Hockey Day in Washington: The Rookie Game

I boarded a comfortably uncrowded Amtrak train this early morning from New York’s Penn Station, that labyrinthine dump underneath the self-proclaimed “World’s Most Famous Arena,” to our nation’s Capital.  I darted straight, save for a bag drop-off at my hotel, to Kettler, for the culmination of the Washington Capitals rookie camp, the scrimmage at 15:00 versus the rookie campers from the Philadelphia Flyers.

On this beautiful Mid-Atlantic September afternoon outside and crisp, invigorating Kettler rink inside, the Capitals hopefuls won going away, 7-0.

The opponents from cheesesteak country were born with some intriguing hockey surnames:  Cabana, Clackson, Laliberte, Matsumoto, Ramholt, and Ratchuk.  Cute. 

It was never close.

 

To set the scene:  I stepped onto the Orange line at Rosslyn at about 1:30.  Next to me stood two gents, one clad in a 2006-07 black Ovechkin jersey and the other wearing a red Caps cap.  Another fan seated in the same car rocked the red with a Caps tee.  A business woman, buttoned up in a fine suit, looked up from her Wall Street Journal quizzically to see what’s up.  She’ll get it soon enough.

On the streets of the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington, I heard these snippets of conversation:  “They’ve been lining up since 1:30.”  “The game is totally sold out, you can’t get a ticket.”

About thirteen hundred tickets were distributed for the game, and all but three, by my count, were fully enjoyed by those faithful to the Capitals.  I had to check my calendar to remind myself that it was still a weekday in mid-September.

While in New York City, about half of the sports loving population is lamenting the (long-overdue) collapse of the Yankees, and the other half is holding its collective breath, anticipating another Mets September free fall.

But today was Hockey Day in Washington.

The starting lines and pairings for your Capitals rookies:

Bouchard-Perreault-Pinizzotto
Osala-Beagle-Kugryshev
Lacroix-Morin-Leffler
Taylor-Broda-Della Rovere

Alzner-Godfrey
Mestery-Carlson
Dovgan-Collins

In goal
Varlamov (1st period)
Holtby (2nd)
Neuvirth (3rd)

(Anton Gustafsson was, predictably, scratched, but I saw him walking around pre-game without any apparent discomfort.  He’s headed back to Sweden shortly.)

Other scratches for the game:  Patrick McNeill, Craig Switzer, Michael Dubuc, and Keith Seabrook.

First period

The game began, inauspiciously, with Jay Beagle earning a trip to the box for a hook.  But, like all power play opportunities that they were offered on this afternoon, the Flyers were unable to engage any real eyebrow-raising, gasping threats, let alone score.

Center Travis Morin opened the scoring (5:59, PP, from Bouchard and Carlson) with a brilliant move in tight, deftly stickhandling around the high defenseman and shooting through the legs of the low defender in front of Philly goalie Michael Teslak.

Later in the first, Flyers RW Rob Bellamy (no, not Ron Bellamy) broke in alone, from the offensive blue line, on Varlamov.  The V-man stoned him by squaring up nicely, receiving the shot into his torso, and then falling on his rear and closing his legs on the rebound.

Soon thereafter, a Flyer was called for goaltender interference.  A few media types assembled wondered aloud why such a call against the Flyers wasn’t forthcoming in April.  Tarik chimed in, “This is the make-up call.”

Viktor Dovgan, though, took a hooking penalty and the Flyers appeared to halt the building momentum of the boys in red.  But their curious PP formation called for no skater to park himself in front of the net, and it predictably yielded no frenzied action anywhere near the blue paint of Varlamov’s crease.

I thought that Karl Alzner had some trouble getting the puck out of the D zone cleanly in the first period, but settled down nicely after a few shifts.  Today’s was a much bigger stage than July development camp for King Karl to showcase his talents, and it’s understandable that he might have started out tentatively.

Ditto for Godfrey.  He gave the puck away along the half-boards, which led to a 30-second cycling job by the Flyers forwards.  More skillful offensive hands would likely have put the puck in the back of the Capitals net in the course of that nail-biting sequence.  Incidentally, it was Alzner who ultimately cleared the zone.

But John Carlson, by contrast, was smooth and decisive throughout in collecting the puck along the boards in his end and sending it up ice.  On the PK, he was an octopus around the Flyer forwards before him, not often letting the puck get away from his reach. 

