In 2017, Morgan Geekie was drafted in the third round by the Carolina Hurricanes. At one of his first training camps, the Hurricanes were required to perform two half-mile assault bike sprints with a three-minute rest in between. The players had two minutes to complete both sets.
As Geekie remembers it, he finished his first sprint in 59 seconds. This left him 61 seconds to play with on his second spin. He just passed.
“I couldn’t even see,” the now-Boston Bruins forward recalls. “You’re just trying to pedal as fast as you can. I fell off the bike. They had to roll me out of the way because other guys were going. It was like a conveyor belt. Looking back on it now, it’s funny. It only lasts five, 10 minutes. But it was horrible.”
It could have been worse. The Hurricanes initially called for three half-mile sprints. No one other than coach Rod Brind’Amour tried the three-rep test first. Brind’Amour, a fitness fiend, declared it too hard.
In all likelihood, Brind’Amour would have liked the sound of the beep test that the Winnipeg Jets once mandated. With each beep, players had to skate from goal line to goal line. The beeps would come in succession, speeding up as the test went on.
“So difficult,” then-Jets forward Mikey Eyssimont remembers. “It starts off really easy, but it just gets progressively and progressively harder. It’s science-backed. Some type of study shows that NHL players should be able to complete it at any point of the year. That was the reasoning. I agree with that completely. But it was very hard. Very hard.”
Those days are over. The fitness tests players recently completed at the start of training camp were the last they’ll take in the league. Under the NHL’s new collective bargaining agreement, teams are no longer permitted to conduct fitness testing before or during the season.
Not everyone agrees.
Tests with purpose
Teams have conducted fitness testing for as long as players can remember. In the old days, it was the first step toward getting players in shape for the regular season.
Each organization had its preferences. Older players recall performing pull-ups and bench presses until they could no longer continue. Most recently, the Washington Capitals customized tests based on players’ prior results.
“We just utilize it on measurables,” coach Spencer Carbery says. “It’s not necessarily about the total group. It’s more about individuals. So we’ll test them through the year and see, ‘OK, your goals and objectives for the summer are X.’ Then, when they come back, you can evaluate, ‘OK, how was your summer? Were you able to achieve those goals? Did you drop off? Or did you stay?’ It’s more about that.”
It used to be that coaches like Carbery had significant say in what tests would be required. John Tortorella was notorious for designing backbreakers.
With the Columbus Blue Jackets, Tortorella had his team do a two-mile run. Players had to hit the finish line in 12 minutes or less.
“That was pretty tough,” ex-Blue Jacket Joonas Korpisalo says. “Some guys don’t run that much. Some guys are not the greatest runners. Only a handful of guys passed it.”
Sonny Milano, Columbus’ first-round pick in 2014, has played for two other organizations. The Blue Jackets’ run test is the one that remains top of mind. In a way, Milano liked getting ready to put on his sneakers.
“I actually really don’t mind it,” the Capitals forward says. “It gives you something to train for in the summer. I guess I’ll be doing my own skating tests in the summer now.”
Tortorella’s philosophy was not exclusive to Columbus. He thought the same thing about fitness testing with the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers, two of his other employers.
Patrick Brown attended Rangers development camp in 2013. Tortorella was gone by then. Alain Vigneault was in charge. But the Rangers still used one of Tortorella’s tests.
“Three laps, three times, each way,” Brown recalls. “Four guys, one guy on each blue line, going around. Quite hard. You’re trying to catch the guy in front of you. He’s trying to catch the guy in front of him. So you’re all staggered. The rest, I want to say, was two-to-one rest to work. Maybe it was one-to-one. I can’t remember. That one was really hard.”
By 2022-23, Brown had moved on to the Flyers. So had Tortorella. It was Brown’s luck, if you can call it that, to be recovering from back surgery when camp started in 2022. He was given a free pass. Brown watched his teammates perform “The Torts Test,” the on-ice sprints he suffered through with the Rangers. He didn’t miss it.
In earlier years, teams believed that by informing their players of the difficulty that awaited them during testing, it would motivate them to train intensely during the summer and improve their on-ice performance.
