On Frozen Blog

These days, London Knights’ Head Coach Dale Hunter isn’t much interested in hearing about the feats of Caps’ 2006 draft pick Michal Neuvirth. He’s getting an eyeful of them this postseason.

Through two games in the Ontario Hockey League’s Western Conference Finals, Hunter’s Knights have scored a grand total of one goal against Neuvirth and the Plymouth Whalers. Neuvirth, a visitor to the OHL’s web site today learns, is currently the OHL Player of the Week, staking his team to a 2-0 series lead over the 2005 Memorial Cup champs and now perennial CHL power.

The Whalers, in large part to Neuvirth, are white-hot this postseason: 10-1. In three of those games Neuvirth has been named the game’s no. 1 star.

When the postseason began, the Whalers boasted two strong netminders in Neuvirth — runner-up for OHL Goaltender of the Year, and the league leader in goals-against (2.32) and save percentage (.932) — and 2007 draft-eligible Jeremy Smith. In a first-round sweep of Guelph, Neuvirth and Smith split back-stopping duty, each earning a pair of victories. But Neuvirth played the entirety of the Whaler’s next series against Kitchener, winning four of the five games, and it’s Neuvirth who’s won the no.1 job now. In his nine postseason games he has eight wins, a 2.31 goals-against, and an unearthly .941 save percentage.

Last autumn, Neuvirth, an OHL rookie, made a solid if unspectacular start in net for the Whalers. He made a strong showing as starting netminder for the Czech team at the 2006 World Juniors, going 3-1-2 and twice being named player of the game in that tourney, but his modest numbers this past fall kept him off the 2007 Czech World Junior team. If that tourney were held this month, he’d most assuredly be on the roster. And starting.

He recorded his first OHL shutout in December, and that appeared to unleash a bit of a whitewashing fury. Early in January he recorded back-to-back shutouts. Later that month he was named the game’s no. 1 star in back-to-back games. And he shut out London in game one of the Western Conference finals last week.

All of which has to make the Caps’ Director of Amateur Scouting Ross Mahoney clamoring for a raise from his General Manager. Much of the world has taken notice of the first goaltender the Caps selected in the Entry Draft last June, first-round Russian Semen Varlamov. But Neuvirth’s emergence in the second half of this hockey season makes for a compelling argument that what was once an area of positional weakness in the organization’s farm is today an embarassment of riches.