Five Washington Capitals will be sporting World Championship Medals at the end of the day. At 1 p.m. today, Russia and the Capitals line of Ovechkin, Fedorov, and Semin face defenseman Mike Green and company from Canada. Both teams are undefeated in the tournament with eight wins. At least with the first loss comes silver.
Sami Lepisto already has his medal as Finland beat Nicklas Backstrom and Sweden for the Bronze medal in yesterday’s game.
You can watch the Gold Medal game on WCSN.com.
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. |
If you watched Game 4’s broadcast last night likely you saw Comcast illustrate the dramatic discrepancy in playoff experience between the Caps and Flyers: last night 14 Capitals were making their NHL playoff series debuts, just 6 for Philadelphia. The way the game was contested you’d never have known.
Small solace this morning.
But I think I am going to enjoy watching Eric Fehr compete in playoffs hence. Through nearly 90 minutes of game clock I kept seeing Fehr impose his physical will down low and along the boards and carry off the simple and smart decision under pressure and in traffic. Next season I suspect we’ll begin seeing him score more regularly and then take that scorer’s touch and add it to his already impressive physical drive.
And I think Alexander Ovechkin has, four games into his NHL postseason career, found a prescription for making his mark at this time of year: first hit everything that moves, helping to dictate a game’s tempo and feel, instead of waiting for the play to come to you — and the scoring will follow. The Capitals last night followed Ovechkin’s physical lead: four games in, and likely three games too late, they finally got physical, winning the hits ledger 38 to 29.
And I’ll take six or eight more springs like this from Dave Stecklel, too, and, if I can, at least a dozen more of this caliber from Alexander Semin.
Semin, for me, is the storyline of success in what is fast beginning to look like an abbreviated first trip to the postseason by the rebuilt Caps. I’ve enjoyed watching him in all four games, but last night was perhaps the most impressive hockey game he’s played in his young NHL career. The playoffs have a way of maturing, of rounding out and of broadening the skill set of previously one-dimensional hockey players. I’m not suggesting that Semin was altogether one dimensional prior to April 11, 2008, but watching him make quality Flyer defenders look foolish along the boards, watching him dish out as good and at times better than he got, watching him be the first Cap in at a scrum to aid a victimized teammate, watching him get bloodied and battered and thereby only more resolved to win, well, how can you not be excited about what future seasons — and especially springs — likely hold for him?
Viewers last night also saw a rebound performance from Milan Jurcina. He got real physical after playing comparatively passive in previous games. He also didn’t much attempt passes up the middle of the ice from behind his own net. He, like many of his young teammates, is learning.
There’s no other way to get to where the Caps ultimately want to get except through trial and costly error in the cauldron of the NHL postseason. That cauldron includes grotesque gaffes — at times wild in their imbalance — by game officials.
I read Mike Vogel’s commendably restrained litany of lousy officiating, but I’m glad that as grievously bad as it’s been at times — and referee Mike Hasenfratz should be chemically castrated for what he did with 3 minutes left last night (was that as commendably restrained?) — that it’s occurring in this series, so early in the postseason careers of so many Caps. It needs to be filed away among the very hard lessons learned.
One of the toughest lessons a young hockey team has to learn about the postseason is that victory isn’t always awarded to the deserving. There’s about a baker’s dozen of those in Capitals’ playoff history. Add Thursday night to the tally. When Bruce Boudreau was asked about changes his club would need to make for Saturday’s game 5, he replied, “None. I thought we outplayed them. I thought we deserved to win.” Me, too. But that and a $5 bill will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Hockey clubs that come up short get tinkered with and tweaked in offseasons, and as exciting and rewarding and even inspiring as the 2007-08 Capitals have been, there are missing parts among them, and I’m going to enjoying monitoring how General Manager McPhee works his home improvements this summer. Debates about names and signings are fit for another day. But help is on the near horizon.
More youth will be served. And it will need to be led just as this spring’s has been by the likes of Sergei Fedorov, Matt Cooke, and Cristobal Huet. Here’s hoping the 2008 Young Guns are taking good notes.
