Bear expected healthy for training camp, not doing fitness testing at NHL Scouting Combine

The 2025 NHL Scouting Combine presented by Fanatics is taking place this week at KeyBank Center and LECOM Harborcenter in Buffalo, New York. The combine will allow NHL teams an opportunity to conduct interviews and provide physical and medical assessments of the top prospects eligible for the 2025 Upper Deck NHL Draft. NHL.com will bring you all the sights and stories.

Full draft coverage can be found here.

BUFFALO -- Carter Bear expects to be fully healthy when NHL training camps start in September after sustaining a partially torn right Achilles tendon during a game March 9.

The forward, who tied for seventh in the Western Hockey League with 40 goals in 56 games for Everett, is No. 10 on NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of North American skaters for the 2025 NHL Draft.

Bear had surgery a few days after the injury but said he's progressed to where he's already started skating. He won't be doing any of the fitness testing during the combine.

"It's going really well so far," Bear said. "My [physiotherapist] tells me I'm a month ahead of schedule. I'm already on my fifth skate, and last week I started doing weight-bearing [exercises] on it, so that's slowly picking up, start putting weight on it and getting that strength back. ... I'm day to day right now, just going off how I feel, and right now I feel amazing.

"[Doctors] said I'll be ready for [training] camp and I'll be 100 percent for the season."

The injury occurred when a player accidentally stepped on the back of Bear's leg.

"It was off an [offensive] zone draw, and then it kicked out to the far wall," Bear said. "Their [defenseman] picked it up, and then I guess he tried to flick it out of the zone or something. I did my job and finished my check on him, and when I finished my check on him, he fell backwards, and while he's falling, I took a stride out and his right leg got my back of my right leg while he was falling down."

That it also happened two weeks before the start of the WHL playoffs made it doubly frustrating, but the fact that he's healing ahead of schedule has him in a positive mindset.

"Really glad to see that's it's progressing so well," Bear said. "I don't really want to go too ahead of myself because of that just to set me back. I'm just going on how I feel, but right now I feel really good."

Flyers expect to stick at No. 6

Philadelphia Flyers general manager Daniel Briere understands his team is in a very advantageous spot with seven of the first 50 selections, including three picks in the first round.

Briere said he's open to all options.

"We might like to move up, but it might not make sense," he said. "We might move to the future. There's so many possibilities, but we're also excited to pick where we are. And at the moment, we're doing the work as if we're going to pick in those slots."

It starts at No. 6. Briere said there are about eight players the scouting staff envisions being available for them.

Center is an area of need, and there should be several high-end prospects to choose from, including Caleb Desnoyers of Moncton in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, James Hagens of Boston College, Jake O'Brien of Brantford in the Ontario Hockey League and Roger McQueen of Brandon in the Western Hockey League.

"I think for a few years the centers that we drafted have not developed the way we thought," Briere said. "That's why, starting last year with drafting [Jett] Luchanko (No. 13), [Jack] Berglund (No. 51), [Heikki] Ruohonen (No. 107), kind of put us back on track, but you have to wait for them. We're also planning on investing a little bit in the center position in this draft, having so many picks."

The Flyers also have the No. 22 selection, acquired from the Colorado Avalanche ahead of the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline, and the Edmonton Oilers' first pick, which they acquired during the 2024 NHL Draft and will be No. 31 or No. 32 depending on the results of the Stanley Cup Final.

Briere said one of those selections could be used on a goalie. The Flyers have high hopes for prospects Carson Bjarnason (2023, No. 51) and Egor Zavragin (2023, No. 87), but with so many picks this year they could take a big swing.

Joshua Ravensbergen of Prince George (WHL) is No. 1 on Central Scouting's final ranking of North American goalies.

"We've shown in the past that we're not afraid to take swings," Briere said. "... We don't just go with what the outside world thinks. We're doing our homework, and I really strongly believe in our group of scouts. We don't get swayed too much by what's out there. We go with what we feel is the right thing to do from the inside."

Philadelphia hasn't taken a goalie in the first round since Maxime Ouellet with the No. 22 pick of the 1999 NHL Draft.

The most intimidating room

What happens when you take the biggest power forward in the draft and the most physical defenseman available and stick them in the same hotel room for a week?

