either under pressure or when he has more time to execute?
'It's not like a psychology test,' Waddell said. 'It's not going to tell you about the character of a player. Everyone wants to think that. We know the player and we find out about the character. You talk to their coaches. Their ex-coaches. You talk to teammates. That stuff we can find out. It's the hockey sense and reaction time and all that.
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'We're just live watching them when they play, all our scouts. But this takes it to a much further (level). It'll agree with what we see or disagree with what you see. Doesn't mean you're not going to draft the player, but if it disagrees a lot with what you see, now you can go back — we just did it the other day — and watch video of that player and see if we missed something.
'I'm new to it. We're all new to it. But so far everything I've seen from it, I'm excited to get it from the players.'
Marr, who formerly ran scouting and player development under Waddell with the Thrashers, also has seen the combine's evolution from its early days, when he was coordinating the scouting staff of the Toronto Maple Leafs. When the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg and became the second iteration of the Jets, Marr didn't go with them. He's found a home with the NHL, taking over Central Scouting from E.J. McGuire, who died of cancer in 2011. Marr has followed the lead of McGuire, who would visit the NFL combine and study how it incorporated physical and medical testing.
Holland said Marr has taken the combine 'to another level,' and part of that vision involved moving it to Buffalo. Over the years, there has been discussion about moving it to other cities. That discussion quickly dies. Buffalo has worked logistically, given its proximity to Toronto, both for North American prospects and for Europeans who can fly there and be whisked to the setup at Harborcenter. Marr said Sabres owner Terry Pegula desired a showcase event for the facility when it opened in 2014 and that the club has been 'all-in on it' from the beginning. (The combine was canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.)
'Every GM meeting that comes up, somebody says, 'Why don't we move it?'' Waddell said. 'Everybody says no. It works there.'
It also has become a hub for GMs and agents to have face-to-face meetings and further lay the groundwork for trades that could take place — often at the upcoming draft — or to conduct contract talks. 'Well, it's got to start somewhere,' Holland said. 'There's (a) lot of conversations. … It might be chit-chat or it might be the beginnings of something that ends up (as a trade).'
Waddell said this year's decentralized draft, in which teams will make picks remotely, has put added emphasis on being in Buffalo this week. Some follow-up video interviews may be arranged by teams instead of the usual second in-person meetings that often occur in the days before the draft, but the combine could be what Waddell says is 'the one shot' teams have with a player.
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When Marr took over, he was tasked with bringing an NFL-style feel to the event. It figures to be tweaked further in future years, because he's always seeking input from teams. What he doesn't anticipate is that it will become a televised spectacle.
'There's a lot of smart people at the NHL on the production side of things and on the making money side of things,' Marr said. 'If there was a way to monetize it or make it into a show, we'd have done it. But there just isn't. The other thing is, we're competing against the Stanley Cup playoffs when the combine is on. Why would we want to try and steal any limelight away from the most exciting time of the year for the National Hockey League?'
But the combine has come a long way from being run out of conference halls, with few other than the participants and the teams paying attention.
'It's surprising to me how it's grown,' Holland said. 'But I'm not surprised in the moment. I'm surprised from 30 years ago to see where it is today and how important it is as a piece in the decision-making process.
'It's a piece of the whole puzzle, and maybe for some teams it's a bigger piece and some teams it's a (smaller) piece. It depends on every organization and what's important to them. But it's certainly a piece, in terms of information, for all 32 teams.'
(Photo of Leon Draisaitl at the 2014 NHL Scouting Combine: Dave Sandford / Getty Images)