Breaking: Concerns of performance enhancing drug use surround projected first round pick.

Projected first round pick linked to PED scandal.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 7 years ago
Breaking: Concerns of performance enhancing drug use surround projected first round pick.
Keystone Press.

A young man finds himself in a very unfortunate situation and very likely through no fault of his own.

Projected first round pick German Rubtsov has been linked to a major performance enhancing drug scandal because he was a member of the Russian under 18 roster that was completely scrapped due to rumors of a huge number of positives tests for meldonium, a substance banned by WADA.

There was a belief that the team's management had secretly given meldonium to all of the players on the team, and that this was the motivating factor behind the decision to pull the team from the tournament. Obviously as a member of this squad Rubtsov will have questions raised about his performance and how much of it was fueled by illegal substances.

When asked if he felt Rubstov's stock in the draft would be impacted by the scandal, one NHL GM first said it wouldn't impact him at all, before changing his mind and stating it wouldn't impact him "very much"

“I don’t think it will,” said one GM to Sportsnet's Damien Cox. “Overall, I don’t think it will hurt him very much.”

It would be a shame if such a young man had his career impacted by such an unfortunate set of circumstances, but fortunately another NHL executive indicated his belief that the kids were not the ones to blame, and hopefully that is a widely held belief in the league.

“These kids weren’t to blame,” said the executive. “They didn’t know what they were taking, they just took what they were given.”

Only time will tell how far Rubstov, a centre, will fall in the draft.

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