Don’t get John Weisbrod wrong. He does want the Calgary Flames to grab the finest player available.

The talent pool, by all accounts, is deep for the National Hockey League’s draft June 30 in New Jersey. Plus, the Flames get the sixth holler.

But that doesn’t mean they’re banking on a difference-maker for 2013-14.

“I don’t put any stock at all into somebody playing here next year,” Weisbrod, assistant general manager of the Flames, said Thursday afternoon. “If we’re thinking that the way to make next year’s team better is through this draft, then we’re in big trouble, right? Even when guys do play in their first year, they very rarely are ready to create winning for an NHL team. They’re 18-, 19-year-old kids. If we choose a guy that’s able to play, that’s great. If we choose guys that are going to take more time, that’s fine, too.

“One thing we know, we’re not going to be sitting here at the end of next year and saying, ‘Oh, thank gosh, we drafted so-and-so because that made our season productive, our team better.’ If you look at it like that — that short-term response — then that causes trouble. That’s the wrong way to look at it.

“If one guy can step in next year, but another guy is going to take two years . . . and he’s going to be a better player, it’s foolish to take the short-term solution.”

As everyone in town knows, the rebuilding Calgarians possess three first-round selections — the aforementioned sixth (by virtue of finishing 25th overall), 22nd (by trading Jay Bouwmeester to St. Louis), and a late-rounder (by trading Jarome Iginla to Pittsburgh).

But, according to Weisbrod, it had been business as usual at the NHL combine last weekend in Toronto.

Four staffers — Weisbrod and scouts Tod Button, Tom Webster, Mike Addesa — conducted the interviews. General manager Jay Feaster joined the party for the third and final day.

The Flames grilled more than 60 teens, only a few more than last year.

“It’s the part that I value — the interaction,” Weisbrod said of the 20-minute sessions. “It’s not a science, obviously, but I always find it useful. We try to get a little insight into how they look at the world, what makes them tick . . . to add a little context to what you see on the ice, what you observe in them as players.”

Weisbrod wanted to nudge the prospects out of their comfort zone. Instead of getting pat responses from pat questions, the Flames were curious about non-hockey-related matters.

“If all you do is push buttons and get regurgitated, pre-planned answers,” he said, “you’re really not accomplishing anything.”

So, for instance, the Flames asked kids what their friends — not their teammates — would say about their character. They also asked kids not if they loved hockey, but what, precisely, is the sport’s appeal.

“We were careful about the scope of our questions,” said Weisbrod. “We asked questions that we knew would be unique to force a guy to think on his feet. You want them to express themselves in an authentic way. I felt it went great.”

As for the much-ballyhooed fitness testing, Weisbrod is of two minds.