On Frozen Blog » Francois Bouchard

In an Autumn of Challenge, I’m Counting Special Blessings This Thanksgiving

pucksandbooks — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 14:35:57 +0000

I thought I knew what a really bad clock was — the one that counted down the Capitals’ demise in game 7 here against the Pens a couple of springs back. Not a terrific reckoning of time to be sure that night. But no way that moment in time had anything on the really bad clock. That’s the one you survey incessantly while your dreamgirl is in a doctor’s office getting a verdict on bloodwork related to a cancer concern. She’s there in the office because the verdict for some reason can’t be rendered over the phone. You’re somewhat unproductive at work during that hour. That clock I encountered late in August, on a Friday, for the first time in my life, and I knew, after the hour that seemed to take three days, that I’d have no normal autumn. Hockey was the furthest thing from my mind.

Angela’s family has 10 seasons tickets for the Hershey Bears. That’s but one of a couple of hundred novel facets signifying my lottery ticket number being called in meeting her. Some manner of family summit took place in early September to discuss how best to use an un-accounted for 10th ticket. It was determined that I would have it. Can’t say I’ve encountered family generosity quite like that before. Angela went to Giant Center during Bears’ training camp to retrieve her family’s tickets. That’s a very special evening for Hershey’s hockey fans, as they go down on the arena ice and are handed their tickets by individual Bears’ players, with photo-ops accompanying. Angela is a beauty one’s eye remembers long after an initial meeting, but Francois Bouchard saw her just as he had in previous Septembers and spoke up with concern: “If you don’t mind my saying, something doesn’t look quite right.” Angela briefly explained her new challenge. Bouchard then motioned over Graham Mink. Then more Bears players enveloped her in a circle of concern. Angela was very excited as she relayed this moment to me over the phone on the ride home.

Of course, the patronage of hockey games together this autumn is a far-fetched dream for Angela and me. Six days a week, alternating between chemo and radiation, she endures four-hour treatments at the Hershey Cancer Institute. Some days she can do no better than digesting a banana. I’m happiest this autumn when her text messages relate entire breakfasts consumed and kept down. What should be a spectacularly beautiful and fit frame of 130-plus pounds is today a spectacularly beautiful warrior’s frame of less than 100 pounds.

That life-altering August Friday the first person I reached out to in my frightened agony was my blessed puck chum goalie of a beauty queen, Tara Wheeler. When Tara was Miss Virginia and competing in the Miss America pageant a few years ago she seized a mission to immerse herself in the cancer wards for children at hospitals all over the state of Virginia. And I mean all over the state. I doubt there was one she didn’t visit. Most memorably, after her run at the pageant title, she shaved her head in a show of extraordinary solidarity with the brave children. She made national television appearances for it.

I remember not having the courage to call Tara initially, as my friend had never heard me sob. Silly notion. Our call lasted approximately 25 minutes, and the crying felt good, and I remember how there wasn’t more than a few seconds of commiseration before Tara issued me unmistakable marching orders. This wasn’t a moment to wallow in self pity, as sad as such news is, she delicately but forcefully explained. The partner against cancer plays an exceptional role, a durably taxing role, she explained. One of unwavering sustenance and optimism and encouragement. For the partner, it’s a bit of a poker table requiring all chips in, so right this moment, my friend told me, you have to decide if you’re all in. I hung up the phone with my pal, sobbed for about two minutes more, fell asleep deeply, and awoke Saturday morning calm and seemingly battle ready — knowing of course my engagement with this challenge was ludicrously limited relative to what Angela was confronting.

This autumn, instead of composing blog files, I compose love letters. I’d have done that anyway, but I seem to have energy and interest only for writing to Angela. A couple of weeks after my phone call with Tara, after I’d received a text from Angela that she was shopping for a wig with her mother, I wrote Angela and told her about the time I saw my friend Tara step onto the ice at Verizon Center and belt out the most beautiful rendition of our national anthem I’d ever heard, the arena ceiling lighting well illuminating the peach fuzz on Tara’s head. I looked down from the press box in that moment and tears streamed down my cheeks, because my friend, in her baldness, never looked more beautiful.

