With the past week as laboratory, it's an apt time to broaden our lens a bit and remark on how fantastically hockey coverage is expanding and improving by virtue of a single social media application: Twitter.

The two big-on-the-calendar events of the past seven days, indeed of the entire hockey season -- the NHL Draft and Wednesday's start of free agency -- were by virtue of this single communications tool blown wide open in insider access: every hockey fan with a hand-held suddenly had access to the real-time thoughts and experiences of the most gifted 18-year-old hockey talents on the planet, player agents, NHL free agent stars, leading media personalities, and of course bloggers.

To be brutally honest, I have but a big toe in the Twitter tidal wave; this blog, however, thanks to the visionary instincts of Gustafsson, started boogey-boarding in it before it was cool to, and today we have nearly 2,000 folks following our Tweets. Up in the Verizon Center press box last season we had Intern Andrew manning the Tweet feed, while the old man to his right soldiered on primitively in merely 21st century blogging fashion. Very belatedly very late in the season I joined in.

To be brutally honest, I had my suspicions about it: in general I'm not a big believer that substantive communications are commonly conveyed in the confines of 140 characters. Imagine Henry V's St. Crispin's Day battlecry condensed to 140 characters. I've grown more comfortable with it by embracing its inherent limitations, as well as recognizing that just as a picture can be worth a thousand words, a well-conceived, well-executed Tweet can illuminate and engage a large community of followers.  

It was on Twitter this week, for instance, that Martin Havlat ignited an on-line firestorm with his parry and thrust against the Blackhawks in the aftermath of failed contract negotiations with them: "Excited to be in Minny where I was welcomed and appreciated by management. The real story about what happened in Chicago to come out." [133 characters]

Soon thereafter he followed with: "There's something to be said for loyalty and honor." [51 characters]

The moment, in a constricted-character nutshell, billboarded the warp-speed change with which hockey is communicating and is communicated. We didn't need the Chicago Tribune, its writer's union, or its online editorial staff to convey the innermost tension and drama of a high-profile player's career-altering decisionmaking. Just the player himself, and his cutting edge digital media account.

Speaking of media and Twitter, TSN's Darren Dreger -- he of the 21,000-plus Twitter followers (Dreger Tweet on Entry Draft Friday night: "Gord Miller just compared my number of followers to Paris Hiltons . .  : ) ") -- was tweeting in real time from the draft floor in Montreal. The Versus/TSN broadcast of the Draft opened with word of the blockbuster Chris Pronger trade to Philly. But if you're like me, you were exasperated waiting for television's word of what Philly was sending back to Anaheim. The broadcast didn't have those details for a curious period of time, but Dreger on Twitter did.  

In his recent 'Year in Hockey Blogs' overview Greg Wyshynski rightly says of Twitter that it is "an essential part of the alternative hockey media. It's a place for breaking news, a place for live-blogging events and, perhaps most of all, an avenue for social networking that takes the old, moldy message boards into a stripped down new model of efficiency and speed." For Greg Twitter was the second-biggest storyline/development of new media and the 2008-09 hockey season.     

This past Wednesday Wyshynski amalgamated 12 different Twitter feeds from a variety of hockey sources providing a variety of hockey scoops, housing them in his iconic chat forum. It was such a hit on day one of free agency that he kept it up yesterday and today. This is newshound 3.0, or 5.0; how would you like to be a big city old media editor and trying to compete for breaking news on big-name hockey signings against what Daddy's doing?

Years ago Ted Leonsis told us that his vision for growing hockey's profile in a congested and voraciously competitive sports media market was to have his league's players actually be content providers, digitally of course -- telling their own stories in their own words. It's happening.      

Where are we headed with this communications tool? Damned if I know. But I'm comfortable deferring to Puck Daddy for his take:

"Twitter as comedy, Twitter as communication, Twitter as community. It's everything to everyone. And it's changed online journalism."

The Capitals this afternoon announced the return of July Development Camp to Kettler Capitals Complex. Many of the organization's best young talents will converge on the training complex July 13-18 to participate in workouts and scrimmages, all of which are free and open to the public.

Monday and Tuesday, July 13 and 14, will feature on-ice workout sessions at 10:00 a.m. and 2:30.

Wednesday and Thursday, July 15 and 16 will feature on-ice workout sessions at 10:00 and 11:15 and the camp's first scrimmage, from 3:30- 6:30.

Friday, July 17 will offer just a lone on-ice workout session at 11:45.

And Saturday camp will conclude with a 10:00 a.m. scrimmage.

Among the camp attendees are first-round picks Anton Gustafsson (2008), John Carlson (2008), and Joe Finley (2005). A full camp roster should arrive from the team next week.   

So universally positive was the reaction to the Caps' signing of Mike Knuble yesterday that the Caps' media relations staff excerpt-blogged a wide sampling of high-profile hockey personality reactions to it, and passed along the link to the media early Wednesday evening.

Who could blame them -- no one saw the Knuble signing coming, and everyone loved it.

The media zeal for the signing was actually met and exceeded by hosanas sung on the official fan message boards on the team's web site, if you can believe it. Once upon a time, the official message boards were a licensed toxic waste dump of the-sky-is-falling/kick-McPhee-to-the-curb histrionics: a whole 'lotta heat, precious little light. Yesterday around 2:15 all was sweetness and light therein.

It's funny what the signing of a single big banging scoring body can do for a fanbase still recovering from the postseason death by a thousand goals scored in tight by You Know Who, less than two months ago.

In April and May the Caps got banged around down low, a lot, and ultimately banged around and out of the postseason. On the first day of free agency 2009, George McPhee added some serious bang, and right-side lamp-lighting, to his 2010 lineup. From this vantage, more banging is still needed, on the back end, but let us revel in the sweet success of the first hours of the NHL's free agency feeding frenzy.

