On Frozen Blog

In a very real sense, the Ballston Massacre yesterday represented the culmination of the Capitals’ rebuild. Last September, Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis decreed that the rebuild was over, asserting that his young team was primed for playoff contention. But being rebuilt as both Leonsis and General Manager George McPhee targeted 5 years ago, I believe, means more than that; I believe it is represented by what we’re seeing out at Kettler this September: the parent club enjoying the chic designation as Cup contender, and certainly an across-the-board classification as elite in the East. But also, concurrently, below them, resides a dozen-plus dazzling talents in juniors and the minor pros. With the team’s scouts consistently identifying gems in each year’s draft, the organization’s talent pipeline is annually replenished.

Yesterday’s 7-0 shellacking of Philly — a game that wasn’t anywhere near as close as the score indicated — means nothing. And everything. Nearly every single member of what will constitute the Capitals’ opening night lineup next month was standing hard by the glass in one corner, following the action intently. They were drawn there, presumably, by the novelty of yesterday’s matinee: the first-ever NHL exhibition in the facility. But they’re all also computer literate and not oblivious to the buzz that’s been circulating on line this week about the likes of John Carlson, Oskar Osala, Simeon Varlamov, Mathieu Perreault, and scores more recently acquired kids. A well rebuilt organization, I’d submit, is one in which the present is a consensus contender as well as one within which the vets are checking the rear view mirror for skilled and fast-skating youth, hard charging on their heels.

It is true that the Flyers yesterday were without two prime young talents, Claude Giroux and JVR. Neither, however, plays defense or tends goal, and suited up they might have succeeded in making the score 7-3. The Caps, it should be noted, were also without a pair of first-round talents (Joe Finley and Anton Gustafsson). Interestingly, the heavy duty damage inflicted yesterday came from the very late rounds and even free agency: Travis Morin, Mathieu Perreault, Steve Pinizzotto, Viktor Dovgan, Jay Beagle. Oskar Osala was conspicuous throwing his fourth-round weight around.

A veteran puckhead follower of the Caps needed about one hour of the opening day of autumn skating out at Kettler to see the difference that 5 years has made in the organization’s acquisition and development of prospects. That was the emerging theme for me during an upwards of 5 hours spent there on Sunday, and listening to voices far more expert than mine ruminate on the breadth and quality of this organization’s personnel.

Once upon a time, veteran members of the beat pack told me, the Washington Capitals made a habit of hurtling highly drafted kids more or less straight into the big-league lineup, with hardly any apprenticeship in the minors, and shortsightedly shortchanging their development. Jacub Cutta’s presence at 2008’s training camp is an instructive case in point. Back in 2000, Cutta arrived in Washington as an 18-year-old rookie out of Swift Current of the WHL. He had an outstanding camp that autumn, without question. He certainly was one of the best six or seven rearguard performers then. But really, shouldn’t he have been patted on the back, commended for his competitiveness, and immediately returned to the W for at least another year, rather than thrust into the opening night lineup? Then head coach Ron Wilson, himself a former NHL rearguard, must have assumed that he could manage Cutta’s rookie year just fine.

In reality, though, how many 18-year-old defensemen are ready for an 82-game NHL season?

The Capitals did return Cutta to Swift Current, where he played fewer than 50 games in 2000-01. But it’s possible he did so with some sense of failure, his development cycle oddly meandering at its outset.

Others classified as very youthful could be identified as having been microwaved into the big leagues during the first half of this decade – Brian Sutherby, Kris Beech, Steve Eminger. Today, however, there’s a whole new mindset in place when it comes to developing prospects, and this, joined by now consistently adept drafting and superb pro scouting, has the Capitals in 2008 right where management dreamed of five years ago.

Of the 67 players who will skate at Kettler Capitals in Rookie and Training camps this month, fully 23 were drafted in either the first or second rounds of the NHL draft. All are accorded an appropriate apprenticeship. Just as encouraging is the emrgence of contribtor and star quality potential from later rounds (Osala, Perreault, Lepisto, Dovgan). Those of you who paid a visit to Kettler this week before the vets (save Ovechkin!) reported, found a compelling reason to go out so early: there were really good hockey players all over the ice.

I cannot make mention of these changed fortunes without acknowledging the wholesale change in media acknowledgment of the role that a robust development pipeline now plays in the organization’s overall health. Once upon a time, we who cared greatly about the weekly progress of draft picks had a lone web address (hockeysfuture) to peruse. In season the beat reporters of both big papers will chronicle the feats of the kids in juniors and down on the farm. As will the blogs. The Caps’ web site is metastasizing into a multi-media warehouse of feats present and years-off promising.

Part of becoming a hockey town is having a fanbase fluent with more than the big-league scoreboard and standings and savoring the novel journey that tomorrow’s heroes must make. In Washington, this September, it’s a blockbuster tale.