BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2013\u00a0Just under 100 prospects spent the past week in Buffalo to give one lasting impression ahead of the 2025 NHL Draft.<\/p>\n
Players were split into 12 groups containing between 6-8 players, taking turns doing various drills in 30-minute increments. It came after days of players talking and meeting with teams, agents, and future opponents.<\/p>\n
Daily Faceoff was in person on Friday and Saturday, and it\u2019s time to empty the notebook:<\/p>\n
* Montreal is always known for its\u2026 funky draft combine moments. This year, they gave prospects a puck in a room, had them pick a location, and then saw where they\u2019d throw it from. Was it a way of seeing how they\u2019d handle the pressure? I guess so.<\/p>\n
* Casey Mutryn said the Canadiens, as expected, had the best question: \u201cIf I\u2019m the captain of a destroyer in the Navy during World War II, and your job is to destroy submarines, and there\u2019s a submarine that you can destroy, but 10 of your crew members are overboard. So if you destroy the submarine, you\u2019re killing your crew members. So they\u2019re like, \u2018Do you destroy the submarine, kill your crew members, or do you let the submarine go and save your man?\u2019 I just said, \u2018You gotta destroy the sub. That\u2019s your job.’\u201d<\/p>\n
* This quote from Tobias Trejbal, though, is the best: \u201cI remember Montreal asked me some weird questions. Like, \u201cIf you were in the Sahara and there were two guys, one had a bottle of water and the other had a baseball bat. What would you do? So, their guy told me,\u201d I have a wife at home. I have kids at homes like, are you gonna really kill me?\u2019 I said, \u201cYeah, your family is at home. They\u2019re safe, and I have my whole life in front of me, and I want to play in NHL, so I will smack you with the baseball bat.\u201d<\/p>\n
* The VO2 Max drill \u2013 typically a favorite of social media users \u2013\u00a0was held privately away from the media on Friday. I guess the NHL didn\u2019t want tons of footage of players puking all over the floor anymore.<\/p>\n
* Ivar Stenberg and Carson Carels were among the most notable prospects to sit out the fitness tests. Stenberg just finished the World Championship (a physical affair, at that), while Carels was injured during the WHL playoffs.<\/p>\n
* Carels said he\u2019s excited to join the University of North Dakota and play alongside Keaton Verhoeff. He said their opposite-handedness, as well as their play styles, should complement each other quite well.<\/p>\n
* Gavin McKenna was listed as 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds prior to the Combine \u2013 he\u00a0measured exactly the same today. BUT\u2026 he looks to have added some significant muscle over the past few months. Scouts don\u2019t seem worried about his size.<\/p>\n
* Viggo Bjorck was listed as 5-foot-9 and 180 pounds \u2013 about three pounds heavier than he was at the start of the year. It\u2019s noteworthy because he\u2019s the best \u201csmall\u201d forward in the draft.<\/p>\n
* Vladimir Dravecky, Casey Mutryn and Rudolfs Berzkalns received extra love for how their team interviews went.<\/p>\n
* Every Swedish player wanted to talk about Malte Gustafsson, with phrases like \u201cBeast\u201d, \u201cMonster,\u201d and \u201cMost underrated defenseman in the draft\u201d getting repeated multiple times.<\/p>\n
* Another guy scouts really love: Daxon Rudolph, who some scouts liken to Zach Werenski. He\u2019s definitely someone I\u2019m high on. Don\u2019t be surprised if a team in the 5-8 range takes a chance on him.<\/p>\n
* Niklas Aaram-Olsen said he was one of the last cuts from Norway\u2019s World Championship team that won bronze for the first time ever. He had one of the biggest smiles of the day as he talked about the team\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
* A few players I talked to mentioned that they watched the decentralized draft the year prior and felt like the luster and the excitement that made it feel so special were lost compared to the last centralized draft at The Sphere in Vegas. <\/p>\n
* A few teams, most notably Pittsburgh, spent significant time showing prospects plays they made mistakes on. Every player I talked to about that said they appreciated the team\u2019s honesty, which forced them to explain their thought process. <\/p>\n
* Aleksander Barkov was the most common forward that the prospects tried to emulate,\u00a0somewhere in the double digits. We\u2019ve seen his name mentioned much more in the past few years as the Florida Panthers have become a powerhouse. Josh Anderson got a lot of love, too. On defense: Devon Toews. I believe seven blueliners cited him specifically.<\/p>\n
* Lithuania\u2019s Simas Ignatavicius said he learned about the sport through watching the game at a mall when he was three years old. He was eating pizza, if you care. His father was a basketball player, but wanted his son to try a different spot. So, with very few rinks to choose from, Ignatavicius learned to play the game at a mall. Ignatavicius has the opportunity to become the third Lithuanian player drafted to the NHL this year.<\/p>\n
* Daxon Rudolph said the Seattle Kraken took a group of prospects to dinner. While the dinner beat is definitely overblown, it sounds like they took more defenders than forwards \u2013 Keaton Verhoeff being one of the blueliners who went there. Will they\u2026 actually draft a defenseman in the first round?<\/p>\n
* Zac Olsen\u2019s name was mentioned quite a bit as one of the toughest players to play against in this draft class. Olsen is projected to go somewhere in the 62-90 range this year \u2013 he\u2019s absolutely fearless, and had a good showing at the U-18s.<\/p>\n
* Ryder Cali credits spending his Draft-1 year with the OJHL\u2019s Milton Menace in helping him build confidence and hockey IQ. With more players passing on Canadian Jr. A, Cali \u2013 who is from the Cayman Islands \u2013 used it as an opportunity to keep his development at a steady pace, especially since he didn\u2019t make AAA hockey until he was 14 years old. Olsen said Cali was the most underrated player in the draft, as well.<\/p>\n
* Speaking of the Cayman Islands, it\u2019s wild that such a small nation has two players \u2013 Cali and Jaxon Cover \u2013 with the potential to go in the top 64 this year. There has never been a player from the CI drafted to the NHL.<\/p>\n
* Markus Ruck fell during the vertical jump and didn\u2019t finish all the fitness testing.<\/p>\n