By Warren Kozireski —
With the final stages of evaluating the top NHL Draft-eligible players complete following the fitness portion of the NHL Combine in Buffalo June 4-10, Hamburg’s Quentin Musty now must wait until June 28th to find out if he is indeed a first-round selection as many publications and websites have him slotted or falls to the second round.
“I hope pretty good; it was fun out there and a good experience,” Musty said after the Combine. “Kind of see how you match up to other guys. I was pretty busy, so it was a good week.
“I have a lot of teammates last year and years prior that have been to this (the Combine) so I kind of knew what it was coming in and for it to be in my back yard is nice, so yeah, it was a good experience.”
Musty is ranked as high as 12th by Elite Hockey Prospects website, is 14th among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting and as low as 44th by Draft Prospects Hockey.
The soon-to-be 18-year-old (July 6th) has the build teams are looking for on the wings at 6’2” and 190 lbs. And he is coming off his best offensive season with 26 goals and 78 points in 53 games with Sudbury in the Ontario Hockey League this past season—more than doubling both categories from the season prior.
“Just trying to clean up my game a bit; rounding it out, being more defensive and doing the little things right I think, once I did those it created more chances for me and had the puck a lot more and I think it just grew my game that way.
“I definitely have confidence in my game…I think I know that I can compete at the highest levels.”
As with every player at the Combine, Musty met with and was interviewed by several teams who may be interested in the former Jr. Sabres. And now the wait for June 28th and then the wait to hear his name called—he hopes by one of the teams holding a first-round draft choice.
“You have no idea where you’re gong to go; you could fall, you could rise, you have no idea. The main thing is to get into a camp and try to perform from there. It doesn’t matter where you get drafted, just try to earn a contract and try to earn a spot is the most important thing.
“Being from here and having season tickets growing up, it’s great to be back in this building where I kind of started my hockey career. It’s been my dream to play in the NHL and this is a step towards that, so it’s been great.”
(Photo by Koz, NY Hockey OnLine)
