Quote:
Originally Posted by MissTeeks
Drouin decided not to do testing at the Combine this morning. Sounds like Jones and MacKinnon won't either.
"@Aportzline: Jonathan Drouin has declined to go through the combine fitness tests. Talk to him in a minute, but likely feels he has nothing left to prove"
"@Aportzline: Indications are that neither D Seth Jones nor C Nathan MacKinnon - the presumed 1-2 overall - will go through testing, either."
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That should be a bit of a flag. They didn't do well against the bigger Saskatoon team. Saskatoon is not that big compared to any NHL team other than the 2012-13 Flames.
The next level.... Barkov, Nichushkin, Lindholm are all bigger and have all been playing against men and have likely focussed a lot on their strength in order to be competitive.
These guys have to be pretty aware how they compare to the results of the the last top picks... Hall, Seguin, Skinner, Tavares etc and if they had comparable or better results they would want to wow the combine.
Maybe they are not as NHL ready as top 3's in historically strong drafts are expected to be.
Either way it gives the impression that they are not totally gung ho with the program.
Dustin Boyd was very skilful and pretty dominate in junior, albeit as a 19 year old but never was able to be strong enough to succeed in the NHL.
Nemisz was shocked at the conditioning level of the average NHL player...at his first training camp. He thought he was working out hard and in great shape but was at the bottom of the tests. If the Flames had paid attention to his combine results?????