Chris Bourque was recently named Hershey’s team MVP. In what may have been a make-or-break season for him, CBourque put an exclamation point on his prospect candidacy with a late-season explosion: 8 goals and 7 assists in his final eight games. On the season, CBourque tallied 28 goals and 35 assists for 63 points in 73 games –nearly a point a game in an exceptionally patchwork Bears’ lineup. Line chemistry was not a storyline in this Hershey season: another week or two of regular season and about 50 hockey players would have donned maroon sweaters. CBourque is a left-shooting left wing, but with Matt Pettinger’s departure and some uncertainty on left side after the Alexes heading into the summer, the 2004 second-rounder should be a contender for the left side of the third line come fall.
Caps’ fans by now know a bit of the promise packaged in rearguard Sami Lepisto. Injuries and recalls to D.C. limited Lepisto to 55 games in Hershey, but he made an impact in just about every one of them: 4 goals and 41 assists to lead all Bears’ blueliners in scoring. At the time of his April 9 recall, Lepisto was lodged in the top 5 of AHL defensemen in scoring and finished his American League rookie season a stellar +29. In 2004 Lepisto was named the IIHF World Junior Championship’s Outstanding Defenseman and was selected to the All Tournament team. He’s modest in size ( 5′11, 180) but heady and mobile and a superb passer. A third-round selection by the Caps in the team’s remarkable 2004 draft, Lepisto’s stint in the A may be but a single season.
Last spring Caps’ General Manager George McPhee told me that he thought newly signed center/winger Andrew Gordon’s stay in the American League might also be a brief one. A year later, that forecast appears accurate. Early in the season Gordon struggled with the transition from college hockey straight into the American League, but his demotion to South Carolina didn’t last long. In his first pro season he recorded a pair of hat tricks in Hershey en route to 16 goals and 35 assists in 58 games, skating a +22 in the process. A right-handed shot, Gordon seemed to settle in on the right side, often alongside another NCAA draftee, 2003 8th-rounder Andrew Joudrey. Gordon is a brilliant skater with excellent vision, a scorer’s hands, and a nose for the net.
I asked my American Hockey League experts up north to identify a bit of a darkhorse prospect for Caps’ training camp come fall, and center Jay Beagle was a consensus selection. The Caps inked Beagle to a two-year contract just last month, so it’s clear that management sees potential in him. The 6′3, 200-lb. Calgary native spent two seasons skating with Alaska-Anchorage in the WCHA, got a cup of coffee with Idaho in the ECHL, and was an invitee to the Caps’ development camp last July, where he impressed. Beagle scored 19 goals and 18 assists in 64 games with the Bears this season and was lauded for his physical presence and all-around game.
Another Bear most worth regular season ending praise is Head Coach Bob Woods, who took over for the promoted-to-the-parent-club-Caps Bruce Boudreau at Thanksgiving. Woods won 33 games behind the bench after Thanksgiving and did so presiding over a veritable M*A*S*H unit in the process. I highly recommend the overview of Woodsie’s bench work authored this week by Bears’ radio voice John Walton, who makes the case for Woods’ winning the A’s Coach of the Year award.
The Washington Capitals have recalled Sami Lepisto from the Hershey Bears. If Lepisto plays tonight versus Atlanta, it would be his fourth game as a Capital this season.
Saturday night’s Bears-Phantoms game at Giant Center was a sellout. “We could have sold 15,000 for this one,” John Walton told me a half hour before faceoff. The Bears are number one in the American League in attendance, averaging almost 8,500 per game — more than 700 fans more per game than second-best in attendance Wilkes Barre-Scranton.
Philadelphia is in first in the AHL’s East division, and entering Saturday night’s play they held a 10-pt. lead over the second-place Bears. But Bob Woods’ charges won at Philly Friday night, and a followup victory Saturday, coupled with the fact that Hershey has four games in hand, could have made things interesting. You have to think, too, that the return of Eric Fehr and Sami Lepisto, perhaps as soon as Monday, will strengthen the surging Bears down the stretch.
This weekend represents a rare opportunity for hockey fans in Hershey to catch the team at home for much of mid-February through mid-March. Beginning February 14 in Cleveland, the Bears went on the road for five straight, which ended with Friday night’s victory in Philly, returned home this weekend for just two games in 22 hours, then will board a plane for two mid-week games in Manitoba against the Moose. They’ll remain on the road and play four games in New England the following week. All told, over about a month’s time, the Bears during a crucial stretch of the season will have played 14 of 16 games on the road.