In 2015-16, the Colorado Avalanche finished sixth in the Central Division under then-coach Patrick Roy. The Avalanche had talent. They didn’t have the legs.
“Probably the worst-conditioned team in the league at that time,” former Avalanche defenseman Nikita Zadorov recalls.
Following the 2015-16 season, players, coaches and management concluded the Avalanche needed to be fitter. The club formulated tougher tests that players would have to complete before the 2016-17 season.
“Double whammies test,” Zadorov says. “Goal line to goal line twice, finish through the red line. Three times like that. Next day, there’d be another skating test. Three laps six times, minute in between. Then we did a running test as well. Really, really hard tests during camp.”
Results did not follow. The Avalanche, under first-year coach Jared Bednar, were the NHL’s worst team in 2016-17. But what Zadorov remembers is how the tests gave the Avalanche their identity for the better years to come. In 2021-22, Colorado won the Stanley Cup.
“It sent a message to the team,” Zadorov says. “It sent a message of how we want to play. (They’re) still playing the same style — how fast they play. They just fly all over the ice all the time. You have to be really well-conditioned to do that. That sent a message to the standard of a winning organization. That’s why they won the Cup.”
The Avalanche made the tests easier. They served their purpose. The players understood how hard they had to train.
That has become the case around the league. Year-round commitment to conditioning has reduced the relevance of testing.
“You ask anyone in here, they have a personal trainer in the summer and find ways to improve,” the Bruins’ Hampus Lindholm says. “You don’t really need to push that on guys anymore. Of course, there’s going to be a few guys. But you can only lead a horse to water anyway. You can’t force it to drink it. Guys take care of themselves so well now. I don’t think it makes a huge difference in today’s game.”
Coming together
Eyssimont is not in the NHL because of his hands. The 29-year-old, who split last season between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Seattle Kraken, has logged 213 career games because of his full-gas motor. The energy forward takes his conditioning seriously.
What he will not miss, though, is the anxiety of testing. Eyssimont is a worrier, one who would let the shadow of a September bike test cloud a sunny July day.
“Sometimes it takes away from how you want to attack a summer as far as on the ice, even if it’s just a little bit,” Eyssimont says. “Sometimes you’re thinking, ‘You know what? I’ve got to hit the bike here because there’s a bike test.’ Whereas maybe it’s more important to be on the ice that day because you’re feeling fresh.
“I always prioritize ice and how I feel on the ice. But just having that in the back of my mind, the testing, it’s always daunting. Even though I’m in very good shape, very strong and good at fitness, it’ll be nice not to have to stress about it.”
What sticks with Eyssimont is how he was never on an island during fitness testing. He was always skating, jumping or lifting with teammates. Eyssimont’s friends were cheering him on. But he was also trying to outdo all of them.
This was by design.
“There’s a competitive aspect to individual testing,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney says. “It’s a measuring stick that I think we still want to adhere to. Because let’s be honest, this is a competitive business. Winning puck battles and being able to play at the highest level, you have to be at a fitness level that is unique.”
In 2022-23, Mark Kastelic learned of Tanner Jeannot’s conditioning the hard way. Kastelic, then with the Ottawa Senators, asked Jeannot to fight. The Nashville Predators forward accepted. Kastelic got his gloves off first. But Jeannot’s strength allowed him to hold out Kastelic and finish the bout by pushing him to the ice.
It was during fitness testing this year that Kastelic gained even more respect for his former combatant and current teammate. When Jeannot got under the bar, Kastelic was watching.
“Saw some numbers on the bench press I’ve never seen before,” Kastelic says. “Looking back, I’m happy he didn’t connect with me too hard.”
In another Boston test, the players split into groups of three to perform their bike test. Each team tried to outdo the others.
“It’s hard,” Jeannot says. “But it’s fun. Because it’s a team, competitive spirit type of thing.”
The camaraderie and competition of collective suffering are gone. It will not change how players train during the offseason. When it comes to fitness, there is nowhere to hide at NHL camp.
“If you show up here out of shape,” Zadorov says, “you’re going to be out of the league.”
(Top photos courtesy of the Bruins)
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