There are many good reasons to be excited by the Knuble signing, but for me, foremost among them, is this: it's a terrifically targeted, terrifically tactical acquisition -- the anti-Rangers kind of behavior on July 1. It well addresses not just a roster position of conspicuous weakness and need but a dereliction of ethos up front -- of grit and grunt-work. The Capitals in 2008-09 were their most infuriating when, bursting with world-class skill-driven arrogance, they became too cute with the puck in their opponents' end, which occurred all too often. The signing of Mike Knuble is management's surgical strike against the cute.

"I do the dirty work in the corners," Knuble told Washington media Wednesday afternoon. "I don't think anyone needs to tell me how to play." Me . . . likey!

Wednesday's outpouring of fan delirium is to some extent also the byproduct of relief that perhaps management learned a tough lesson from a lost opportunity this past spring. It was the Penguins, and not the Capitals, who parted with a middling draft pick to secure the battle-tested services of another able and exemplary right side force, Bill Guerin. What if it had been Guerin in a Caps' rather than a Pens' sweater in that game 7? We'll never know. To some extent, the Wednesday signing said, rather conspicuously, mea culpa.

Additionally, fresh consternation among the fanbase was stirred when the GM had this to say to the Washington Post earlier this week:  

"On defense we're fine [Emphasis OFB's]. Goaltending we're fine. We have enough [forwards] internally, we believe, to be a good team, a playoff team."

George McPhee was right -- his Caps as comprised are fine . . . insomuch as fine is defined as winning a weak division, winning a playoff round each spring, and perhaps pushing an elite team to the brink of elimination. But "fine" in the summer of 2009 is no longer good enough. No one in Washington wants Alexander Ovechkin to be linked with the likes of Tony Gwynn or Jim Kelly.

But later on in his comments to the Post McPhee added this: "But if there's something that makes us really good [Emphasis OFB's], we'll be involved."

And so on Wednesday they were, with a single roster move, in a big way. Call it Death to Cuteness, and a Bear hug hello to Brawny Banging.          

Our buddy Murf at Homer McFanboy chatted with Washington Capitals Head Coach Bruce Boudreau at Wednesday's Earl Woods Memorial Pro Am. Read all about it as Boudreau waxes rhapsodic on getting to play with fellow Canadian Mike Weir while outshooting his teammates-for-the-day Jason Campbell and Antwaan Randle-El of the Washington Redskins.

The Washington Capitals made an unexpected and big splash on the opening day of free agency today, signing right wing Mike Knuble to a 2-year, $5.6 million deal. Knuble spent the past four seasons with the Flyers.

Two statistical feats stand out from Knuble's last four seasons in Philly: in three of those four years he played in all 82 regular season games. He's Iron Mike. But look, too, at his goal totals from those seasons: 34, 24, 29, and 27. Dating back to the 2002-03 season with Boston, the season Knuble on Wednesday identified as his breakthrough campaign, he's scored 20 or more goals in every one, twice reaching the 30-goal range. That's high-end and consistent production.

Now he stands poised to skate the right flank on the Capitals' top line, and with his penchant for driving hard to the net and getting his nose dirty, and with the league's top shooter blasting 500-plus shots from the left side, it's not difficult to imagine Knuble feasting on more than few of Ovi's rebounds.  

The Capitals will be Knuble's 5th NHL team. And while he will turn 37 this July 4, he pointed out on a media conference call Wednesday afternoon that there wasn't a lot of wear on the proverbial tires. In fact, he noted that he spent much of his twenties as a 4th-liner or a healthy scratch.

"I would like to think I am a low milage guy," Knuble said.

"I know what I do well. I compliment players . . . [I] win puck battles."

"I have confidence and I know what I do out there. I know what to do for these guys. I do the dirty work in the corners. I don't think anyone needs to tell me how to play. I just hope that [Ovechkin and I] mesh."

Capitals' General manager George McPhee was asked Wednesday if it was fair to suggest that Knuble is the kind of player the team has lacked in recent seasons.

GMGM: "Yeah he is . . . We have needed a player on that line with Ovechkin and Backstrom that [goes] to the net. [Ovi and Backstrom] will have the puck a lot and need someone to go to the net. He has made his living there."

"We replaced a 13-goal scorer with a 20-goal scorer," McPhee added. "We have made the team better."

McPhee on Wednesday also confirmed that the team will enter the 2009-10 season with Brooks Laich as the leading candidate to skate the no. 2 center position. 

Were the Capitals a team that crossed Knuble's mind as a destination, OFB asked the newest Cap?

"Yea, the Philly thing didn't end until yesterday. Washington was a team that we heard might be interested, and they were everything I wanted -- East Coast, nice city, and a contender in the Eastern Conference. If I didn't go to Philly I wanted a chance to contend . . .There is a lot of stuff going on in Washington, there are a lot of places that people can go for entertainment. I am glad they were able to get the fans back in it. It's a tough place to play. It's nice to see a good hockey city."

UPDATE: A terrific video clip of Mike Knuble in action:

Normally, we need until the actual arrival of July 1 to see frenzied, post-draft player movement, but early Tuesday evening the sweater-changing ticker at TSN was in overdrive. Bouwmeester inked to a five-year deal by the Flames; Vancouver GM Mike Gillis jet-setted halfway around the world to meet personally with his Sedin twins, and to make a final pitch to them to return, with an agreement perhaps achieved; the Sens and Oil were on the precipice of a deal that would see the Oil send Andrew Cogliano, Dustin Penner, and Vlad Smid to Ottawa for Dany Heatley; and the doozy of the day -- Bob Gainey attempting to start a second riot on St. Catherine's Street by sending great young Habs talent to Madison Square Garden in exchange for the underperforming, bloated contract of Scott Gomez.