No one in the Hershey organization would utter anything but the goal of catching the Phantoms, but surviving this road warrior stretch still in second place would be no small feat in itself.
And no one in the Hershey organization would have scripted Saturday night’s first period any differently. The Bears raced out to a 3-0 lead on goals by Kyle Wilson, Jay Beagle, and Andrew Joudrey — the latter coming shorthanded on a superb cross-slot feed from Andrew Gordon. The first-20-minute Bears won seemingly every race to the puck, had all four lines clicking, forechecked with abandon, and got some strong saves from Freddie Cassivi.
But first-place hockey clubs don’t often go gently into the swept in a home-and-home night, and the Phantoms erased a rotten first period with a stellar second. A Bears’ official told me he’d “give a million dollars” to have Boyd Kane back in a Bears’ sweater: “He was the heart and soul of our Calder Cup run in 2006,” this team rep told me. Here was Kane’s second period Saturday night: two goals and an assist. The Phantom captain is not a swift skater — he’s just consistently in the right place at the right time, playing a heady, very leader-like game. The Phantoms scored three unanswered goals in the second period, two coming on the power play, to even the game at 3 at the second intermission. A sold-out Saturday night home crowd rather swiftly fell silent.
Incredibly, things got worse in the third. Two Phantoms scored their first goals of the season Saturday night, with Martin Grenier tallying at 5:31 when a lumbering puck-carrying Sasha Pokulok was easily overtaken in his own end, stripped of the puck, and sent sulking back to the Bears’ bench with the red lamp lit behind Cassivi and his team suddenly in a 4-3 hole. Of Pokulok it could be said, charitably, that he is having an underwhelming first full season in the American League. He did nothing Saturday night to change that assessment.
Less than a minute later, at 6:08, Phantom captain Kane would pot his fourth point of the evening, assisting on a Jared Ross marker that had the home faithful sounding like they’d wished the Bears had stayed on the road. Five unanswered Phantom goals resulted in a 5-3 revenge of Friday night. The Bears’ line of Scott Barney, Andrew Joudrey, and Andrew Gordon, while an offensive catalyst on many shifts in the first period, was on the even strength ice for both of Philly’s third period tallies. The youthful center and right wing are very promising prospects, but they suffered tough lessons late Saturday night.
At least I had the very pleasant company of Caps’ goaltending coach Dave Prior beside me for the farm team’s two-period meltdown.
One bright spot in a home sweater was Patrick McNeill, recently recalled from ECHL affiliate South Carolina and a Caps’ 2005 draft pick (115th overall). He’s listed at 6′1, 200, but his is not a physical game. He passes extremely well, gets the puck moving out of his zone with poise, manuevers agilely at the point, and Saturday night displayed some effective work along the boards at times. He put up monster numbers with Saginaw in the OHL the past couple of seasons, including 58 points in 58 games last season. He may be in Hershey to stay and develop.
Saturday night’s game came easily to the Bears in the opening 20 minutes. After that, they didn’t pay the price; they sat back and allowed the Phantoms to dictate possession and pace. What could have been a memorable and important statement against Hershey’s Pennsylvania rivals this weekend — Wilkes Barre-Scranton arrives at Giant Center tomorrow afternoon — was rudely interrupted by a persevering Phantoms club. Head Coach Bob Woods had tough words for his troops afterward.
“We sat back. We got bored with [doing] the simple things and we said ‘let’s get fancy’.”
“I don’t blame Freddie [Cassivi]. I blame the guys out there in front of him.”
“We played it to a tee in the first period . . . but [later] guys were on their own page, [and] we’ve had this problem all year.
“[General Manager] Doug’s not going to stand for it.”
The Bears on Sunday will heed their head coach’s words or face a long and most unpleasant plane ride back out on the road, out to frozen western Canada, early in the new week.
Two days after sending Forward Eric Fehr and Defenseman Sami Lepisto to Hershey, the Washington Capitals have recalled them. From the press release:
Lepisto, 23, made his NHL debut on Feb. 16 and played 14:16 before being assigned to Hershey on Feb. 20. He has played in 39 games for Hershey this year, posting 32 points (3 goals, 29 assists). Lepisto leads all Hershey defensemen in scoring and is tied for 10th among AHL defensemen in points. His +25 rating leads the Bears and ranks second in the league. He has two goals and 14 assists in his last 10 games with Hershey.
