Caps Rookies in Flyer Country

My weeklong quest to do nothing unless it involves the Caps' official start to training camp continued as today I ventured outside the beltway...way outside...all the way to Voorhees, NJ.

(I do this for you, folks.)

You can read in-depth rundowns of the game from Vogel and Tarik - all I can provide you with is the rapturous afterglow of the very first official hockey game of the season. Even the fact that the Caps lost 5-3 couldn't dampen my spirits at witnessing an honest to goodness hockey game, with players from two different teams, a packed house, line changes, goals, penalty killing...

Oy. Did I mention the penalty killing? I won't go into how many penalties there were total (mostly because I stopped counting after the first period) or how well they were killed off (which is not very well). Let's just say any question that these kids are future Caps was put to rest after this one.

It was a pretty entertaining game, though - some nice Caps goals, some ugly Flyers ones, and what I thought was a standout performance by Karl Alzner. He is just head and shoulders above where someone his age should be. He's calm and collected all the time and he has a quickness that is surprising considering the intelligent decisions he makes. Everyone played well today...he played amazingly well. Training camp is going to be very interesting.


Check out my pics and please don't mock the blurriness. It's...an artistic choice.


Or maybe it's just because they moved so damn much and I promised pictures. One or the other.

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Rookie Camp: Day 4

Anyone who made it out to Kettler this morning was treated to something we've been waiting for all week - rookie scrimmage!!

After days of drills, which while highly necessary and understandable are a little on the dull side, the arrivals of defensemen Karl Alzner and Josh Godfrey finally provided enough players to have a full scale, 5 on 5 scrimmage. Remember the scrimmages from July's development camp? Think the complete opposite of that - exciting, fast, smooth, and bursting with talent on both teams, today's game was really a great look at the future of the Caps.

Despite the occasional appearance of Dean Evason to set up a certain play or scenario, this was an actual game - offside, hand passes, even penalties.

Tsk, tsk...

Almost like real hockey, folks! Here's how the teams broke down:

WHITE - Backstrom, Beagle, Bouchard, Guerin, Kronick, Lacroix, Morin, Pinizzotto, and Werner up front; Alzner, Collins, Godfrey and Lepisto on the blue line; Machesney in net.


BLUE - Gordon, Joudrey, Leffler, Lynes, Maxwell, Perreault, Taylor, Wilson, and Brashear (yup, Brash stepped in to even out the teams!) up front; Hunt, McNeill, Pokulok and Sloan on the blue line; Neuvirth in net.

I'll admit, when I saw the white team lineup I thought naively that this would be a walk for them. Backstrom and four of our hotshot defenseman on one team? No contest. The blue team really pulled out strong after the first period, though, riding some strong play from Andrew Gordon, Sasha Pokulok and Tyler Sloan and killing off several penalties while netting a few power play markers of their own. Even Brash chipped in a goal as the blue team went on to win 5-3.

It's hard to really single out too many people as being standouts today. I can say that Backstrom was and continues to be just as impressive as expected and is obviously a shoo-in for a spot at training camp. Alzner was equally satisfying, steady and always in good position on the blue line, and Godfrey's shot (when it gets through) is as wicked as advertsied. Pokulok probably worked the body the most and did it well, throwing around his 6'5", 220 lb frame like it was a bag of feathers.

Other than that, though, there were just really good performances up and down each bench. Sure, there were rookie mistakes and plays that were glaringly amateurish, but there were also great passes, great plays, great saves and great goals aplenty from even the unlikeliest of people. So enticing was this game that at one point about six or seven of the Caps gathered around the glass to watch the end (although I think it was also partly to pick on Brashear...)

All in all, a good preview for what should be a good tilt as the Caps rookies take on the baby Flyers in thrilling Voorhees, NJ tomorrow afternoon. I hope to have some good stuff for you to wrap up this very successful rookie camp - here's to a Caps victory, the first of the season!

