Dallas Stars use Draft Combine to gather final notes, put names to faces with prospects

For the Dallas Stars the NHL Draft Combine was an opportunity to gather some final notes and put names to faces with some of the more unfamiliar prospects on their draft board.

The Stars had formal interviews with 38 prospects during the combine in Buffalo and it wasn’t necessarily a list of players the Stars have interest in drafting.

“We spend the whole year watching them play and our area guys takes them out during the season and they get to know them a bit that way,” said Joe McDonnell, the Stars Director of Amateur Scouting. “For example I’ve got kids I’m close to in Kitchener, and I’d already spoken to them, so we didn’t want to waste their time or our time. We know them.”

With that in mind the Stars focussed more on European based prospects at the combine.

“Our Euro scouts know them and they’ve already taken them out, but it’s good for the rest of us to get to know their face,” McDonnell said. “So it turned into a list of 38 kids we maybe wanted to learn a bit more about or just meet for the first time as a group.”

McDonnell said the Stars learn way more about prospects from those individual meetings away from the combine. It’s more relaxed, prospects aren’t in a so-called “interview mode,” the scouts can often meet the player’s family, and there isn’t a time limit.

“We only have 15 minutes or so with each kid. So it’s not involved or anything (at the combine),” McDonnell said. “It’s just sort of neat to see and have a conversation with the players and see if they’re nervous or not. And not that that really matters anyway, they’re all so well spoken now and it’s pretty cool to see.”

Fitness testing often gets overanalyzed at the combine, and it’s something McDonnell said the Stars don’t get caught up in.

“It’s something we really look at after the fact,” McDonnell said. “Just starting to build a database on that for years down the road. It’s really nothing huge for us to go in and watch them work out and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to take him ahead of this other guy because he worked out or did more bench presses.’ We don’t really look at that at all (when drafting) it’s more of a database thing.”

For McDonnell he moves into a sit-and-wait period before the NHL Entry Draft on June 23 and 24 in Chicago. The Stars have eight picks this year including the No. 3 pick overall and two additional picks (No. 29 and 39) in the top 40 selections.

“Our board is ready,” McDonnell said. “Now we wait and see what Jim (Nill) does (before the draft). The expansion draft is going to impact things, so are other things, I imagine. But our list is ready and we’ll be ready to make that choice when Jim asks us to.”

Having the third-overall pick makes it an even more interesting draft year for McDonnell, who is used to picking later in the first round as a long-time employee with the Detroit Red Wings.

“Picking this high is a whole new ball of wax. Because you’re able to look at your first groupings of players. In the past we’ve been looking at the second grouping of players,” McDonnell said. “You’re able to look at that top group and you could be picking the guy who is your second-ranked player as opposed to your 15th ranked player.”