Conspicuously quiet in all this frenzy, a quiet dating back to last Friday night, were/are the Caps. They need a second-line center, a first-line right wing, and at least one ornery big body on the blueline. That's just to keep pace with the elite in the East next season (Philly's already upped the ante), not necessarily to pass the likes of the Pens. I'm of the opinion that the loss of Sergei Fedorov will hurt more than merely in the faceoff circle.

Here's a July 1 Christmas wish-list from OFB: Erik Cole and Mike Komisarek. The Raleigh News and Observer reported Tuesday that Cole wasn't re-upping with the 'Canes without testing free agency. Komisarek, too, will take a look around. As wonderful as both would be in D.C., we're at least an overpaid, perpetually scratched Swede away from even thinking about making a move on those or any other impact free agents. A blogger recently bloodied by the Pens again can dream, though, can't he?

The Caps are confronting two basic problems. The first is that last Friday the league and the NHL Players Association agreed on a salary cap increase of just $100,000 for next season, to $56.8 million. Absent the KHL swooping in to save us from two more seasons of engagement with our out-of-system-and-synch Swede, the Caps, who were rather close to last season's cap, figure to be near it again. In fact, according to NHLnumbers.com, the Caps presently have 14 players under contract for the swollen sum of $45 million. That's not a lot of room left to sign upwards of a dozen bodies for next season.

While the Caps have sheared off some $7.5 million in salary this offseason by bidding adieu to Fedorov, Viktor Kozlov, and Donald Brashear, it's becoming abundantly clear that they needed to.

Michael Nylander counts for $5.5 million of cap space for next season. Alexander Semin's now a $5 million man. It's distinctly possible that the Caps won't be able to afford Shaone Morrisonn next season, who made $2 million in 2008-09 and figures to get at least a modest raise for 2009-10. Believe it or not, Ben Clymer's still on the Caps' books for next season, according to NHLnumbers, to the tune of $367,000.  

But perhaps the overriding reason George McPhee almost certainly won't be an active shopper beginning today is what confronts him next offseason: new deals for Semin and Backstrom. And what if Tomas Fleischmann pots 20 goals in 2009-10? He, too, is due a new deal next summer. It's now more important than ever for the Caps to hold on to almost the entire lot of Bears and CHLers and recently inked collegians they have under contract this summer -- they're the comparatively cheap components that necessarily must surround a contending team's stars, and they must perform at or above their contract value for a team to play deep into spring.

That's what Rob Scuderi, Kris Letang, Alex Goligoski, Maxime Talbot, and Tyler Kennedy did for the Pens this past season.  

It's awfully difficult to imagine the Caps competing for Glory in 2009-10 with Michael Nylander assigned second-line center duty all season long. **Paging Gazprom.** Still, it's easier to imagine Simeon Varlamov outperforming Jose Theodore in training camp, and Theodore, with just one year left on his deal, being dealt near the end of camp for some cap relief, rather than envisioning even Bob Gainey pursuing Michael Nylander. 

But it's perhaps worth noting that as unappealing as Michael Nylander's contract is now, come the February trade deadline, should he miraculously recover some semblance of his old form, his salary for 2010-11 drops by $2.5 million, down to $3 million in the final year of his deal. A veteran contending team who's lost a skilled center to injury could potentially be enticed to taking him off our hands then. Given the new money needed next summer for the Caps' star core, one of those young, recently drafted Swedish centers may be slotted in as Nylander's replacement.           

Kind of.

The Hershey Bears and American Hockey League announced six guaranteed home dates with times and opponents to be determined.  Clear your calendar for a trip to the land of chocolate to take in some sweet hockey.

• Saturday, October 3
• Saturday, October 31
• Friday, November 13
• Saturday, November 21
• Sunday, December 27
• Saturday, January 23

 

Since OFB's very first visit to Hershey some three years ago we've been welcomed and supported in every way possible by the Bears. In fact, during the 2007-08 season, when we organized a fundraiser here to try and help the District's only public high school hockey team, Wilson High, remain on the ice, it was John Walton who took Daren Machesney's goalie stick, had the entire Bears' team sign it, and donated it to our benefit auction at Clyde's. 

So it came as no surprise that during the Calder Cup finals our friends in Hershey would help us out again. It was then that pucksandbooks spent some time with Bears' radio voice John Walton and Tim Leone of the Patriot News, whose biography of Bruce Boudreau will be published this autumn. We needed a lot of help to pull off what we wanted to with this visit -- take our pod viewers into both of the special homes to Hershey hockey: the original home, Hersheypark Arena, and Giant Center.

This was a particularly special bit of editing for me to try and carry off. I'm spending the summer back home in Michigan, so I'm editing and blogging remotely. (Already I miss all the Red in Chinatown on game nights.) And pucksandbooks didn't tell me anything about the video he uploaded to my YouTube account a couple of weeks ago; when I watched the footage of him inside Hersheypark Arena with Tim Leone the first time, and listened to Tim describe a winter Saturday night Bears' game years ago inside that cathedral of puck, I swear I got goosebumps. 

A *very special* thank you is also in order to Brett Leonhardt, Capitals' web content guru, who most ably filled in for me up in Hershey and manned the pod camera inside Giant Center. This podcast couldn't have been carried off without his help.

Lastly, to the entire Hershey organization, from all of OFB, way to go Champs! 