Seen and heard at the Caps' informal practice session:
- Locker leading the team in more drills that at one point seemed to even confuse the players...or maybe it was just me
- Clymer greeting many of his teammates for the first time since the spring, including a cute grin-filled reunion with Jurcina

Clymer and Jurcina...together again!

- Olie starting off the scrimmage with a reminder to show some effort. He actually didn't have to yell at the team during the game this time

Don't piss off Zilla

- A series of goals on Johnny leads to the inevitable smashing of the stick over the crossbar and the string of curses
- Tarik spotting! (It's about damn time...Corey's been out here for days)
- Nylander doing laps around the rink for about 10 minutes while the ice was being resurfaced. Yeah, the guy is in pretty good shape.
- A handful of centers took some time at the end of practice to work on their faceoffs...always a good idea.

Here's Sutherby helping out Laich and then Laich working with Steckel:


Laich working with Sutherby and Gordon...check out Boyd's mad skills, he hits it every time: Finally Laich vs. Sutherby:

And there you have it! More tomorrow...

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Rookie Camp: Day 3

More Rookie Camp MADNESS!!! Can you feel the excitement? It's impossible to put it into words, so feast your eyes on the multicolored, nameless jerseyed thrill ride that was Rookie Camp: Day 3.

Check out my rookie camp galleries for more exciting stuff:

Day 1
Day 3

Oh, and check out Kevin Hatcher Fan Club for a more detailed recap of today's events, including a fabulous Olie story from the Caps practice earlier today that I just can't put into words...and Biff's continued belief that Dave Steckel is trying to kill him.

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Rookie Camp: Day 1

Rookie camp! Yay!

Okay. So it's not as exciting as you may think, but it's the future of the team we're watching out there and it's important. Really.

Naturally it's still better to be watching hockey on an otherwise dull Saturday than to be doing almost anything else, and there were exciting moments. Some guys were good, some were a little rough, a few were spectacular - just what you'd expect. It's only day one, though, and drills are a hard way to get a good idea of the range of talent here.

Some special moments captured on film:

Coach Hanlon doing what he does best - working the wipe board
Watching attentively...
Perreault's posterior
Uhh...
Local boy Werner
Drills...
Learning more drills...
Backstrom - smile!
Michal Neuvirth posing just for me
Some of the guys had an interesting way of
picking up the pucks at the end
They gave up after a little while......but only for a minute:

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And So It Begins

- Per the Washington Caps' website, the rosters for rookie camp and training camp have been announced. Among the notables on the rookie camp roster are recent first rounders Karl Alzner and Nicklas Backstrom, as well as development camp standouts and Caps prospects like Kyle Wilson, Mathieu Perreault, Luke Lynes, Viktor Dovgan and Andrew Gordon.

The training camp roster includes the usual suspects as well as some new faces, with Joe Motzko and Jason Morgan joining the trio of free agent signings at Kettler. Caps fans will get another look at Hershey boys like Dave Steckel, Dean Arsene, Chris Bourque and Quintin Laing.

Remember, rookie camp opens this Saturday out in Arlington, and selected rookies will be asked to stay and join the 38 veterans when training camp opens September 14th. All on-ice stuff is free and open to the public, so come on out and get your hockey fix!

- Extra, extra - the boys are back in town! WOOOO! Oh, and so is Bondra.

Please don't start. He's just skating with the boys. To quote Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman: "I've got nowhere else to go! I've got nowhere else to go..."

- Also important news: the Caps have new underwear. Read about it at the DC Sports Bog, where resident Gilbert-phile Dan Steinberg continues his freakish streak of Caps news and info. No pictures of the undies, unfortunately, but you can check out photos of some of the other new gear...I guess that's almost as good.

- And finally, our owner is almost - ALMOST - as excited as I am for the season to start, and he's got 10 excellent reasons why. Can't help but agree...will it ever be October 5??

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