He also laid out a couple of Flyers during the scrimmage.  His big frame flattens opponents even when he doesn’t get ‘em cleanly.

Late in the period saw another power play tally courtesy of RW François Bouchard, who buried, to top right corner, a one-timer, via a slick pass from Mathieu Perreault and a secondary assist from linemate winger Hershey coach Bob Woods calls “Pinner.”  “It was an empty net, but it was a lot of work before that,” said Bouch about the goal. 

To further augment his impressive first period résumé, Varlamov made two great saves in quick sequence with about a minute and a half to go, seeing two pucks in rainforest-heavy traffic during a troublesome sequence on a delayed penalty call to Travis Morin.

On the ensuing power play, he snagged a wicked wrist shot bound for the top right corner.  That flash of leather drew a collective roar of approval from the mid-day work shirking assembled.  

Dovgan then pushed and shoved anybody wearing white and orange who dared to dally anywhere near the Varlamov vacuum.    

Second period

Holtby patrolled the Caps’ crease for this period, and let’s just say he was sharp when needed.  The Flyers managed precious few shots, even with a couple of PP opportunities.

Osala established himself from the early second period onward, banging in the corners, and setting up on the Caps’ PP in the left half-boards position.  He also wouldn’t budge in the Flyers crease once he bullied his way in there.  And even after the whistle, shoves from the orange and white did little to compromise his imposing presence.  

He showed no mercy in the corners on the PK too — wresting the puck away from the hands of the enemy and muscling it around the boards away from the goal line. 

All that mayhem also allowed him to get wide open for a couple of shots from 20 feet or so out, which just missed.

Dovgan again threw his weight around behind the Caps net after the whistle, and then dropped ‘em with Flyers RW Josh Beaulieu.  Both combatants swung away unimpeded, but Dovgan eventually connected with a couple of heavy rights, pummeling Beaulieu and wrestling him to the ice.   Whether or not Dovgan was “given permission” by the Capitals to play in Russia in order to bulk up, he certainly showed some feistiness this afternoon.

Pinner tallied a top of the crease tap in to effectively bury the Flyers not even halfway through the second.  It was a splendid tic-tac-Pinizzo-toe started by Alzner at the point, to the half wall, to Pinner.

A later period power play formation saw Morin and Carlson on the points.  Overall, the power play formations developed into a unit that, very effectively, passed the puck laterally and left Flyers penalty killers’ heads spinning.

Third period

The game well in hand, the Caps’ youngsters had a little bit more fun.  Lacroix whipped a beauty into the top right corner of the net, and Justin Taylor stole the puck at the offensive blue line and broke in alone on Flyers netminder Jeremy Duchesne, backhanding one five-hole. 

Ovechkin and Varlamov emerged from the locker room to watch the proceedings, both in flip-flops.  Ovi wore his signature D&G skinny jeans, while Varlamov sported some white capris.  Ah, Russian style.

Then, at 12:44 of the third, Perreault deked the D-man at the blue line, poking the puck through his legs, collected the biscuit, zig-zagged in tight and sent it to the back of the twine.  That got a big “whoa!” reaction from both Ovi and Varlamov.

And this period also, predictably, got a little chippy.

Carlson and Flyers C John Kalinski got into a little scrap in the Caps’ end, with both of them throwing but missing badly, and eventually losing their balance and tumbling to the ice. 

A minute and a half later, Osala and Flyers C Zac Rinaldo fought at the referee’s crease, again throwing a lot of punches but not connecting.

Bouchard told me post-game, in reference to the tenor of this rookie camp:  “The intensity is really high.  We have to learn fast, all the systems that are played here.”  Sounds like a lot of the young charges have been quick studies.

It was a dominating performance.  The depth within the organization on display this afternoon was impressive.  To be fair, the Flyers contingent missed its top prospect talents Claude Giroux (#22 overall, 2006 draft) and James VanRiemsdyk (#2 overall, 2007).

But no matter.  The orange-clad bunch assembled looked completely overmatched, and the additions of two highly-regarded prospects would not have appreciably affected the outcome.

I asked Ovechkin if he thought that today’s match would be such a blowout.  He just shrugged, and gave a half-smile.

Simply another day in the life of this rebuilt Washington Capitals organization.  And, as Corey Masisak wrote this evening, “tomorrow the real fun begins.”