Dear Isles' Fans:

Welcome to the rescue dinghy. Really it's astounding what securing a no. 1 overall draft pick can do to assuage your agony. And not just any no.1 overall but a special player, a buzz youngster, like the one you secured Friday night in Montreal in John Tavares.

It's not that today you've necessarily forgotten all that has ailed your team in recent years, which has been voluminous and grotesque. Additionally, we don't have a crystal ball, and so we don't yet know what John Tavares ultimately is going to do for your beleaguered franchise, but we do know that he's been the prospect apple of everybody's eye ever since he was the youngest player ever drafted into the Ontario Hockey League in 2005. Only Bobby Orr entered the OHL at a younger age. Talk about good company. Now Tavares is yours. Congratulations. This is a time for dreaming large.

This isn't a time for fretting over how successful Tavares will or won't be as an NHL rookie in 2009-10. Instead, spend the rest of this summer as we in Washington did in the summer of 2004: believing, rightly it turns out, that the black storm clouds of so many torture years past were finally beginning to part, thanks to the fortuitous arrival of a single ping pong ball. When fans of division rival teams this summer ridicule you for your team's recent standings finishes, nod and smile and keep silent, and take it, knowing that they're getting in final parting shots. John Tavares is going to be making an impact in your team's sweater long after Chris Pronger had departed Philadelphia.     

I blog today to impart to you this undeniable truth: the worst is behind you. This doesn't mean that next season is going to be hunky-dorey for you. In fact, odds are, you're in for another year of struggle and most often winter evenings of discouraging defeat. That's part of the rebuilding bargain. It's important to know that going in. But the thinking here is that within the setbacks you'll see what we in D.C. did five years ago -- the jaw-dropping promise of better days to come, and even a handful of victorious evenings no conventional wisdom forecasted. Most often those will be led by your new wunderkid. 

More caution: while Friday night was an evening of appropriate reverie for you, at this moment we need to be frank about your standing: it isn't what it what it should be. We don't yet know that your team's scouts can do what Washington's have over the past five years: supplement a franchise-altering prodigy with much-needed reinforcements all about the lineup, with savvy and unlikely impact talent acquisition in portions of the draft that don't typically deliver it.

Additionally, the Capitals had a distinct advantage over your Islanders in terms of when their savior arrived here, as Washington's roster tear-down had already been undertaken by management. Still, it can't be overstated what Friday night especially and this weekend more generally represented for your franchise. Like millions of others, I saw the TSN television cameras pan in on your rink Friday night as upwards of 10,000 in white, orange and blue frenzy-ushered in a new era.    

Allow me to share with you a modest anecdote applicable I think to your situation in the summer of 2009. In September 2005 the Washington Capitals hosted a meet-n-greet for season ticket holders with Capitals' players poised to begin training camp. This took place at a shopping mall sports bar in Arlington, Va., named Bailey's. The Caps then were not yet moved into their new training and practice facility across the street from the bar, atop a parking garage, but they wanted loyal ticket purchasers to meet up close and personal the icon they believed would lead them to prosperity, at their future home. I was in Bailey's that night, and I watched some 25 Capitals' players file through the bar to a private reception in the back of the bar with the season ticket holders. I remember thinking then that though the immediate future for the Caps was certifiably cluttered with losses, in that offseason moment I was witnessing the marching of a new guard of puck in my hometown. You on Long Island will almost certainly have a comparable gathering for loyal supporters this summer. Savor it.

Turns out, I was spot on in my September 2005 thinking. It was a fairly empty rink the Caps played in during that 2005-06 season, but just two seasons later our guys were walking out from their dressing room into a cauldron of red-clad euphoria acknowledged around the league as the most inhospitable of environments for visiting teams, anywhere in the league. I know you guys badly need a new rink on Long Island; I think John Tavares will help deliver it.         

Lastly, please beat Pittsburgh.      

John Carlson may have flown under the radar at the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, but his presence was conspicuous at the 2009 Draft in Montreal Friday night. For starters, the TV talking heads, which included Bob McKenzie and Pierre McGuire, gushed over Carlson's season in London and Hershey, noting that he was a prime candidate to make the Caps this fall. But our 19-year-old bluechip prospect was also the subject of a brief trade discussion the Caps had with Anaheim for Chris Pronger's services, says Mike Vogel. 

Not that the Caps were offering Carlson for the 34-year-old, soon-to-be UFA Pronger, mind you. The Ducks demanded him, along with one of the Caps great young goalies, a roster player, and "something else" George McPhee confirmed. I imagine McPhee lost train of concentration so deep into so ludicrous a litany of personnel demands from the Ducks -- the second such for the same player in just the past few months. What stands out to me about that demand is Carlson's name rather than Karl Alzner's. Anaheim ended up exacting pounds of flesh from Philly for Pronger, but in their trade chat with GMGM, they wanted our 27th pick from last year rather than our lottery one from the year before.

Marcus Johansson's selection by the Capitals at no. 24 Friday night represents the third Swedish pivot the Capitals have selected in the first round in the past four years. What's even more interesting is that should each of those players' projections pan out -- and it's pretty safe at this point to suggest that Nicklas Backstrom's have -- the trio should center the Caps' top three lines in the not-too-distant future: Backstom up top followed by Anton Gustafsson and Johansson.

Of his newest prospect the GM said he's a "very well rounded player, very good in almost every area of his game. [We] loved the way he played against Canada in the World Junior final, in a real hostile environment -- [in front of] 20,000 Canadian fans. Some of the Swedish kids didn't show up [to play], and [Johansson] showed up."

Right as McPhee and Director of Amateur Scouting Ross Mahoney were walking up to the draft stage to make the team's selection the TSN broadcast team was touting Washington's successful work deep in round one in recent years, alluding to the likes of Carlson, Mike Green, and Simeon Varlamov. McPhee acknowledged feeling good about his scouts' work then and deemed the Johansson selection another addition to that stellar list.