Another fortification for my fright-fight this fall: the return of Eric McErlain to my 18th St. office in Northwest. Long-time readers will recall my bragging about having Eric as a close-by colleague some four years ago. I met and befriended Eric in the Verizon Center press box. I learned about hockey blogging seated next to Eric. I became a hockey blogger in large part because of Eric. More importantly, I was blessed by his friendship. I once wrote a file here bragging about what it was like to come to the office every day and share the day’s first cup of coffee with one of the most accomplished hockey hearts and minds in new media. Eric left our office a few years ago for an exciting new challenge. Now he’s returned, and again he’s immediately next door to me.

Eric knows I can’t be in rinks this season as I’ve grown accustomed to being, thanks to the Capitals, and he knows precisely what I need with each and every coffee and lunch outing — my puck fix. I genuinely believe that God returned EMac to my office this autumn for a role well beyond managing our industry’s pressing need for deft stewardship of social media. I also don’t believe he’s leaving my office again any time soon. Thank God.

Rather impulsively one day this autumn I gave a reckoning of my anxiety to another great buddy in pucks, a fella named Killer. Week after week had passed with hardly an iota of complaint from Angela of what she was enduring; I was beyond inspired. I wanted the tough guy ex-Cap to know about the battle she was bravely waging. “You’re gonna love meeting her,” I wrote. “Send me Angela’s address,” one of the Capitals’ all-time great warriors texted me from his team’s bus. I knew what was coming next. In the package Killer shipped to Angela he penned an inscription on one of his warrior photos themed on how the biggest fights sometimes are waged by those in the smallest frames. Killer knows a thing or two about that. I regarded that outreach as a love letter in its own right.

A week or so ago I messaged Killer to give him an update on our region’s increasing concern with the struggling Caps. “Ok,” he replied. “Now tell me what really matters — how’s Angela doing?”

This fall I notice a lot my pacing in a path opposite that of the Red Army on game nights. It’s an odd experience, after marching with them all these years. None of them know it but they are all my friends, as this autumn has verified. I’m looking forward to rejoining them just as soon as I can.

A Great Time To Pop Open a Puck Soda

pucksandbooks — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:00:52 +0000

We’d all agree — little Matty Perreault had himself one heck of a hockey season. And at its conclusion, in glory, why shouldn’t he pop open a cold one — a Canadian cold one, of course — and savor it? Don’t mistake his holding up two fingers as acknowledgment of his playing a key role in two Calder Cup titles with Hershey; he’s telling his friend behind me that he needs two cold ones, the other of course for the photographer.

photo by On Frozen Blog

Francois Bouchard came along and said, ‘Let’s make it four cold ones.’

photo by On Frozen Blog

It's Getting Dazzling in the Competition for the Duchesne Cup

The OFB Team — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 02:36:22 +0000

