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As expected, the NHL and the Pegula family have announced that the Buffalo Sabres will host the NHL Draft Combine for the next two years.
What is the NHL Scouting Combine, you ask?
Its the assembly of the top 100 NHL draft prospects in one place. The players are put through their medial exams and physical testing as well as being interviewed by all NHL teams.
The event isn't open to the public. Might that change when it shifts to Buffalo for the next two years? That remains to be seen. Will the prospects skate drills and scrimmage? hats to be decided at another time as well. The Toronto combines have never included an one-ice component. Its strictly dry land testing and training.
The Scouting Combine had been held in Toronto since 1999.
The team has ben aggressively pursuing this premiere event for the past two years.
The NHL scouting combine has long been held at the convention center in Toronto. It will now occur in Hockey Heaven. The Sabres will be looking to add a new twist or two the this already great, signature NHL event.
In May 2015, the Buffalo Sabres will get an up close and personal view of top prospects Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel as they will be among the best of the best young players being evaluated and interviewed by all 30 NHL teams and their dignitaries inside First Niagara Center and the HARBORCenter.
John Koelmel of HARBORCenter expects big things for all parties involved in the next two scouting combines in Buffalo saying that it will be a collective effort between the Buffalo Sabres, HARBORCenter, the NHL and City of Buffalo.
Buffalo's proposal beat out Pittsburgh's for the right to host the scouting combine.
The Sabres have also bid on the 2016 NHL Draft.
Here's the official statement from the Sabres:
The National Hockey League and the Buffalo Sabres today announced the NHL Combine will move to Buffalo in 2015 and 2016, with the event being held at First Niagara Center and the soon-to-be-completed HARBORCENTER complex across from the arena. The event, which has taken place in Toronto in previous years, showcases the top draft-eligible prospects from North America and Europe heading into the NHL Draft.
“The NHL Combine is an essential event for all of our Member Clubs in advance of the Draft, which continues to grow in importance,” said Colin Campbell, senior executive vice president of NHL Hockey Operations. “The League has pushed to improve the Combine each year and the state-of-the-art facilities in Buffalo will allow us to further enhance the quality of the event for our teams, prospects and media.”
The event, held in late May or early June, is a chance for representatives – typically scouts, coaches and general managers – from the NHL’s 30 member clubs to observe the prospects undergo physical and mental tests. Teams conduct individual interviews with prospects before they undergo various fitness and skill tests to hopefully improve their value in the Draft.
“We’ve had our eye on hosting the Combine for quite some time and we are thrilled that it will be coming to Buffalo,” said Ted Black, president of the Sabres. “Terry and Kim Pegula have made it a goal of this organization to create an environment here in Buffalo that is ideal for hosting highly visible events like the Combine and we are certainly ready to meet that challenge. All of our resources will be in place to ensure a successful event for the league and we’re proud to have the next wave of NHL players pass through Buffalo.”
First Niagara Center and HARBORCENTER offer a unique setting for the event. The combined facility – the two buildings are connected by a pedestrian bridge – is the only three-rink complex among NHL teams and offers an “all-in-one” package, with additional off-ice training space, restaurant and hotel housed in HARBORCENTER.
“HARBORCENTER was built with events like the Combine in mind,” said John Koelmel, HARBORCENTER’s president. “Our intent was to provide a world-class facility for hockey that attracts the sport’s best events. The NHL Combine continues to grow every year and we’re confident that HARBORCENTER and all of its amenities will only add to the experience for the league and all of the participating prospects.”
HARBORCENTER, which opens this fall, is a $172 million hockey and entertainment complex that is connected to First Niagara Center in the Canalside District of downtown Buffalo. Among its many amenities, the facility boasts two NHL-size rinks, 11 locker rooms, the Academy of Hockey, IMPACT Sports Performance training facility, (716) Food and Sport restaurant, a destination Tim Hortons location, a full-service Marriott hotel and a 750-space parking structure and additional retail space.
Thanks, Sabres.com
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Pat Kaleta hears the chirps. Some of you fans don’t give him a snow ball’s chance in Hell of recovering from his serious injury in time to put up a valiant fight to make the Buffalo roster in training camp.
Kaleta has heard the smack while he’s been driving to and from the rink. He uses the smack for the fuel that he needs to take his workouts to the next level. Rather than believe it, Kaleta is doing what he has always done. He’s fighting it with the strength of 36 burning suns.
Pat Kaleta will not lie down. Pat Kaleta will not go quietly.