"We're really happy with the way we've been drafting late in the first round, and we think we got another good player [in Johansson]."

Washington is weaving a real durable, annual storyline with its late first round drafting success. Choosing among presumed second- and third-tier talent late in the first round is the reward the Caps now enjoy for getting it so right with all levels of first-round talent in recent drafts. Did you notice Friday night how often the television broadcasters referenced Mike Green's name as footage of puck-moving defensemen aired? He's become the new gold standard for mobile, big offense producing rearguards in the new NHL.   

What stands out to me about Marcus Johansson's early development are the nearly 50 games of action he saw in the Swedish Elite League last season, and his 10 points in presumably limited 4th-line duties. Both Gustafsson and Johansson will ripen further in the SEL next season.  

As television theater Friday night in Montreal was conspicuously dull by recent Entry Draft standards. Last year we saw something like a dozen trades made during round one. As the Versus broadcast began it appeared as if we were in for some serious Friday night fireworks: Darren Dreger immediately broke word of Anaheim dealing Pronger to Philly, before anybody seemed to know what was going the other way to the Ducks. But the widely speculated Bs-Leafs deal involving Phil Kessel fizzled, and teams began making their picks with only moderate movement among them . . . once they got past expressing appreciation for Montreal's hospitality ad nauseum.

The most entertaining aspect of the Versus/TSN broadcast was the savvy decision to mic up Leafs' GM Brian Burke, whose frank, BS-free musings and analyses of his rivals' personnel whims came across as reality TV that was actually real. And therefore most refreshing. Better still, Friday night featured the Leafs selecting just a few picks ahead of bitter Northeast division rival Ottawa, and the television cameras captured a classic exchange between Burke and Senators' GM Bryan Murray.  

Five years ago today the Washington Capitals selected Alexander Ovechkin with the first overall pick in the 2004 Entry Draft in Raleigh. Draftgeeks at the time knew well that hockey in Washington would be forever changed -- but as much as it has in these past five years, well, probably not.

It's worth taking a perusal back at the scouting sentiment of Ovi for that fortuitous moment. This is what Red Line Report had to say about the Moscow dynamo:

Alexandre Ovechkin -- Dynamo     LW

    

Simply the best player on the planet not already playing in the NHL. Just call him Kovalchuk, only with a great work ethic and a much better attitude. Terrific all-around player is as complete a prospect as we've seen in last 10 years. Explosive and dynamic every shift, and just has so many ways to beat you. Tremendous talent level is equalled only by his character and maturity. Intimidating speed forces defenders to back in off blue line, allowing him to gain zone easily. Not only has skill level off the charts, but hits hard and has dedication to defence. Dynamic, game breaking natural goal scorer with rocket shot and fabulous moves he makes at top end speed. Puck follows him like a magnet. Able to get hard shots off with checkers draped all over him. A dangerous, disruptive force who must be accounted for at all times. What's left to say? Not as flashy and charismatic as Kovalchuk, but just as good a player, and is humble with no ego problem. Great teammate. Projection: Dominant, world class star player. Style compares to: Jarome Iginla

Now that's good scouting!

Perhaps just as interesting is the assessment of Ovechkin made by two important members of the Pittsburgh Penguins' organization a year earlier. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headline on June 29, 2003, just days after the Pens made Marc-Andre Fleury the first overall pick of the 2003 Entry Draft, included the observation 'Just Wait Until Next Year.'

"Oh, man, he's really good," Fleury told the Post-Gazette, shaking his head. "He does everything. He shoots, passes, hits, backchecks . . . just everything."

"Everything that you've heard about him . . . he's all that and probably more," said Mark Kelley, the Penguins' European scout. "He is special, just special."

How special?

Kelley wants no part of any comparisons between Ovechkin and any prospect drafted in the two decades before the time Ovechkin will be taken. Not even Eric Lindros of 1991.

"No way," Kelley said. "Lindros was as good a prospect as you could want in terms of size and talent, but he never had the passion for the game that Ovechkin has. Not even close."

This past Monday, the Capitals held their "Select-A-Seat" event.  Season ticket holders had the opportunity to upgrade or relocte their current seats to available locations designated by a sheet of paper attached to the back of the seat. 

Attendees were warned that availability was extremely limited and they expected fewer than 300 seats to be available for upgrade/relocation.  To make sure no one was wasting their time, they listed what was NOT available. 

• VIP rows A & B (Sold Out of season ticket inventory)
• Center Preferred - 100,101,110,111,112, 121(Sold Out of season ticket inventory)
• Lower Preferred - 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 (attack twice side) (Sold Out of season ticket inventory)
• All Loge sections - 104 thru 107 and 115 thru 118 (Sold Out of season ticket inventory)
• All Mezzanine Corners - 403, 404, 413, 414, 420, 421, 430, 431 (Sold Out of season ticket inventory)
• All Mezzanine Goal Zones (rows M thru Q) - 424, 425, 426, 427 (Sold Out of season ticket inventory)
• Throughout the 400 level there will be extremely limited availability in rows lower than Row G.

I am quite happy with my current location but wanted to see the limited inventory for myself.  The result was quite stunning.  There may have been more Capitals reps in the seating section than there were seats with taped sheets.  One Caps employee told me that they are now basically doing work for Washington Sports and Entertainment, since the only way to buy Caps tickets is to buy seats in the Acela Club section.  (As a bonus, you get Wizards tickets, too!)