This Gaetan Duchesne Cup competition, I’m starting to really dig it; I think the Caps may well wanna keep it around a while. Sunday’s first scrimmage was entertaining and good fun, but Monday’s, which featured Alexander Ovechkin in a competitive environment for the first time in the 2008 camp, was on a whole ‘nother level of spectator feast. Play today was a good deal more wide open than on Sunday.
Ovi — it’s no longer “Ovie”; the re-branding apparently took place over the summer, and among some good-natured ribbing in the media work area over the weekend, the WaPost beat reporter was tagged “Tariki” — wasn’t first out of the dressing room for today’s noon scrimmage, he was second. Slacker.
I imagine one Keith Aucoin might remember this September in tales years hence to his grandchildren. He found himself at center at puck-drop today between Ovechkin and Viktor Kozlov.
It was A versus C today, with Squad C in a must-win role. During the 10:00 a.m. opening session only the self-employed and vacationing were in attendance (about a dozen of us). But as noon neared, a very healthy ‘businessman’s special’ for hockey mushroomed — there were probably a couple of hundred on hand.
Forget about Hershey, Michal Neuvirth made a compelling case for the Caps keeping him in D.C. this season on Monday — he was under a barrage in the first stanza and turned aside all but one shot. Many of his stops were scintillating. Ovechkin dashed and dangled and lasered shot after shot. Mike Green made like Bobby Orr — over and over again. Karl Alzner continued to impress, including thwarting a bull-rushing Ovechkin in the first stanza with seeming ease. Sami Lepisto looked slick and poised. Eric Fehr is creating a buzz this camp with a cannon shot. And a center-right wing combo slated for Hershey this season — Mathieu Perreault and Francois Bouchard, excelling for a second consecutive day — was so often the authors of odd-man breaks that it looked like they were perpetually playing on the man advantage. Rather early on Squad C coaches Jay Leach and Mark French flipped their initial top line of Nylander with Chris Clark and Tomas Fleischmann (who played very well in their own right) and gave big-time minutes to Perreault and Bouchard. They were double-shifted; they were rested for a single shift and returned to the ice; they were used once for the entirety of a power play; they were everywhere. They were that good.
Bouchard’s skating, perhaps a weakness in his draft year, is vastly improved. Perreault is an impact pro hockey player — right now. Ovechkin had him lined up for an open-ice shoulder smash-a-roo that the under-sized Quebecois pivot deftly avoided, keeping the play moving up ice. In the offensive zone he consistently managed to maintain puck control and create time and space and scoring opportunity for his linemates.
Is there a commuter train to Hershey from Union Station — one that leaves every Friday say at 4:00?
Neuvirth was opposed by Brent Johnson at the other end. Michael Nylander opened the scoring by finishing a scramble that ensued after Neuvirth made a heart-stopping snuff-out of a Chris Clark one-timer from his center. And Squad C really controlled play in the opening, running 30 minutes of clock. There was no shot counter, but had there been, it might have read 18-5 for the team in white.
In the second frame, Varlamov replaced Neuvirth and Daren Machesney replaced BJ. Squad B got its act a bit more together in the 20 minutes that followed a prolonged intermission (three passes of the Zam (Olympia, actually) were required to generate a playable sheet — that’s how hard and fast a skate started the scrimmage). Near 5 minutes in, Viktor Kozlov missiled a wicked wrister through a dense scramble in front of ‘Cheese’s net that no one saw to knot things at a goal apiece. B’s pressure later generated a 5-on-3 power play advantage, and would you believe it, Quintin Laing successfully hurled his body at an Ovechkin point blast to help keep things even.
In the third frame, Chris Bourque tallied with 6:53 left, but Chris Clark lasered a top right shelf snap shot past Varlamov (it was Nylander’s second point on the day) with a little over three minutes left. After the scrimmage ending horn and some uncertainty as to how to reach a conclusion, Gabby, taking in the scrimmage from on high with the owner and GM, barked down instructions to shoot it out. Kozlov and Ovi scored for B, and Chris Clark’s failed shot rendered his squad eliminated from the inaugural Gaetan Duschesne Cup.
Tarik shared with me some fast-emerging details about the Duchesne Cup trophy. The team has apparently spent upwards of $500 on it, commissioning it from afar, and is working desperately to get it to camp in time for a timely presentation.
Your four stars of the scrimmage, as awarded by this blogger:

1. Michal Neuvirth. (Yes he played only half the game, but he was that good.)
2. The Perreault-Bouchard combo
3. Mike Green
4. Mike Denney, Caps’ season ticket holder, visitor this past weekend to Portland, Maine, from whence he returned with a 12-pack of Shipyard seasonal — one of America’s great microbrews — and presented it to moi before noon Monday. Now that’s a way to start a vacation. Incidentally, there is no sign at Kettler that reads, ‘Do Not Feed the Bloggers Beer.’ Just sayin.

