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.
The Caps met Montreal for the second time in three nights. Given that the early headline on NHL.com was “Habs Go for Home-and-Home Sweep,” the Caps had something to prove Thursday night. They also were seeking to avoid consecutive losses in regulation under Bruce Boudreau.
