For most players, the NHL draft combine is about showing the NHL brass just what they’re made of.
Not so for Kyle Beach. For the Everett Silvertips star winger, the combine was about clearing the air.
Beach was one of the 107 top prospects for this year’s NHL draft who participated in the combine, held last week in Toronto. Beach is expected to be a first-round pick in the draft, which takes place June 20-21 in Ottawa.
Beach wasn’t able to strut his stuff quite like the others. He didn’t participate in any of the physical testing because of offseason surgery.
However, physical attributes and abilities have never been the primary question regarding the controversial Beach. Beach’s draft stock has fluctuated because of questions of character. Stories of his antics both on and off the ice have circulated throughout the hockey community, and the combine gave Beach the opportunity to address those questions directly.
“There’s a lot of stuff out there about me that’s been blown out of proportion,” Beach said when reached Saturday near his home in Kelowna, B.C. “This gave me a chance to clear things up with the teams and show them the kind of person I am in person.”
The 18-year-old Beach is one of the most intriguing prospects in the draft. He has both the size (6-foot-3, 203 pounds) and skills (58 goals and 66 assists in 129 career games with Everett) to become an elite power forward. Plus, he’s not afraid of the rough stuff, as evidenced by his 422 career penalty minutes.
However, his penchant for undisciplined play and excessive trash talking, combined with his dropoff in production during the second half of this past season, are cause for concern among the NHL’s general managers.
Therefore, Beach spent last Monday through Friday at the combine telling his side of the story. Beach met with 27 of the 30 NHL teams, all of which used up their allotted 20 minutes in an effort to determine whether Beach’s undeniable skills are worth the risk.
“It was kind of stressful, but exciting at the same time,” Beach said of the interviews. “Each team grilled me in its own unique way. There’s a lot of rumors flying around out there and most of the questions were about those. But I felt it was a successful week and that I accomplished what I needed to do.”
Information regarding one of the concerns about Beach came to light. Beach was unable to participate in the physical testing because he’s still recovering from surgery to repair a sports hernia. He underwent the operation in April.
Beach played almost the entire 2007-08 season with the hernia. It didn’t cause him any pain during the first half, but he tweaked it early in the second half, meaning he was hindered the final two months of the season. That may help explain why Beach, who was a dominant force in the first half with 23 goals and 28 assists in his first 41 games, managed just four goals and five assists in his final 19.
“About three or four weeks after Christmas I tweaked it and that made it pretty painful at times,” Beach said. “It definitely made things more challenging.”
Beach was bedridden for about two weeks following surgery, and he hasn’t been able to do any physical activity since. However, he’s been cleared to resume training this week, and he expects to be at full strength when training camp rolls around in August.
“Looking forward it feels good,” Beach said. “There’s no pain now and it doesn’t appear that it will affect me in the future.”
With the combine now over, the next step for Beach is the draft. Beach’s status has been slipping in the various rankings, but he’s still ranked as the seventh-best North American skater by the NHL Central Scouting Bureau and 13th overall by the International Scouting Service.
“(The draft) is about three weeks away now and it’s getting pretty exciting,” said Beach, who will attend the draft. “I think about it quite a bit now. But it’s just the next step in the process. On that day I’ll step back and see what I’ve accomplished so far. But the next day I’ll be back to work toward my goal of making the NHL.”
Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog: http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog
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