Opening Day Herbies from Gabby

The OFB Team — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:44:44 +0000

One of the most dramatic scenes in the movie ‘Miracle’ occurs when Head Coach Herb Brooks punishes his American squad after an underwhelming draw against Norway in an exhibition game leadup to the 1980 Olympics. Brooks channels his fury into an excruciating post-game set of ‘Herbies.’
An amazing spectacle of comparable torture took place out at Kettler Capitals Iceplex today. At the very end of two hours of hard drills, Capitals Head Coach Bruce Boudreau put the organization’s rookies through his own elongated set of Herbies, just like Brooks did. In fact, the sessions were so similar that scores of young Caps collapsed to their hands and knees at both ends of the sheet upon completion of each set. Only to be summoned to perform more. It was fatiguing just watching.
Among the collapsing: Anton Gustafsson, Dmitry Kugryshev, and Justin Taylor. Mathieu Perreault, the head coach admitted afterward, became light-headed and nearly passed out. Conversely, Francois Bouchard seemed steady throughout the entirety of the gruelling leg-churning.
“We had to have a barometer of seeing who was where and what stage they were [NHL] ready,” Head Coach Bruce Boudreau said afterward. “We wanted to make sure that the young guys understand what it’s like to be NHL shape. There’s junior shape, there’s American League shape, but this is stuff I had to go through as a player, to learn, cause I didn’t understand. If we can make them understand at 19 and 20, that for some of them, for their next camp — especially the first-year guys — ‘I know what I gotta do a little bit more in the summer’ . . . ”
Players in a multitude of colored practice sweaters all developed green complexions.
“Some of them came through with flying colors [media in attendance didn't see any of those], some of them looked a little bit ragged out there,” the coach added.

NHL.com Prospect Spotlight: The League Likes the Look of Caps' Q Leaguers

pucksandbooks — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 01:07:57 +0000

The promise of the Caps’ prized prospects from the Quebec League, Mathieu Perreault and Francois Bouchard, has caught the attention of the NHL’s web site. Tuesday’s superb feature includes some eye-opening assessments from Caps’ GM George McPhee. On Perreault’s size:

“While the knock on the 5-foot-8, 151-pound Perreault is his small frame, Washington General Manager George McPhee has looked beyond that in making his evaluation.
“He’s not a big kid, but he’s a very bright player and we’ve always said that if you’re good enough, you’re big enough,” McPhee told NHL.com.

We’ve been big supporters of Perreault’s since we laid first laid eyes on him at his first Development Camp, but in this piece he flexes a bit of moxie in responding to critics who see only his size: “I feel I’ve already proven I’m better than a sixth round player,” he told NHL.com. He is also inspired by another undersized Q graduate — Daniel Briere.

“(Briere) is a smaller player like me, but he’s not scared of anything and very smart on the ice,” Perreault told NHL.com. “He’s the type of player I want to become. Ever since I started playing hockey, my size has really been a motivating factor and the fact (McPhee) would say something like that means a lot. Really, though, my size is never something I think about on the ice. I just go out there and play my game as if I were a bigger hockey player. I won’t change a thing and if (McPhee) thinks I’m doing well, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”

Is there quality character stacking up high in this organization or what? In noting that Bouchard was among the final cuts made at 2007′s training camp NHL.com demonstrated that it had done its research on the Caps’ other Quebec prospect. This is the type of reporting that’s all too infrequent in mainstream hockey media.

2008 Development Camp Final Scrimmage Live Blog

pucksandbooks — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 10:00:48 +0000

Join us at 10:00am today when we will join Eric McErlain of the Sporting News and the AOL Fanhouse and Chris Poisal, Public Relations Assistant for the Hershey Bears, for some live blogging of the action. If you cannot make it out to Kettler, join us right here with your Saturday morning cup-a-joe.