You better get used to it.
Hell hath no fury like a Pat Kaleta scorned, criticized, and written off for being broken down and unable to compete at the highest of heights. He hates it when people write off other people. He cites his good friend and former Buffalo Bills linebacker Kawika Mitchell whose NY Giants team slayed then undefeated Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in a recent Superbowl. Underdogs can never be over looked. Not in pro sports, or in real life.
Kaleta is a modern day Rocky Balboa. Don't count him out or else he'll knock you out. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
He was dealt a terrible hand, but he’s driven and determined to overcome the odds that are stacked against him.
December 9, 2014 was a day that Pat Kaleta won’t soon forget. It’s the day that the most nightmarish season in his NHL career came to screeching halt. On that fateful day, his hockey was taken away from him.
To understand the magnitude of it, one reflects back to the period of time prior to 12/9/13. On October 10, Kaleta was banished to the Buffalo room for delivering an illegal hit to the head of Columbus D-man Jack Johnson.The NHL wasted little time throwing the proverbial book at the repeat offender.
Kaleta was handed a stiff ten game suspension for his hit on Johnson. The NHL made an example of Kaleta by imposing such a heavy sanction against him for his aggressive play.
When Kaleta was cleared to resume play after serving his harsh, prolonged suspension, the Buffalo native was unceremoniously waived by his former GM Darcy Regier. The hometown kid had suddenly become persona non grata with the team that had drafted him out of Peterborough of the OHL. At that time, there were rumblings that Regier and then head coach Ron Rolston were at risk of losing their jobs. Some observers felt that Regier was playing to the NHL league offices by banishing Kaleta to the minors. A few weeks prior to the Kaleta-Johnson incident, the John Scott-Phil Kessel fracas went down in an exhibition game in Toronto. Rolston was called out for leaving Scott on the ice to instigate shenanigans against Toronto’s skill players. The Critics took issue with the antics of Rolston and Scott. The Kaleta incident was looked at with the same jaundiced eye. Thus, he was given a one way tickey down the I-90 to Rochester.
Said Regier:
“This was a move we thought was necessary to help Pat change his game and preserve his career in this league. We believe in Pat as a person and we hope he will continue his career in our organization and, if the circumstances are right, with the Buffalo Sabres.”
In 306 career games with the Sabres, Kaleta has scored 27 goals and 24 assists, along with 506 PIMs. In the lockout shortened season, Kaleta led all Sabres forwards with 34 blocked shots in just 34 games. Kaleta had previously played 87 games with the Amerks over parts of two seasons from 2006-08, collecting six goals, 13 assists and 242 PIMs. –
When Kaleta cleared waivers to AHL Rochester, he was fully invested in a program that would allow him to continue to play his signature brand of heavy, fast hockey while working hard to to redefine his aggressive style of play. He went to Rochester with the intention of developing his game so that his hockey sense and skill would be what defined him, not his bone-jarring hits and high speed collisions. His goal was to prove to his then GM Regier that he had learned a valuable lesson and that he deserved a second chance at playing in the NHL. That second chance never came for Kaleta. Just seven games into his re-branding campaign, he suffered a gruesome injury. On November 29, Kaleta tore his ACL. His season was done. He injury was a by product of playing the game at a high rate of speed.He wasn’t dancing around on the half boards, shooting pucks from 35 feet away. He was driving the blue ice and back checking like his hair was on fire. It’s the only way that he knows how to play.
While on assignment in Rochester, Regier and Rolston were fired by the Sabres. On November 12, Pat Lafontaine and Ted Nolan were hired. Kaleta must have felt a million miles from his hometown at that point. The GM that had drafted him, then waived him had been fired and a new president of hockey ops and a new head coach were set to take over the failing squad while Kaleta rode the buses in the AHL. Would he ever get that elusive second chance to prove that he belonged in the NHL?
Not with a blown ACL he wouldn’t.
On Monday morning, Kaleta before the shotgun start at his HITS Foundation annual golf tourney in suburban Buffalo, spoke from the heart with Kevin Sylvester and Andrew Peters on Sabres Hockey Hotline about his recovery from the brutal injury that ended his 2013-14 season. He did so in the only manner that he knows how to communicate: candid, direct, and honest.
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Kaleta recalls one day when he was in Rochester. It was after he had undergone successful ACL surgery. He and his then girlfriend now fiancée heard the door bell. Ashley answered the door and found two hockey legends waiting on the door step. Hall of Famer Pat Lafontaine and Ted Nolan. A house call from Lafontaine and Nolan? That happened. Kaleta was floored. Lafontaine gave Kaleta a book as a gift on that visit.
