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paulmcnab32 says:

With two days off between Games 3 and 4 of the Stanley Cup Final, the focus shifts to Toronto on Friday where more than 100 draft-eligible players from around the world will gather together for the league's Draft Combine.

TSN.ca's coverage starts Friday morning with our third annual NHL Combine Blog.

Each NHL club will have its own team of scouts and front office and athletic staff on hand as players conduct interviews and undergo medical examinations and fitness testing for the league's Central Scouting Service.

Once considered to be a simple 'meet-and-greet' with the NHL's future stars, the event has quickly evolved into serious business for all parties in attendance. With salary-keen teams focused more on developing home-grown talent, general managers and head scouts need as much background information as possible to make sure they select the right players from Round 1 through Round 7.

"(The physical testing) is only one component we look at," Central Scouting Service director EJ McGuire told TSN.ca at last year's combine.

"There's a continuing push for an on-ice component (similar to on-field testing at the NFL Combine). These sort of aspects would give scouts an added dimension to their assessments. But the physical testing doesn't affect a player's draft ranking. It gives teams a look at how he looks and how he may look in a couple of years."

While Sarnia Sting forward Steven Stamkos is the overwhelming favourite to go first overall to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the combine will give other franchises added insight on who they want to pick from a deep draft pool. Based on a given team's preferences, top-ranked players like defencemenDrew Doughty, Zach Bogosian, Luke Schenn and Alex Pietrangelo and forwards Nikita Filatov and Mikkel Boedker can go anywhere in any sequence.

That element hasn't been lost on Doughty, who hopes to make a smooth transition into the pros.

"The adjustment is so much different," he told TSN earlier this week. "The guys at the next level are so much bigger and so much stronger and are so much more skilled. Being a defenceman in the NHL next year is a task I'll have to work hard on and that's my main objective right now."

Ottawa will host the 2008 NHL Entry Draft on June 20-21. TSN will have live coverage of the first round on Friday, June 20 at 7pm et/4pm pt.
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