Halfway through the Capitals’ 2007 Rookie Camp, I have this general observation: there are bushels full of authentically professional hockey players skating out at Kettler Capitals this week. And the overwhelming majority of them are going to return this fall to their junior, collegiate, or minor pro clubs for additonal ripening. But shift after shift in these high-paced, highly competitive scrimmages, in jerseys blue and white, the evidence is ample that the Caps’ enlarged scouting staff of recent years has delivered dramatic dividends for the long-term future welfare of this organization. As early as this September, almost certainly there will be NHL-viable bodies dispatched to Bruce Boudreau and the American Hockey League, and perhaps a few back to the CHL as well.
Joe Finley could play pro hockey right now; instead, he’ll patrol the North Dakota Fighting Sioux blueline in its top pairing in 2007-08. Andrew Joudrey has an NHL stride and an NHL poise that will almost certainly make him a fan favorite in Hershey this season. Ditto for Andrew Gordon. Nicklas Backstrom is a top-six fixture among Caps forwards this fall, but to these eyes he’s only the second-best young center scrimmaging this week, bettered in the “Did you just see what I saw?” meter by Mathieu Perreault. (It took less than two scrimmages for Perreault to attract double-team defensive coverage — that’s how dynamic he is.) This is by no means an exhaustive tally, and I suspect over the next two days I’ll be adding to it.
Here’s how good things look out on the mid-summer ice filled with youngins right now: Luke Lynes, not ensconced on too many Tier I or Tier II Caps’ prospect rankings, may well have potted a hat trick in Thursday’s scrimmage. He had two for sure and was involved in a tightly bunched scramble on a third. (Blue bested White 5-1 Thursday.)
Another terrifically exciting development: youngsters who last September at training camp in Ashburn, Va., appeared often overwhelmed by the pro environs look a heck of a lot more comfortable and improved this summer. I’m fantastically impressed by Francois Bouchard’s improved mobility this week. Skating had been considered his primary weakness, and while he’s still an upright skater who’ll never make anyone forget Mike Gartner, he is beating a lot of skaters to a lot of pucks this week. More and more he’s bearing the aura of a second-round steal.
Oskar Osala, too, is turning a lot of heads with his physical play and general aggressiveness and good decision-making. Recall that this past season he enjoyed a bit of a blossoming one the biggest stage for prospects: the most recent World Juniors. His poise and presence this week appears to be carrying over from that. There is a clear confidence displayed on his shifts that wasn’t often evident in Ashburn.
In the middle of last season I had great exchange with an NHL scout who had as his primary coverage area the CCHA. After the Caps signed Sean Collins this spring he emailed me with a prediction that Caps’ fans would in short order be very happy with the signing. This week, I’m seeing a lot of support for that sentiment. Collins is good-sized and mobile and an adept puck distributor. And adept puck distribution is a theme fast becoming emblematic of the organization’s rearguards. Collins, Alzner, Godfrey, Lepisto, even Big Joe Finley — the shifts and pairings on the back end don’t much seem to matter; we in the stands aren’t witnessing much hair-on-fire mayhem when the puck’s on these guys’ sticks deep along the boards or in the midst of frenzied forechecking. Melikey.
A terrifically important thing to keep in mind as you take in these scrimmages: guys like Joudrey and Gordon and Morin and Backstrom are at times matched with and against guys who knew nothing better than Northeast prep puck this past season as competition. So you’re talking about fellas who’ve completed in some instances four years of major college hockey, or one or two World Championships, under the tutelage of some of some of hockey’s best coaches, battling against those who were slow dancing at Prom just a few weeks back. But it’s within this context that my main point here is further amplified: Andrew Glass, who won’t enroll in freshman composition at BU until 2008, looks anything but out of place against young world-class competition.
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