The book is called “Unbroken”.
The gesture and the message touched Kaleta's heart.
The inspirational book was a #1 rated book on the New York Time best seller list. Lafontaine thought that the story of the book would serve as an inspirational message to his fallen soldier Kaleta.
In “Unbroken”, the central character is named Louis Zamperini. A character that reminded Lafontaine of Kaleta.
Here’s a brief synopsis of “Unbroken:
As a child, Zamperini was an incorrigible delinquent. As a teenager, he channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics. But when World War II began, the athlete became an airman, embarking on a journey that led to a doomed flight on a May afternoon in 1943. When his Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean, against all odds, Zamperini survived, adrift on a foundering life raft. Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
Lafontaine assured Kaleta that he would be fine in the organization. Nolan, a man who Kaleta had never met before his being hired in Buffalo to replace Rolston, assured PK36 that he would be fine and that he should focus all of his efforts on his arduous task of rehabbing his surgically repaired knee. As Kaleta said it on Monday, it was when Nolan embraced him that he truly felt like he was a member of the Buffalo Sabres again. That’s important to note because Kaleta is the exact prototype player that Nolan loves to coach: strong, relentless, fierce, fast, never satisfied with himself, and ultra-competitive on the ice. One imagines that Nolan can’t wait to get Kaleta back on the ice at training camp in four weeks. Kaleta said that Nolan welcoming him back to the family meant the world to him. Often times, injured players feel like they are off the team because they don't get to see and interact their teammates on a regular basis. Nolan changed Kaleta's energy to positive. For that, Kaleta says he's willing to go through a wall for his head coach.
That's classic Nolan. Leading his men by example. Hugging them, not slugging them.
Kaleta admitted on Monday that he is not 100% right now, however, he’s confident that he will be able to compete at a high level come training camp. Kaleta isn’t not going to go without a fight. He’s 28 years old and still has a ton of hockey left in his body. He’s stronger physically and mentally right now. He wants his job back. He missed his livelihood and couldn’t stand watching games from press row. He wants to prove to the critics, the haters and the skeptics that he is capable of change. He wants to prove that he knows where the line is and he doesn’t have to cross it.
Kaleta has his work cut out for him. He will have to compete for a fourth line job against formidable players in vets Cody McComick, Matt Ellis, Torrey Mitchell, and youngsters Nic Delauriers, Zac Dalpe, and Brian Flynn.
Kaleta isnt asking for a hand out. He wants a fair opportunity to compete for his job. He'll get one from Ted Nolan in September.
Kaleta has changed. His debilitating injury and the grueling rehab from it has strengthened his body, mind and resolve. Nolan's guidance and mentorship helped to mold Rob Ray, Brad May, Matt Barnaby, Mike Peca, Bob Boughner, Brad Marchand, Chris Simon and other aggressive hockey players into respected pros. I'm convinced that Nolan can do the same for Kaleta, who has found the love a great woman and has a greater appreciation for the game that he loves.
Sabres GM Tim Murray will be watching Kaleta's progress. Murray knows what kind of character and grit that Kaleta brings to his Sabres locker room. Murray need only look at Ottawa's Chris Neil to see a Kaleta comparable. There's a place for a grinder like Kaleta on Murray and Nolan's Sabres.
I like Kaleta's chances to overcome all of the odds that are stacked up against him right now. I've been around him for his entire Buffalo career. I understand what drives him and what makes him tick. The guy refuses to lose. He hates it. He hated watching his Sabres brethren struggle so mightily in 2013-14. he was helpless and couldn't offer assistance to his teammates due to his injury. Things are different now.
Kaleta wants his second chance to prove to himself and the rest of the NHL that he is unbroken.
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As we await the 1pm EDT presser at Chez Pegula to announce that Buffalo will play host to the NHL Scouting Combine for the next two years, lets marvel at the genius and generosity that is Charlie Sheen.
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This ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was created with a primary assist from Sabres tough guy Pat Kaleta, who challenged his former road roomie Ryan Miller to the challenge this past weekend.
Miller accepted PK36's challenge and then called out his wife's boss and "Anger Management" co-star, Charlie Sheen.
With his tiger blood boiling, Sheen made it rain, not with frozen water, but $10,000 cash money!
Say what you will about Sheen, but the guy just put his money where his mouth is.
Thanks, TMZ
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