Here are some pictures I took during the event.  Except for a few seats in the 100s, you have to look way up near the last row of the upper deck:

Two items of note as we near the Entry Draft, neither of which can be termed 'good' news for Washington hockey fans: it sure appears that Sergei Fedorov's tensure in D.C. is done. The report has him inking with Metallurg Magnitogorsk for two years, at nearly $4 million per season. When you factor in the tax rates hockey players confront in Russia (kinda low), that pact is certainly better than any Feds could have garnered in North America.

"In Russia, when you are negotiating your salary, 99 percent of the time you're talking about take home salary, not 'before taxes.' It is very customary," Dmitry Chesnokov told us this morning.

With Metallurg Sergei will be united with younger brother Fedor. We will miss him.

And both TSN and ESPN are reporting that the 2010 Winter Classic will not include the Washington Capitals but instead the Flyers as guests of the Bruins in Fenway Park. You can view this as a snub if you want. I see a more pragmatic side to it: it's logical to me that when Ovi and Co. skate in the game NBC (and the league) would like to see Sidney and the Pens as opponent.

As long as the Caps keep skating outdoors in Chevy Chase once each winter I'm happy.   

Note the snooty tone of Rick from Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, in a recent online chat with TSN's Bob McKenzie:

Snooty Rick: How can anyone rationalize the final [draft] rankings when they include high school hockey players in the U.S.? Compared to CHL players, they don't have the proven stamina for a long schedule or play against elite talent day in and day out. Some are playing against kids in Junior High, and they [sic] are no Sidney Crosbys there! Thoughts?

Here's my thought, Rick: You won't be a talent evaluator for any NHL team in this lifetime.  Bob of course deftly rebuked this intemperate uprising with cold hard countering facts, but also a macro-observation about the development nature of our great game, which is that the determinant factor in evaluating young hockey talent is what the hockey heart helps deliver shift after shift, no matter the location of the rink:

BobM: "Rick, no one ever said scouting players was easy and trying to inegrate U.S. high schoolers on a list with major junior and/or college players is difficult. But I learned a very long time ago not to be fooled by the fact that a prospect "only" plays U.S. high school hockey and dismiss him because of that. I learned that in the early 1980s when the Buffalo Sabres drafted Phil Housley and Tom Barrasso right out of U.S. High School and they immediately became stars in the NHL. What I realized then is that the league the player plays in isn't the primary factor; the talent of the player is. Hockey players come in all shapes and sizes and they come from all sort of different leagues and countries. Judge the player, not the league he plays in. It's difficult sometimes because there's inherent risk when a prospect hasn't played against great competition, but Tom Barrasso stepped out of Acton-Boxboro High School in Boston and won the Vezina and Calder Trophies in his first NHL season as a 90-year-old. Go figure."   

The Capitals of course have benefited from an investment in U.S. schoolboy prodigies -- Bobby Carpenter, back in 1981. When I chatted with John Carlson up in Hershey this spring, he expressed to me his wonder-bewilderment about being less than a year removed from playing schoolboy hockey in New Jersey to being selected by the Capitals in the first round last summer, then patrolling the blueline for the Calder Cup-contending Bears less than a year after that.

U.S. high schoolers who attract the notice of NHL teams have to be special, precisely for the reasons McKenzie touched upon: they don't play as many games, there's an enormous discrepancy in age and body size and maturity level within the schoolboy ranks, and there's also an access to instructional ice issue. But we ought not denigrate high school hockey in Minnesota or Massachusetts for its shortcomings but rather celebrate the fact that once in a while -- pretty annually, really -- those circuits with their cheerleaders in the stands actually deliver first-round talent to the NHL. Hockey Hall of Fame talent, in point of fact.     

Joe Mullen spent his formative development years playing roller hockey with a wadded up roll of electrical tape in the Hell's Kitchen section of New York City. All he did was go on to score 500 goals in the NHL, and earn enshrinement in the Hockey Hall of Fame. 

Some NHL teams this June have an issue with Quebequois center prospect Louis Leblanc, who put up gaudy numbers in the USHL this past season, opting to play hockey at Harvard and the ECAC this fall. OK, that league doesn't have the luster of a WCHA, but its NHL alumni ranks (Jeff Halpern, Brian Pothier . . . Joe Nieuwendyk) are impressive all right.

Pitch the puck out on the ice and let them go chase after it. There's a pretty good chance that by the age of 17 or 18 the kid who gets to it the quickest and holds onto it the longest is worth taking a good long look at.   

General observations about the 2009 Entry Draft:

• Upwards of seven Americans could go in round one. Last year's draft saw a bit of a dropoff in the number of Yanks nabbed in the opening round (5), after 10 went in both the '06 and '07 drafts. Between 2004 and 2008 39 Americans were selected in the first round. It's no wonder there's buzz about the American prospects for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

• Maybe this is a bit of a jaded view through my Red, White and Blue lenses, but my recollection during these years was that the majority of draft forecasters, leading up to the drafts, undervalued American prospects, and when actual selection time arrived the Yanks tended to litter the Big Board. This would especially be the case with Americans who spent their draft year playing in the USHL, and even moreso with Americans playing scholastic puck. Interesting to note, then, that two Americans playing high school hockey this past season are certain to go in round one Friday night.  

• It's a great draft for great skaters, and wouldn't you know, the two very best are Americans: John Moore (Chicago, USHL) and Chris Kreider. "It's frightening," one scout told THN of Moore, "It's exciting just to watch him skate." Kreider, a Massachusetts schoolboy product, possesses wheels that are "off-the-charts good," THN observes. "He's not just the best skater in the draft," a scout told THN, "I'm not sure there are many guys in the NHL now who skate better than this guy." I can't wait to watch this year's American entry at the World Juniors . . . which perhaps might include John Carlson this time around -- unless he's busy playing for the Caps.     