Fehr, 22, returns to the Caps for the second time this year. He was also recalled on Feb. 4 before being assigned to the AHL on Feb. 20. Fehr has seen action in six games for Washington this year and recorded one assist. He has played in 11 games for Hershey this year after missing most of the season with an injury. He returned to the lineup on Jan. 9 and had an assist on his first shift. Fehr has three goals and four assists with the Bears this year. He tallied a goal in Hershey’s 3-2 loss at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Feb. 20.
I’m sticking to my prediction: on game days, it’s antacid through early April for Caps’ fans. Jonathon Warner of 3WT asked me last night to predict the Southeast division’s resolution, so of course I told him I’d get back to him around April 5. Near that evening’s end.
Of a possible six points among this week’s three divisional road games I thought three the baseline for a passing grade. Insomuch as Alexander Ovechkin was magnificently neutralized by both Florida Friday night and Tampa last evening, and the team displayed great gumption in salvaging regulation-time victory from the jaws of an infuriating overtime Saturday (and more Tums and Pepto for Washingtonians), I’m grading the gang out at C+.
I fielded calls and email from out-on-the-ledgers after Friday night’s loss in Florida. That was a game determined by a miscue (a Mike Green whiff) and a bad bounce (on BJ’s left post). But generally speaking, the Caps would rather face Detroit or Ottawa than the Florida Panthers. Since the lockout, the teams have faced each other 22 times. The Caps have won a grand total of six of those games. Six. It doesn’t seem much to matter that Roberto Luongo is no longer in South Florida — it’s a mean moon rising for the Caps in Sunrise.
At least three compelling storylines emerged from this roadtrip. The most obvious, in light of his first-star effort last night, is Olie Kolzig’s revitalization. The Washington Times’ Corey Masisak this morning notes that the 37-year-old netminder “is now 11-3-2 since Christmas. [He] has allowed a total of 10 goals in his past five games.” He’s in a groove for sure, and the consistency and game-stealing he’s displaying gives one ample evidence to believe that the rotation with BJ that Bruce Boudreau has insisted on in 2008 is paying big-time dividends. Yes the Caps would have liked more than three points from this trip, but if they arrive in mid-March with a fit and sharp no. 1 netminder — all things injuries being somewhat equal — you have to like their chances in the race for the division crown.
Sami Lepisto made his NHL debut last night, and his 14 minutes of ice time seemed in their impact more like 24. He displayed the poise and mobility and deft puck distribution that had Hershey Bears’ officials and fans raving about him. It was only one game, but it was a very good one on a must-win night, and Lepisto’s resume in his first season of North American pro hockey is stellar. He skated a +27 with the Bears and put up almost a point per game (32 points in 38 games, good for 4th on the team in scoring) as a rookie rearguard — much of those numbers accumulated while Hershey’s blueline was decimated by injuries.
A third-round selection in the 2004 bumper crop of Caps’ Entry Draft picks, Lepisto represents one of the more intriguing prospects in the entire Caps’ organization. For whatever reason the Caps have seldom selected Finns, in an era when that small, Scandanavian, hockey-mad outpost has delivered scores of smart, sturdy defenders, reliable two-way forwards, and the odd stud goalie to the NHL. Prior to coming over to North America, Lepisto had three full seasons of experience in Finland’s top pro league with Helsinki Jokerit. (The team, incidentally, that beginning next season will be coached by Glen Hanlon.) Contending NHL teams need not only to select well in round one each June but to pick up serviceable players intermittently in later rounds. As a young pro hockey player Sami Lepisto already looks a good deal more than serviceable.
Another non-first-rounder, Tomas Fleischmann, may have announced his comfort zone arrival as a productive top-6 NHL forward on the road trip. The owner of a new two-year contract, Flash had 2 goals and an assist in the three games and looked a lot like his did in the AHL the past two seasons — among the best players on the ice each night. So many hockey fans render etched-in-stone verdicts on players’ value and potential from an opening 50 or 100 NHL games. Alexander Semin, for instance, had 10 goals in his first 50-plus games as a rookie. Fleischmann is from the same draft class, and now has 8 goals in 56 games on the season. Flash is particularly important to the Caps as a skilled winger on the left side should the unthinkable in terms of injury take place. The Caps didn’t give him a new two-year, one-way deal out of a sense of charity.