Ten Top Storylines for Development Camp 2008

pucksandbooks — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:43:20 +0000

This morning the Capitals welcome 21 skaters and 4 goaltenders to their 2008 Development Camp. Almost all of the campers are recent Caps’ draft picks, and first-rounders from each of the the team’s past four drafts are present (Alzner, Varlamov, Carlson, Pokulok).
Camp will culminate with a 10:00 scrimmage on Saturday. Hockey is back! Herewith, 10 top storylines to follow at this July’s camp:
(10) All Eyes on Alzner. 2007 first round pick Karl Alzner impressed observers of Development Camp last July, and then he went on to captain the gold medal winning Canadians at the World Junior Championships in December and earn WHL Defenseman of the Year and Player of the Year honors with the Calgary Hitmen. Not a bad season, huh? As soon as his season in Calgary was completed he was called up by Hershey, but the Bears didn’t advance out of the American League postseason’s first round, so he’s yet to get a taste of pro hockey. He’ll get a chance at training camp in September to crack the Caps’ opening night roster, but he can make a real strong impression on and off the ice this week.
(9) Souring on Sasha? No team got screwed more by Gary Bettman’s inane Entry Draft scheme during the summer lockout of 2005 than the Caps. The league all but came out and said that by virtue of having had the first pick in 2004, the Caps shouldn’t have a reasonable shot at it again. But outside the top 10? A pre-lockout cellar dwellar, the Caps drew the 14th pick in the first round in the ’05 draft. A lot of quality was already off the table by then, including Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Anze Kopitar, and Jack Johnson. The Caps took a gamble on Cornell defenseman Sasha Pokulok. He hasn’t impressed. This could be a make-or-break year for him. He’d do well to have a solid week.
(8) College Hockey’s Biggest Weekend Isn’t that Far Away. Washington will host its first-ever Frozen Four next spring, and the Frozen Four Organizing Committee will visit Kettler on Wednesday, conduct a meeting there, and take in that day’s scrimmage. I have plenty of questions I’d like to put to them.
(7) The Big Finn with the Big Game. Oskar Osala had a big year in 2007-08 with 18 goals and 35 points in 53 games with the Espoo Blues in Finland’s top pro league. The 6 ’4, 217-lb. left wing was named the Finnish League’s Rookie of the Year. He also shined at the 2007 World Junior Championships, where he shared the lead in goal scoring with 5 goals in 6 games. A lot of folks from Hershey are excited to see him.
(6) Not that Carlson, but John’s Big and Physical Too. No relation to Jack, but John Carlson may well make a name for himself in pro hockey, too. The Caps may have landed another late first-round blueline gem last month with Carlson, who’s already blessed with a pro physique. His coach with the Indiana Ice of the USHL said of his defenseman, “without a doubt, he’s going to be a star in the NHL.”
(5) Media Matters. All of HockeyWashington was stunned by the breadth, depth, and overall quality of media coverage of the Caps this past spring. This week at Kettler — where there will be stories to tell — is an opportunity to see if that was anomalous. After all, the Redskins don’t report to training camp for another two weeks. Bloggers will be out at Kettler covering, and we hope to reprise our coalition from Entry Draft Friday and live blog this Saturday’s camp-concluding scrimmage.
(4) Where’s Big Joe? Joe Finley, Hurting Force, isn’t in town this week. The 2005 first-rounder showed a lot of promise at last summer’s Development Camp, and he also shook a lot of plexiglass with his corner work. The Capitals are going to great lengths to make this week appealing to Washington youths, and Finley’s instincts for violence may not have been a good fit for that agenda. He’ll be returning to North Dakota for his senior season with the Fighting Sioux this fall.
(3) They Harken from a Scorer’s League. The leading scorers from the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League each of the past two seasons, Francois Bouchard and Mathieu Perreault, will be present. Perreault in particular, with his dazzling stickwork-in-a-phone-booth and world-class agility and hockey sense, ought to be a fan favorite this week.
(2) Prior a Priority. Capitals’ Goaltender Coach Dave Prior has spent 11 seasons in Washington. He may not have a more important one than the one ahead. He will break in yet another no. 1 goalie in Jose Theodore — the team’s third in just the last six months — and perhaps just as importantly, in Simeon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth tutor two of the organization’s finest goaltending prospects in 15 years. That work begins this week.
(1) Speaking of Goalies . . . It would be comforting for Capitals’ fans to see both Varlamov and Neuvirth stop every shot that each faces the entirety of this week.