• This will be a fantastic draft for Swedish prospects -- five skaters certainly selected in round one, and five more prospects perhaps in round two. Bluechip defensemen are their calling card this draft.

• What has happened to the development system in the Czech Republic? There were no Czechs selected in round one last year, and there may not be again this. In fact, THN's draft preview has just one Czech (Richard Panik) listed in its top 50 2009 prospects. The nation that gave us many of the great names in our game the past 25 years, from Nedved to Jagr to Hasek, just doesn't seem to be producing prime talent all of a sudden. 

• It would be a pretty big surprise if a goalie went in round one this year. The elite netminding talent like Carey Price or Marc Andre Fleury doesn't appear to be available this year. Or, are NHL teams reconsidering using picks in the first half of the first round on goalies in general, absent there being clearly dynamic talent available? Fleury went no. 1 overall in 2003, Price at no. 5 two years later. But since then, NHL teams have been rather reluctant to go with a goalie real high. The Caps' selections of Simeon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth comparatively late in the same draft ('06) would seem to offer evidence of this trend. We haven't seen teams feast on goalies in the first half of the first round since 2004, and perhaps that class is the prime reason for the present pause: Al Montoya to the Rangers at no. 6; Devan Dubnyk to the Oil at no. 14; Marek Shwarz to St. Louis at no. 17.     

• Who are some prospects the Caps could be looking closely at for pick no. 24? It wasn't hard for the mocks to forecast the Caps' lottery selections from 2004-2007, but when George McPhee is picking in the back half of the first round I've found that even the most reputable of forecasters doesn't come close to calling the picks made by Washington (Eric Fehr, Joe Finley, Sasha Pokulok, Simeon Varlamov, Anton Gustafsson, John Carlson). In terms of organizational depth, it's clear that the Caps need elite playmaking talent at center and one or two high-end right wings, but George McPhee doesn't draft by positional need. Still, if you're perusing mocks and prospect profiles the next couple of days, I'd suggest taking a closer look at someone like Peter Holland of Guelph (good size, production in the pivot for the Storm), Jeremy Morin (points-producer in the middle for the U.S. U18ers), Kyle Palmeri (another right-shooting American center), and Landon Ferraro (goal scorer on the right side for Red Deer), son of Chicken Parm Dad Ray.       

• Will the Caps be active outside of their draft pick selections in Montreal? The wager here is yes. Out in Las Vegas last week George McPhee went on TV with Comcast and told Ivan Carter that Mission One this offseason was to retain the positive momentum the organization had worked so hard to achieve in recent years. You don't do that by standing perfectly pat, and most especially with a relatively clogged blueline corps that did a lot of standing around in the postseason while Sidney Crosby scored at will down low.    

Every so often, real life rudely and crudely invades the isolation and comfort of our sports-addicted world. Monday evening on Washington's Metrorail was one such instance.

What tragically happened on the Red Line (the death count at seven at this writing) has, for this blogger, a direct bearing on Washington's hockey team, insomuch as somewhere between 65 and 80 percent of home game patrons rely on the rail for their attendance. You can view Monday's malevolence as anomalous if you choose; as a daily rider of the rail for longer than John Carlson's been alive, I am one who would point to the system's innumerable broken parts, never-ending pursuit of the most basic maintenance, and conspicuous absence of daily operations accountability as conditions likely to breed more of what we saw early Monday evening. For me, the horror of Monday was in the scale of mortality, but I can't profess shock at its arrival. 

The rail system is wildly oversubscribed, particularly on the Red Line; at its inception Metro was envisioned to transport a quarter million of the region's residents to work and home each day, but today does so for upwards of three quarters of a million. We also have a few tourists who use it as well. And that ridership volume is growing -- there's simply no space left for more road paving. At its present age and with its present wear and with the system's solvency a General Motors-like delusion, Metro daily teeters on a brink of mechanical collapse. On its good days. During weekday rush hours -- and not just on the Red Line -- Metro must operate cars at 3-minute intervals to address the teeming platforms of patrons. Conditions within those congested cars are at times sub-human.

We who ride it regularly are in a very real sense survivors, even on eventless days. This morning in the office it was sobering to listen to the accounts of other Red Liners who yesterday on their own incident-free trains were informed of malfunctioning brake systems by operators.

As an additional structural shortcoming, the system is absurdly vulnerable to the misfortune experienced by a single passenger. I took the train into work this morning not 15 hours removed from yesterday's accident. A sick passenger on a single train brought the system to a virtual screeching halt. Murphy's Metro's Law.    

At OFB, as riders of the transit, we've been outspoken critics of the system, not criticism for criticism's sake but because the rail is so central to the hockey experience in Chinatown. It is also, to some extent, how we showcase ourselves as a hockey town to visiting fans. There's a cruel irony in that just as hockey matures into a tier I status in sports in Washington the very transportation system required for its patronage is crumbling.

It is appropriate this morning to keep in our thoughts Monday's victims and their surviving family members, but I think it's also a moment to reflect on what could be done for the betterment of our regional transportation in a world in which Metro may not be appreciably improved while Alexander Ovechkin plays his hockey here.

Suddenly, Ovi racing on roads at 100 miles per hour in his sports car seems safer to me than taking the train home.   

Looking ahead, toward a day when Capitals' hockey is distinctly profitable for ownership (i.e., soon), I wonder if some manner of shuttle service, vividly themed in Red, might not be deployed about Northwest D.C. on home game evenings, a shuttle that would deliver ticket-holders from their offices or downtown homes right to the rink. I'm envisioning about a half dozen moderately sized buses, no massive fleet that would further clog the District's already rush-hour clogged roads. With 50 or so Caps' fans aboard each route, and running from say 4:30 til 6:45 on game nights, hundreds of hockey fans could be efficiently and reliably transported, before and after games. Maybe it's Capitals-sponsored, maybe it's a public-private venture, but if viable it could help alleviate congestion on Metro underground and also be a spirit-boosting experience -- ticket holders in Pens' sweaters, for instance, wouldn't be allowed to board.

