At some point during one of the 26 interviews Jake Gardiner had with representatives of NHL teams over two days at the league’s scouting combine earlier this month, things got a little heated.
“They were asking me tough questions, one team was, and I kept saying, ‘I don’t know,'” said Gardiner, an incoming University of Wisconsin recruit and a projected first-round NHL draft pick. “And the scout was like, ‘Well, you seem not to know about much. Are you dumb? Are you stupid or what’s going on here?'”