So the old and new came through on an important road swing through the South. On the radio last night studio host Jonathon Warner a few times used the word “separation” as Caps’ fans hoped it would relate to the team’s fortunes on this road trip. Mike Vogel, calling in from Tampa, was quick to dispel us all from such a silly notion. New data arrived this week further confirming that this will be the springtime of our disquiet.
The Washington Capitals have recalled Sami Lepisto from the Hershey Bears. From the Caps’ press release:
Lepisto, 23, has played in 37 games for Hershey this year, posting 29 points (2 goals, 27 assists). He leads all Hershey defensemen in scoring and ranks 14th among AHL defensemen in points. His +25 rating leads the Bears and ranks second in the league, first among defensemen. Lepisto has an eight-game point-scoring streak with Hershey, recording one goal, 12 assists and a +12 rating in that time. He has seven assists in his last three games.
Sami LepistoLepisto was selected by the Capitals in the third round of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft, 66th overall, and becomes the fourth member of the 2004 draft class on the Washington roster (joining Alex Ovechkin, Jeff Schultz and Mike Green, who were all taken in the first round). Lepisto spent four seasons in the top professional league in Finland before making the move to the United States to play for the Bears.
The 6-foot, 176-pound Espoo, Finland, native, has never played in a regular season NHL game.
[update 1:45pm] Earlier reports have become official, Lepisto has been returned to Hershey.
The Washington Capitals have assigned defenseman Sami Lepisto to the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League (AHL), vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today.
Lepisto, 23, was recalled this morning from Hershey and practiced with Washington today at Kettler Capitals Iceplex before being assigned.
No official word if he gets his mileage reimbursed.
Good crowd, good ice, two streaking teams, and a crammed press box.
Post-game reactions
I’m a blogger banished to the American League on a behavioral conditioning assignment. As banishments go, Hershey’s hardly a hardship. If you’ve read this blog for three months, you know of my affinity for this community, its state-of-the-art rink, the quality people surrounding the team, and its unrivaled hockey heritage.
There’s a lot more to recommend this visit. This Hershey Bears’ club, which a month into the season appeared to be in rebuilding mode, is today 21-14-0-2. They’re nine points back of first-place Philly but just three points back of Wilkes Barre for second. The Bears lost last night in Wilkes Barre 3-1, where BJ apparently stood on his head to keep the game close. No wonder he got called back to D.C. so fast. Anyway, big-time turnaround going on here. Sound familiar?
It’s also the first-ever visit to Giant Center by the first-year Lake Erie Monsters. That’s historical, not in an alert the National Archives sense, but quirky novel enough as inducement for me to drive up on a January Saturday night with the Caps idle. When the Monsters unveiled their logo prior to the season, we had a little fun with it. Tonight, too, there’ll be some prospects I haven’t seen play in Bears’ sweaters, like Daren Machesney and Patrick McNeill. And Chris Bourque is recently returned to the lineup recuperated from a concussion.
Machesney is fast becoming a real story here. He’s 11-2-1-1 with a 2.02 goals-against and am epe-popping .933 save percentage. As Caps’ goalie prospects go, I’m not sure he was on the tips of too many Caps’ fans tongues three months ago, but I wasn’t long in the Hershey press box tonight before a handful of writers and Bears’ folks brought him up to me.
Eric Fehr played last night in Wilkes Barre but is getting tonight off. Understandable that the Bears wouldn’t want him going all three games this weekend. He’s likely to play tomorrow.
Josef Boumedienne is making his first appearance for Hershey tonight since December 1.
Stephen Werner scored his first goal of the season on a nifty shorthanded breakaway just 2:08 in. Then: the Monsters, on a Jeff Jillson tally, knot up it just seconds later.
The PA announcer may earn his stipend tonight: still not 5 minutes in, and three goals are already up on the board. 2-1 Bears on a Jason Morgan marker.
And not five minutes in, we have the evening’s first Louis Robitaille dance card, with Monster Mitch Love. A lot of prelude and prancing, but a decent tilt that I’d award the slight decision to Robitaille, though Love definitely got some un-love blows in.