That's the reality show Brampton forward Porter Martone and Barrie defenseman Kashawn Aitcheson have been enjoying during their time as roommates at the combine.

"He was in the room and we kind of just looked at each other, started laughing," Aitcheson said when he arrived here. "It was hilarious."

Martone (6-foot-3, 208 pounds), No. 6 on Central Scouting's final ranking of North American skaters, tied for seventh in the OHL with 98 points (37 goals, 61 assists) in 57 games, and was tied for fourth on Brampton with 74 penalty minutes.

Aitcheson (6-2, 196), No. 9, was third among OHL defensemen with 26 goals in 64 games, and second for Barrie with 88 penalty minutes.

In six games head-to-head, their teams each won three times. Martone had 10 points (three goals, seven assists), and Aitcheson four points (two goals, two assists). And there was one fight, at the end of Barrie's 4-2 win Oct. 12.

"We have battles on the ice, and we go at it," Martone said. "I played a couple Hockey Canada events with him. We're friends off the ice. When we get on the ice, we like to battle [but] definitely friends here."

So far each has enjoyed the experience, and there's been no battling over the TV remote.

"I think we'll take turns, just so it's fair," Aitcheson said. "We don't have to fight over it."

Frondell and Eklund supporting each other on, off the ice

As two of the youngest players with Djurgarden in Sweden's second division, forwards Anton Frondell and Victor Eklund weren't always in tune with what some of their older teammates were talking about.

"We have guys like 41 years old only talking about weddings, picking up kids at school," Frondell said. "Me and Victor are not really there, so we could talk about things that we found more interesting."

That included helping each other cope with the pressure that comes during an NHL draft season.

"We got through it together," Eklund said. "It's nice to play with someone who's striving for the same goal, and it's obviously to get drafted as high as possible. We both knew what was coming and knew what to do, so it was just really nice to have someone with you who's going through the exact same things."

Frondell (6-1, 198 pounds), No. 1 on Central Scouting's final ranking of International skaters, had 25 points (11 goals, 14 assists) in 29 games.

"He has a really good shot, so I just give it to him whenever he's open, and he scores," Eklund said.

Eklund (5-11, 161), No. 2 on the list, had 31 points (19 goals, 12 assists) in 42 games.

"He always has this happy energy," Frondell said. "When you're close to him, you always get a smile because of him. And on the ice, even if he's at training, practice ... he can be angry if we lose the game at the end. It shows how much it means for him.

"We've been playing together this season, and we have been having so much fun on the ice together and on the bench, sitting and talking. We work good together."

Predators looking to refill the pool

The Nashville Predators have five selections in the first two rounds of the 2025 draft, including three picks in the first round, and general manager Barry Trotz said his main goal is to refill what he feels is a thin prospect pool.

"[Former GM] David Poile did such a good job for so many years, the Preds were in the playoffs, and you're using a lot of that draft capital to get that extra piece at the trade deadline," Trotz said. "For roughly 14 years, he decided to do that, so the prospect pool started to get a little bit light and thin.

"You've got five picks in the first two rounds, and I think creating a real strong prospect pool or a ghost roster, a future roster behind your existing roster, is really what we're trying to do."

The Predators have the No. 5 pick in the first round as well as No. 23 (Tampa Bay Lightning) and No. 26 (Vegas Golden Knights).

Trotz said center is an organizational need, but at No. 5, he said the Predators will take the best player available.

"There's a really good winger that could help us as well [Martone]," Trotz said. "And I know that what we think of that player. Center is a need across the League. There's very few teams that aren't looking at centermen. Positional preference would probably be there, but we're going to take the best player. And whoever's there, there's nothing wrong with a good defenseman. We need a good, impactful player, whoever you get at five."

Trotz also said he expects the Predators to make that pick at No. 5.

"We're all trying to get a sense of what we can do with the information that we can get from each other," he said. "I think as we go through the interviews and the final process here, I think what you're going to see is maybe I want to move up a spot, maybe I want to move back a spot. Or maybe I'm just perfectly happy where I am and let the first four go, and I know I'm going to get a good player at five. I'm pretty confident with that."