In perfectly good conditions such a shuttle service might be a good idea, but imagine if Monday's tragedy had occurred at a time when 15,000-plus hockey patrons expected to ride the train after a game.     

Beginning tonight and running through Saturday, Comcast SportsNet is running 2008-09's most memorable Caps' games during 'Caps Week' each night save Wednesday. It's a most welcomed oasis of puck in summer, and the second summer of such a commemmorative wrapup. All replays begin at 7:00. 

Monday, June 22: Capitals at Rangers: Biggest Comeback in Team History (12/23/08).
Alex Ovechkin and Shaone Morrisonn led the team to this incredible come-from-behind victory, the team's first in Madison Square Garden in five years.

Tuesday, June 23: Canadiens at Capitals: Ovechkin Shines in Capitals shootout victory (2/18/09). The Capitals took the shootout victory as Ovechkin tallied one of the most amazing goals of his career.

Thursday, June 25: Rangers at Capitals: Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals (4/24/09). Down 3-1 in the first round, Matt Bradley scored twice and Simeon Varlamov posted his second postseason shutout.

Friday, June 26: Rangers at Capitals: Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals (4/28/09). With a trip to the Eastern Conference Semifinals on the line, Sergei Fedorov and Varlamov lead the team to victory.

Saturday, June 27: Capitals at Penguins: Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals (5/11/09). Facing elimination, David Steckel scored the overtime winner to force Game 7.

Time was, drafting 24th in the first round as the Capitals will this Friday night, while a sign of standings success, was somewhat an occasion for frustration and lament -- all the really good ones are gone by then, generally. Not so now, not in light of the haulings made late each June by the Caps' talent acquisition team of late. Can George McPhee and his scouts pull another John Carlson or Mike Green or Simeon Varlamov rabbit out of a hat in Montreal?

The Capitals are not yet Detroit when it comes to finding jewels outside of the lottery. Not yet. But they are hands down the best drafting team in their division, and one of the best in the Eastern conference if not the league. When have you been able to say that before of the Caps? More importantly, the Capitals today are rightly regarded as an elite NHL team; that cannot be achieved without annually performing well on Entry Draft weekend. 

One man does not a contending hockey team make, and so the Capitals status today is only partly attributable to the extraordinary fortune of winning the 2004 Entry Draft lottery. Dating back to the 2002 Draft in Toronto, they have secured elite talent at the 13th (Alexander Semin), 23rd (Simeon Varlamov) and 29th selections (Mike Green). We might not be long off in adding John Carlson (27th, 2008) to that tally.

The selection of Green was exceptionally fortuitous insomuch as the team had already jettisoned Sergei Gonchar, and seemed bereft of a no. 1 defenseman anywhere in the organization. Fully twenty four teams passed over Green in round one in 2004. (Not including the Capitals, who went with Jeff Schultz at 27 and allowed Dallas one good look at Green at no. 28 (they opted for Mark Fistric) before grabbing him at 29.)    

The Caps got a lot of cracks at the sweet-tasting apple between 2002 and 2008, selecting 14 times in the first round of those seven entry drafts. But success with those selections, outside of say no.1s overall, isn't a sure thing. The outlier in all this high-end draft success is 2005. But talk about a draft requiring an asterisk. Colloquially and especially locally, history has recorded 2005 as the Screw the Caps draft.   

Still in a lockout labor impasse at the time of the draft, commissioner Bettman authorized teams being assigned one to three ping pong balls associated with the number of playoff appearances made in the previous three seasons, as well as having owned a no. 1 overall pick. Hardly a weighting system that well distinguished between the rich and poor, the haves and the have-nots.

The Caps of course had selected no. 1 the previous June. During the most recently completed season of play, 2003-04, Washington finished with just 59 points. Only Pittsburghs' 58 points were worse. Even allowing for their selection of Ovechkin the previous June, it was outlandish to think of the Caps being anywhere but among the five or ten worst teams in the league. Nonetheless, thanks to Bettman's "snake draft" concoction, the team selected 14th overall, in a draft whose cream quality was clearly top-10 heavy, and left with Sasha Pokulok, who through four seasons of development bears no resemblance to any of the organization's other Sashas. Drafting ahead of the Caps then were the likes of Ottawa (102 points in '03-'04), Vancouver (101 pts.), and Montreal (93 pts.). But I'm not bitter or anything.

Looking at the larger and more contemporary picture, the Hershey Bears' Calder Cup run this spring afforded a choice bit of instruction regarding the maturing success of the Caps' success with the draft. It wasn't 2007 lottery selection Karl Alzner, deemed at the time of his selection "the most NHL ready" of his blueline class' prospects, who most impressed and who was accorded top-pairing placement out on the Bears' blueline by head coach Bob Woods, but rather 2008 end-of-the-first-round steal John Carlson. Alzner still figures to be a bedrock part of the contending Caps, but the Capitals today are capable of securing top-end talent anywhere they select in round one.

Durably good franchises (Detroit, New Jersey) possess this quality. But they also pick prime talent later on. The Caps are sniffing around that realm of late (John Oduya, Oskar Osala, Mathieu Perreault). The belief here is that when the day arrives that Ovi & Co.skate around Verizon Center ice holding Lord Stanley on high the names etched on it will include players culled from entry draft rounds early, middle, and late.