The Blackhawks are closing in on who they want to select with the No. 3 overall pick at the NHL draft June 21-22 in Vancouver.
Mark Kelley, the team’s vice president of amateur scouting, met with reporters Friday at the NHL Scouting Combine in Buffalo and said the team has narrowed down its list to six players.
Kelley didn’t name who they are, but Mark Lazerus of The Athletic says left-handed defenseman Bowen Byram of the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants, center Alex Turcotte of the United States National Team Development Program, center/left wing Trevor Zegras of NTDP and right wing Cole Caufield of NTDP are among them. Both Caufield and Turcotte are committed to the University of Wisconsin, while Zegras is heading to Boston University next season.
The other two candidates are likely WHL centers Kirby Dach of Saskatoon and Dylan Cozens of Lethbridge, who are ranked Nos. 3 and 5 in NHL Central Scouting final rankings for North American skaters, respectively.
- Left-handed defenseman Bowen Byram of WHL Vancouver (No. 2 NA)
- Center Kirby Dach of WHL Saskatoon (No. 3 NA)
- Center Alex Turcotte of NTDP/Wisconsin commit (No. 4 NA)
- Center/Right wing Dylan Cozens of WHL Lethbridge (No. 5 NA)
- Center/Left wing Trevor Zegras of NTDP/Boston University commit (No. 6 NA)
- Right wing Cole Caufield of NTDP/Wisconsin commit (No. 8 NA)/
According to Slavko Bekovic of NBC Sports Chicago, the following players have met with the Blackhawks multiple times this week in Buffalo:
- Byram
- Cozens
- Dach
- Turcotte
- Peyton Krebs of WHL Kootenay (now Winnipeg)/
NTDP left winger Matthew Boldy, a Boston College commit, Caufield and Zegras have also met with the team.
Mark Kelley said the Hawks are looking at six candidates for the #3 pick, but that could shrink (or expand) once they get the results of tomorrow’s tests.
Added any talks about trading down would happen in final week before draft.
— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) May 31, 2019
The fitness testing begins at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, with seven of the 11 drills/tests at HarborCenter.
- Bench press
- Pro agility test
- Pull ups
- Standing long jump
- Standing height
- Wingspan
- Wingate Cycle Ergometer test/
All the above listed tests will be open to NHL teams and the media. Only the Functional Movement Screen and Y-Balance test results will not be made public. As in previous years, the top 25 results from each of the physical tests will be posted in real-time to centralscouting.nhl.com. The combine will not be broadcasted on NHL Network in the United States. There will be a web stream on Sportsnet.ca.
Here are the times the six prospects from the Blackhawks’ projected list will be tested:
- 8:30 a.m. — Trevor Zegras
- 9:30 a.m. — Alex Turcotte
- 10:30 a.m. — Kirby Dach
- 11 a.m. — Dylan Cozens
- 11:30 a.m. — Cole Caufield
- 1:30 p.m. — Bowen Byram/