NHL Combine Notebook: How do prospects prepare for absurd interviews?

BUFFALO, NY – Adam Novotný had interviews with 14 NHL teams on Wednesday. 

It was a packed calendar that started with the Nashville Predators at 1:00 pm and ended with the Calgary Flames at 4:40 pm.

“By the time you’ve done seven or eight of them, you hardly even remember your name when they ask,” Novotný said. “It’s kind of crazy, and you get a lot of the same questions.”

It was a common experience for prospects at the NHL Scouting Combine this week in Buffalo, where teams are making one of their final pushes to gather intel before the NHL Draft on June 26 back here in Buffalo. 

It’s also an exercise in the slightly absurd. 

The Montreal Canadiens, for example, asked multiple players if they could handle pressure and then, in response, had the prospect toss a puck into a trash can. In one such instance, a member of the Canadiens told the prospect they would never play the Canadiens if they missed, in theory adding pressure. 

The Canadiens also asked players what they would do if they were in the desert and a day's walk from water, but were next to someone who had a bottle of water. In that situation, would the player kill the person with the bottle of water?

One team asked players what type of animal they’d be on the ice or in a social setting, and if they were the same animal. Keaton Verhoeff said one team asked him what he would do if he ordered a BLT with cheese and the order came without cheese. 

So how do you prepare players for the experience?

“Teams don’t want a robot in that experience, so when we get feedback from teams, it’s usually about how a kid was genuine or humble, honest and funny,” said Allain Roy, an agent with RSG Sports who represents Carson Carels. “So if you over-prep a kid, they don’t act like themselves; they become robots and worry about the prep and not themselves.” 

Dan Milstein, an agent with Gold Star Sports Management, said he gives his players an idea of some of the sample questions teams will ask, but doesn’t do too much prep. 

Allan Walsh, an agent with Octagon, runs his clients through mock interviews ahead of the combine. 

“I pretend to be a scout, and we limit it to 20 minutes, like it’ll be with teams,” Walsh said. “Giving them information is power, and we give them the knowledge they can possibly have before going in. I also tell them there is no such thing as a wrong or right answer. There’s no such thing as hitting it out of the park or missing. You are who you are.”

And for those off-the-wall questions, Roy said some of those crazier ones tend to happen later in the day. 

“The scouts are getting bored asking the same questions over and over,” Roy said. “Honestly, sometimes those weirder questions come from [the] team trying to break things up and make it more entertaining."

The departure from the centralized draft last year was a seismic shift in the hierarchy of North American league events. The general managers wanted it. The league, players, fans, and media largely did not.

The results from Los Angeles a year ago were underwhelming. Technical difficulties. Prolonged streaks of awkwardness. A reduced on-air product and an impacted experience for the players who had spent their entire lives working for this one goal.

In the immediate aftermath, there appeared to be momentum from some clubs to scrap the idea and return to the format that made the NHL draft the most enjoyable version in pro sports. But as first reported by Elite Prospects last July, that vote came up short.

“It’s a hockey ops decision first here,” one NHL team president said last summer. “I defer to them, but to me, I thought for sure we’d be going back to fully in-person after what was put together.”

So with a second attempt at the decentralized draft on deck later this month, Elite Prospects spoke with several general managers and Presidents of Hockey Ops to see if there is any appetite for a return to the old format.

“I think so,” one Western Conference GM said. “I voted for it to stay decentralized last year, but I think I’m ready for it to come back. [The Combine] can’t be the place where everyone gets together.”

An Eastern Conference GM echoed those sentiments.

“Maybe we do it every second year? One issue is that not a lot of clubs want to host it. It’s a lot of work and not a lot of return. Maybe Montreal would be happy to host it every year like they used to.”

Another Western Conference executive was even more direct.

“I was shocked it didn’t go back for this year. Last year was a mess with the tech issues, and it really robbed those kids of an experience. It needs to come back.”

Not everyone was so optimistic, though. One President of Hockey Ops from the East is quite happy to keep it as is, but did admit it’s harder to get things done.

“It is nice to have the ability to have full-volume, private conversations. And it might seem like a small thing, but there’s not enough space for all the scouts at the table on the draft floor. So having them all be there is important.”

“But it’s harder to get business done,” he added. “The build-up to the draft allows guys to talk, walk away, come back. Some deals that have happened before just wouldn’t have gotten done with the way it’s set up now.”

Every executive we spoke to acknowledged that moving away from the old format came at the expense of the player experience and much of what made the NHL Draft unique.

The challenge now is convincing enough decision-makers that what’s easiest for them isn’t necessarily what’s best for the draft.

Denver, the reigning NCAA champions, are going to have a pretty distinct Western Hockey League feel on the blue line next season with a freshman class featuring Ryan Lin and Daxon Rudolph, two potential top-10 picks in this NHL draft. 

The Pioneers also have landed new Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Jack Pridham, who won a Memorial Cup with the Kitchener Rangers earlier this week. 

So what’s the recruiting pitch been like from Denver coach David Carle?

“It’s pretty simple, like he said to me, ‘We don’t have a Spittin Chiclets’ video for a reason,’” Lin said. “They want guys coming in for the right reasons, and once Denver came into the picture, it’s pretty easy. They win, they develop, he’s probably the best coach outside the NHL, and I think I fit like a glove to that style of play.”

Blake Fiddler, who was drafted by Seattle in 2025, is also part of that incoming Denver class after playing in the WHL. Fiddler said earlier this week that with Carle, the track record often speaks for itself. 

“He doesn’t oversell you on anything. He works on being honest about the work and [the] reward that comes at Denver,” Fiddler said. “It’s very calm and composed; it’s refreshing from a coach.”