The Scouting Combine is a place where scouts and team management can get to the see the physical prowess of potential picks in an up close and personal environment. It allows these team representatives to screen for potential health issues which could derail a career, and have an early bit of insight into conditioning habits. A good combine rarely propels a player into a drastically higher draft position, but a remarkably poor showing or emergence of a serious issue can see a player’s stock plummet.
So far, the preliminary results have been encouraging for Nolan Patrick. He was able to perform 11 pull-ups even though had been at a disadvantage. Patrick had missed a a majority of his games for the Brandon Wheat Kings with an upper body injury, which turned out to be multiple sports hernias. He had been expected to be the top pick all year, regardless, but the performance of Nico Hischier has made that conclusion less absolute. Patrick did experience a deal of difficult on the Wingate bicycle test, which monitors how well a player is able to deal with absolute exertion.
Hischier did slightly better in a couple exercises, topping the charts with 13 total pull-ups. He did have a more difficult time with the bench-press and high-weight activities in comparison to Patrick, which might be a factor in such a tight contest. Hischier did post the better long jump however, at 105 inches. Potential top-5 pick Gabriel Vilardi reportedly impressed with his above-average strength. His lower body tests beat out most of the competition, and he finished with an impressive second place in that grueling Wingate fatigue test.
Shane Bowers, center from USHL’s Waterloo, Kailer Yamamoto, an undersized (5’8″) right-winger from Spokane, and Josh Norris, a USHL center from Michigan, were all lesser knowns who had strong strong showings. Yamamoto and Bowers were slotted to be picked somewhere in the middle of the first round, whereas Norris finished at #34 in the NHL rankings after a season where he was noticed by scouts. No reports of major health issues have been reported, although such discoveries are often kept relatively concealed from the public for a time.