It’s really enjoyable seeing two promising forward prospects — Andrew Joudrey and Andrew Gordon — skate on a line together, and at the 7:13 mark, Joudrey made a superb centering feed from the half boards that Gordon blasted home. If Hershey scores a fourth here in the first, will Monster netminder Tyler Weiman get the hook?
Speaking of getting hooked, I mean hitched, Oh My God, another marriage proposal at another hockey game! She said yes, but it took her a while. On this weekend when I’m trying to remind Mr. Leonsis of my virtues, being a bit of a Cupid karma in rinks is one, no?
16:12 into the first: Lepisto with a well-aimed, low bomb from the right point that Andrew Gordon deflected past Weiman. Weiman’s still in, but there was nothing he could do on that one. It was a superb redirect by Gordon. He’s doubled his goals on the season (4) after just one period tonight.
One uber-impressive period in the books: 4-1 Bears after one.
During the first intermission, I was invited to join Bears’ radio voice John Walton for a chat during intermission two. I wonder what he wants to talk about? Continue reading ›
11:45 a.m.: In the middle of this week I wondered about the appeal of spending this particular weekend in Hershey, coincidental to the Bears’ home opener. It’s never a bad idea to take in a Saturday night hockey game at Giant Center, and the moreso on Hershey’s home Opening Night. But I thought the gentle hills of south central Pennsylvania likely in peak autumn colors, and two full nights within them the perfect escape from hustle and bustle of D.C. Late this morning, driving East through the Lebanon Valley en route to Adamstown and Stoudt’s brew pub, some 30 minutes East of Hershey, I realized I’d made a brilliant travel decision this weekend.
Hershey Bears Logo
The central region just north of Maryland hasn’t endured anything like the summer and early fall drought of the lower Midatlantic, and as I drove under brilliant sunshine this morning green fields stood out as novel to my eyes, lush between burnt orange, brown, and maroon leaves above and, intermittently, vibrant orange pumpkins stacked and splashed about porches, yards, and small-town merchants’ store entrances.
Stoudt’s, while not near Hershey, is for me a must-visit on every visit. The beer is brewed and bottled cold, meaning that for a traveler like me I can store it in my Jeep and allow it to warm before chilling it again without the slightest harm. Stoudt’s Pils, Pales, and seasonals arrive on the beer lover’s tongue like nectar from an unearthly realm. There’s a quirky law that requires the Stoudt’s patron purchasing beer for take-out to transport only 12-packs at a time to his car. I had a shopping list generous not only for myself but also for my expert on all beers of the planet friend Michael, who lives back home on Capitol Hill. This exertion represents the day’s exercise. Today in the air’s crispness and the hills’ panoramic colors I savored the entirety of the 40-mile drive. The brewery opened at noon. I was there at 12:11.
12:45 p.m.: I hurry back to Hershey from shopping in order to meet a gracious invitation from the Patriot News’ Tim Leone, beat reporter for the Bears, who invited me to his home to watch a half afternoon’s worth of college football before heading over the Giant Center together. USC was playing Notre Dame Saturday. Tim is a USC grad, and, I like to kid Tim, I’m a “patriot,” so it was a showdown slate for us. Tim has a basset hound named Dash who waddles in the family yard patterns that are better disciplined and faster than any of the Fighting Irish’s wide receivers. I think Dash might run block better than any ND linemen as well.
5:15 p.m.: Tim and I head over the to the rink. It’s Chamber of Commerce gorgeous out. If I didn’t have a game to cover, I’d have no problem sipping a few Stoudt’s on my hotel room’s veranda and just staring at the sun setting over the horizon’s hills. Hershey is playing the second most storied franchise in the American League tonight, the Rochester Americans. It’s a novel matchup, Leone informs me, as the visit represents Rochester’s first to the Giant Center in almost two years. Rochester has a dual affiliation with Buffalo and Florida.
I don’t know the identities of the man and woman staffing the credentials table in the entrance hall of the press door at Giant Center, but when I inform that that I’m with OnFrozenBlog, the lady tells me “Oh you’re with the frozen blog. You guys are doing a terrific job.” There is always some manner of warm welcome I experience on every visit up here, in some restuarant or at some service station or at the rink, and this ranks among the best of them all for me.
The Bears are 0-3 on the new season, in the basement of the AHL’s East Division. This is very unfamiliar territory, particularly for Bruce Boudreau and his staff.
