On Frozen Blog

Toronto is a terrific weekend getaway, and in 2002 I Entry Draft weekended there with a chum. The Caps owned three first round picks in 2002, were in search of a head coach at the time, and were gathering in a town offering Alexander Keiths on tap. June Ocean City sunbathing and boat drinks, alluring in many respects, is for me no match for spending a summer Saturday inside a hockey-less offseason rink, in the company of 5,000 colleague DraftGeeks, with so much at stake for the Caps.
By 2:00 that Saturday afternoon the Caps had already supplemented their prospect stable most promisingly. Steve Eminger and Alexander Semin were already nabbed. Then General Manager stepped behind the draft stage podium and with the first round’s 17th selection announced the name of Boyd Gordon. In the arena’s conspicuous silence that accompanied the selection, there was a palpable “Come again?” among the continent’s DraftGeeks. Seated high in the dimly lit Air Canada Centre, I fumbled through my litany of Draft guides for intelligence on Boyd Gordon. At Keiths-laden happy hour that evening, my buddy Chris and I were still trying to gather that lone bit of biography on Boyd that could help us see in him perhaps what the Caps had.
Fast forward two-and-a-half years, to the early spring of 2005, the season of no season. Roaming the interstates for our fix of pro puck, Empty Maybe and I beer-ed ourselves in the Norfolk Scope one March weekend to watch the Portland Pirates, then the AHL affiliate for the Caps, battle the Admirals. We went there keen on chronicling the progress of the likes of Jakub Klepis, Steve Eminger, Nolan Yonkman, and Tomas Fleischmann. But in both of that weekend’s games against Norfolk Empty and I noticed one Pirates’ player taking key defensive zone draws for Tim Army, one guy moving not with pure raw speed but rather sleuthful efficiency and conspicuous agility, a guy whose shifts consistently broadcasted loud and clear: hockey sense. We went home, logged on, and reported to our Caps email list this summary: “Boyd Gordon will play in the NHL.” I remember describing him as a more fluid skating Kelly Miller.
Fast forward to February 2007. In a season of middling progress by the Caps, Boyd Gordon has been a standout virtually from October’s opening puck-drop. Take a look at these plus-minus tallies among his teammates: Ovechkin, -14; Zubrus, -13; Pettinger, -14; Clymer, -14; Morrisonn, -7; Pothier, -9. Here’s Boyd’s: plus seven. But stats alone tell precious little of Gordon’s value to Glen Hanlon this season.
Lesson: Beware the Bellyache of the DraftGeek war room.
Incidentally, following Caps’ prospects soon will involve a lot less travel for the likes of Empty and me, as we learned yesterday on the CapsReport that this July’s rookie camp will be held at the team’s new Ballston practice facility. Expect us to be blogging late those afternoons from Baileys.