Washington Capitals' Top Prospects, Spring 2008

pucksandbooks — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:00:27 +0000

Continuing an OFB tradition, we present our rankings of the Capitals’ prospects at the conclusion of the hockey season. Many of the names below you’ll have a chance to see at Kettler Capitals Iceplex this July, for Development Camp (July 7-12). What’s the lead storyline among the futures holdings? Gotta be the arrival of one of the best young hockey players in Western Canada, Karl Alzner — one of the best young players in Canada or anywhere else, for that matter. If he has a strong training camp come September he’ll bypass the American League this fall and begin his NHL career fresh from an awards-rich CHL career.
Another gleaning: that a Q-league scoring champ and MVP can’t crack the top 10 of an organization’s prospect rankings. That tells us that Ross Mahoney and his stable of scouts the globe over are getting it done.

Name	Draft Class	’07-’08 Club	The skinny
Karl Alzner, D	’07, 1st Rd.	Calgary (WHL)	WHL Player of the Year, Defenseman of the Year, CHL MVP Finalist. Any questions?
Simeon Varlamov, G	’06, 1st Rd.	Lokomotiv (RSL)	Excellent RSL regular season stats, then, in the postseason, sublime: 16 games, 1.56 GA, five shutouts. Welcome to North American professional hockey, Simeon.
Sami Lepisto, D	’04, 3rd Rd.	Hershey Bears	So much for struggle in a rookie pro season in North America: 45 pts. in 55 Bears’ games, and a +29. A Tier I candidate for promotion to the parent club in the fall.
Andrew Gordon, RW	’04, 7th Rd.	South Carolina (ECHL); Hershey	Fought through early-season demotion, matured into reliable two-way, impact forward. Two hat tricks in his American League rookie season. Bright, bright future.
Chris Bourque, LW	’04, 2nd Rd.	Hershey Bears	Bears’ MVP; became a top performer in the American League the final month of the season; ready to stake his claim to a lasting promotion.
Josef Boumedienne, D	acquired from Ottawa, Dec. 2002	Hershey Bears	Injury-marred ’07-’08 campaign, but still posted 7 & 35 in 52 games, and a +18; less a prospect and more a quality depth signee; draft day trade bait?
Kyle Wilson, C	Signed as a free agent, July 2007	Hershey Bears	Only Bear to play in every regular season game; nearly a point-per-game performer through two American League seasons.
Jay Beagle, C	Signed with Washington in March 2008	Hershey Bears	Diamond in the rough? Big-bodied, mobile, and fancies the contact game; one goal shy of 20 in his freshman AHL campaign.
Francois Bouchard, RW	’06, 2nd Rd.	Baie-Comeau (QMJHL)	Strong but unspectacular ’07-’08 campaign; much improved skater; needs AHL seasoning.
Joe Finley, D	’05, 1st Rd.	North Dakota (WCHA)	Enjoyed third straight season of statistical improvement — and ’07-’08′s numbers included a conspicuous spike in offensive production; a team-leading +24; still magnificently mean and nasty.
Josh Godfrey, D	’07, 2nd Rd.	Sault Ste. Marie (OHL)	17 & 34 , +31, in 60 Greyhound games; Western Conference All Star; Team Canada WJC selection; time for pro hockey.
Michal Neuvirth, G	’06, 2nd Rd.	Windsor, Oshawa (OHL)	More prime-time performing: 7-2 for the Generals with a 2.48 GA, .932 SP this postseason; led Plymouth to the Memorial Cup last spring; time for pro hockey — South Carolina or Hershey?
Mathieu Perreault, C	’06, 6th Rd.	Acadie Bathurst	2007 Q MVP, 2008 Q scoring champ; nothing left to dominate in major juniors; time for pro hockey.
Oskar Osala, LW	’06, 4th Rd.	Espoo Blues (Fin)	Returning to Europe to advance his development, Osala put up impressive numbers in Finland’s top pro league: 18 & 17 and a + 12 in 53 games; will be interesting to see what’s in store for him in ’08-’09.
Daren Machesney, G	’05, 5th Rd.	Hershey Bears	Exceeding expectations — everyone’s — was the story of “Cheese’s” season. He got in 38 games with Hershey and went 22-10 with a 2.55 goals-against. He’s on track to be an elite goaltender in the American League; question is, with what Washington has arriving this summer in goal, is there room in the organization for Cheese?
Andrew Joudrey, C	’03, 8th Rd.	Hershey Bears	Solid first full pro season, often centering another prized Caps’ NCAA prospect, Andrew Gordon; strong on his skates, superb hockey sense, makes smart plays.
Stephen Werner	’03, 3rd Rd.	South Carolina, Hershey	Remains a longshot to see anything but a cup of coffee in the bigs. But his game matured in ’07-’08. Skated a +4 for the Bears in just 8 games. Does have a pro stride.
Travis Morin, C	’04, 9th Rd.	South Carolina	Big, big numbers for the Stingray pivot: 34 & 50 in 68 games, including 14 power play markers; still has issues with skating and strength at the pro level.
Patrick McNeill, D	’05, 4th Rd.	South Carolina, Hershey	Split time between Carolina and Hershey this season; he’s undersized but not physically overmatched in the A; should enjoy a full year with the Bears in ’08-’09.
Oscar Hedman, D	’04, 5th Rd.	Modo (Swe.)	A top-4 pairing blueliner who by the age of 22 had completed five seasons in the Swedish Elite League. Though I’ve seen only glimpses of him in WJC play, I wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity to have two Oscars in my table. Should Osala and he connect on a scoring play in a game with the Caps, it’d be the first Oskar-from-Oscar feat in NHL history. I really want that.