6:55 p.m.: In pre-game darkness and opening night lasers, a business-suited Eric Fehr is introduced to the home crowd. I’m so tired of seeing Eric in a business suit. Sami Lepisto is also a scratch, also because he is hurt. A Bears’ staffer informs Leone and me that Boudreau will dress just five defensemen tonight. I find that interesting in light of the fact that the Bears’ bus got home from Connecticut in the middle of the night.
Weird looking: Ben Clymer is dressed for the Bears. I am anxious to see Sasha Pokulok, who’s enjoyed something of a renaissance in his hockey career in the last three months. He led the Bears in scoring during the preseason.
The house is about fourth-fifths full.
7:15 p.m.: Both on paper and in the early going tonight I notice less flash to the Bears’ lineup relative to the past two seasons. One good reason for that is the graduation of Tomas Fleischmann. But Dave Steckel, too, put up big numbers and played an enormous role for Bruce Boudreau the past seasons in Hershey. In the middle of the summer I asked Leone if he thought this would be a “rebuilding” season in Hershey. He actually thought they’d contend for the East division title again, and he said this again to me today in his home. Continue reading ›
“This is the best facility in the league,” George McPhee said. “It’s a place players want to be . . . it makes everything that we do better. It helps [with] community relations, media relations . . . It helps you keep your players and it attracts free agents.”
A year ago in Ashburn, Va., training camp was conducted in makeshift and cramped quarters. “Last year we were vagabonds [out at Ashburn],” Olaf Kolzig said.
“What the [team's] trainers went through last year is a story in itself,” Glen Hanlon said.
Some reporters were discussing a quote Jason Spezza gave the Canadian Press this week: ”I think Washington could be a darkhorse team that could get into the playoffs. They made some good acquisitions in the off-season and they had a pretty good base of young guys so they could be kind of a team that might sneak up and make the playoffs.”
Cap after Cap came forward Thursday morning with the word “playoffs” on his lips. It’s not an entitlement, it’s something they must earn, but Captain Clark made the mission as plain as could be: “We have everything we need to get there.”
The good karma around this team now has had a clear impact on Kolzig. “My enthusiasm and energy level is at an all-time high,” he claimed.
“I practice in the [night] clubs,” he replied, sporting a devilish grin.
The starting goaltender offered a passing observation about the superstar left wing’s unkept hair. A reporter brought this to Ovechkin’s attention.
“It’s gangster style,” he responded, grinning again.
The general manager offered a number of insightful assessments related to the present and the recent past. He acknowledged that beyond the signings of the three big free agents, he added bodies with pro experience — guys like Boumedienne and Lepitso — in response to the experience that the team went through last December, when injuries and illness assailed an above-.500 club that was sniffing a playoff spot then. He also offered the view that chemistry with three significant new faces in the room is less an issue or concern than it was when the league was first experiencing significant free agent movement. Relatively few teams were making most of the significant acqusitions early on, he noted, but today “every team is acquiring [free agents].”
Where are the Capitals at the dawn of training camp 2007?
“A couple of years ago, we were looking [just] to fill boots. Now we have good players to fill a few number of [open] positions,” McPhee claimed.
Competition for the 7 projected defensive spots should be fierce, and even a few bad practices or scrimmages may be the difference between suiting up for an NHL club or returning to Juniors or Europe.
Karl Alzner – Washington’s first-round pick in June’s 2007 NHL Entry Draft, Alzner plays a surprisingly mature game, with high panic threshold and excellent on-ice awareness. Not a big banger, nor prone to unleash a slap shot from the point too often, Alzner plays a reliable, steady game that will eventually eat up big minutes in the NHL. For now, it seems, he’s slated to return to the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen, though there is speculation that he may get a taste of NHL duty at the start of the season before being returned to his junior club.
Herewith, our attempt to devise a depth chart for the Caps to coincide with the recent completion of the team’s annual Rookie Development Camp. It’s important to note that with it we are not forecasting specific line combos but rather attempting to slot players by position according to their professional production and most recent performances in evaluative settings. It’s also important to note that a number of forwards in the Caps’ system play more than one position up front. The Russian elites and Matt Pettinger appear locks on the left side for well into the next decade, whereas the right side seems to carry many more question marks.
We’ve envisioned this as a file hopefully sparking spirited reaction and respectful challenge. We welcome your proposed modifications.
In lieu of a scrimmage summary (so many of you were there to see it with your own eyes anyway), and because Mike Vogel has his usual outstanding reckoning of it, I thought today I’d pen a week’s worth of larger impressions.
* Hockey Washington was the big winner this week. Kettler Capitals made its debut in hosting a camp of any sorts, and it graded out great from my vantage. The days of this team competing in somewhat nomadic fashion with summer camps are history. When I first learned that Kettler was going to be a multi-sheet facility and training home for the team, I thought about the opportunity the organization could have for hosting a week-long event like the old Traverse City, Michigan, rookie camps that hosted a handful of NHL teams and bred a great competitive atmosphere. That could happen here eventually — imagine the allure for all those young prospects from hockey’s rural frontiers for spending a week in the U.S. capital — but we’re also well served for our hockey fixes with what we saw this week. How great, too, was it for the facility’s ice staff to get in place the new logo on the sheets in time for camp, and for all the skaters to be outfitted in the overhauled look of the team? I wish I had a quarter for every camp patron I saw walking out of the Kettler pro shop bearing the new Caps’ colors and logo either on their heads or chests, and often both.
* In a very real sense rookie camps are parties for an NHL team’s scouts. There can be no more direct way to evaluate the cumulative labor of a team’s North American and European scouts than to pile dozens of the recent draft selections onto a rink, toss them a puck, and have them go at it every night. I would argue that the party our scouts and team management threw this week at Kettler ranked up there with best of the league’s 30 teams. And Mike Vogel agrees:
“I just checked my notes from the Capitals’ 2003 summer camp at Piney Orchard. There were 22 players in attendance that summer, compared to 42 this season. Only 13 of those 22 players in 2003 were Capitals draftees, and the most notable attendees were Steve Eminger, Boyd Gordon and Eric Fehr. This year’s camp featured 30 Caps draftees out of the 42 players in attendance, and included five first-round and four second-round choices.”
And I’d agree with Vogs that there is today “arguably as much young talent as has been in the system at any time in the team’s history.”
* Saturday’s was the first and only scrimmage I didn’t see owner Ted Leonsis attend. He watched every second of every other one. It bears repreating, particularly in a town of somewhat unpopular, extortionist sports team owners, that our owner is a hockey fanatic. The OFB team also had an opportunity to meet and chat with Zachary Leonsis, who’s headed to Penn for his freshman year next year. Zach shared with us some amazing stories about Alexander Ovechkin’s driveway hoops abilities and general athletic prowess.
* Our print press in town I thought offered up some terrific coverage of camp, but I was surprised that a facility and an event lending itself especially to television footage drew very little in the way of cameras and correspondents. Al Koken and Joe Reekie were camp fixtures, but of local sports anchors, I was at pains to spot a single one during a single scrimmage. In particular, I wondered at the AWOL absence of the Regional Queen of Local Sports.
* Remember Mr. Leonsis’ expressed wish for a durable synergy taking hold between the hockey communities in D.C. and Hershey, Pa.? I saw more of that this week. Bruce Boudreau worked the benches and helped evaluate players every day. I met up with Bears’ man about all things communications John Walton, and Tim Leone of the Patriot News actually spent a portion of his summer vacation at Kettler. A hockey reporter getting away from his day job at the rink by coming to a rink, in July. Sounds like a pro to me.
* I asked Vogs to share with me five names of campers who really caught his eye this week. He went with Karl Alzner, Francois Bouchard, Michal Neuvirth, Sami Lepisto, and Nicklas Backstrom. Mine: Joe Finley, Nicklas Backstrom, Sami Lepisto, Mathieu Perreault, and Francois Bouchard. Tarik today also shows Francois Bouchard some love.
* I think from every rookie camp you want two separate but equally compelling storylines: breakout/head-turning/buzz-generating efforts from guys who a half season or so earlier were under everybody’s radar, and we got that this week from the likes of Francois Bouchard, Mathieu Perreault, Joe Finley, and Sami Lepisto. If not others. But you also are looking for performances that are so strong that they evoke forecasts for cracking the big club’s roster come September, and here too I think we saw that with Bouchard, Karl Alzner, and Lepisto.