Capitals Sign RW Francois Bouchard

pucksandbooks — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:49:13 +0000

The Washington Capitals have announced the signing of right wing Fracois Bouchard to a three year entry level contract. From the press release:

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Washington Capitals have signed right wing Francois Bouchard to a three-year entry-level contract beginning next season, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today. In keeping with club policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Bouchard, 19, led the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) in scoring in 2006-07, posting 125 points and a league-high 80 assists. A 6’1”, 188-pound native of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Bouchard recorded 92 points (36 goals, 56 assists) in 68 games for Baie-Comeau in 2007-08, leading his team in scoring and finishing eighth in the league.
A two-time QMJHL Player of the Week in 2006-07, Bouchard posted a 22-game point streak on way to winning the Jean Beliveau Trophy, given to the league’s leading scorer. Bouchard was named the QMJHL’s Player of the Month in December of this season, after posting 22 points (seven goals, 15 assists) in 11 games.
Bouchard was Washington’s second-round choice, 35th overall, in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. He joined the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League (AHL) at the end of his QMJHL season and had one goal in four regular-season games for the Bears, who begin the Calder Cup playoffs tomorrow night.
The Capitals have now signed five of their selections from the 2006 Entry Draft (Nicklas Backstrom, Simeon Varlamov, Michal Neuvirth, Mathieu Perreault and Francois Bouchard).

MVP Redux?

The OFB Team — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:00:49 +0000

In easily winning the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League scoring title this season, Capitals’ prospect Mathieu Perreault made a compelling case for earning his second straight league MVP award.