Wednesday's Caps Training Camp

It's a big to-do today with a large group here preparing to shoot a video spot with Alexander Ovechkin.

Now that the training camp roster is cut down to only 2 groups, there are several guys who are no longer here. Some noteable remainders include Josef Boumedienne, Sasha Pokulok, Chris Bourque, Joe Motzko, and David Steckel. Not on the list of remaining guys are Karl Alzner, Andrew Joudrey, and Dean Arsene.

There was a scary moment when two guys crashed into the net, toppling Olie onto them. One guy lost his helmet, and was lucky he didn't get one of Olie's skates in his head. Play stopped and he was given a minute to get up and skate off under his own power with no injuries apparent.

During the first hour of practice, the Caps ran an interesting passing and cycling drill. The coaches put about a dozen guys in the offensive zone, and had them working the puck along the boards and to the points. It looked like the goal was to feed someone in the slot for a quality shot, but there were so many guys that it was nearly impossible to get the puck in there.

Click below to see how the scrimmage went.

Scrimmage
* A minute or so into the scrimmage Boumedienne takes a stick in the face. Play is stopped and there's a line change, and he seems fine.

* A couple minutes later Backstrom curls behind the net and slips a crisp pass across the crease, leading to a backdoor goal.

* Last post I noted that Kozlov took a puck in the ear, but it looks like he actually took it in the face, because he's skating around with quite a shiner under his left eye.

* Kolzig plays the puck behind the net in traffic, and ends up checking an opposing forward into the boards.

* Chris Bourque continues to impress. One minute he's in front of the net screening the goalie, the next he's already behind the blue line, covering for a defenseman that's pinched in. For a guy who's only 5'7", he fights on the ice like he's 7 feet tall. One play, after covering for a defenseman at the point, he slides into the slot, gets a pass, and makes a nice move on Johnson, finishing off with a backhand goal.

* Ovechkin is skating with Kozlov and Fleischmann, and they've been putting some nice passing sequences together. This is a little bit of a reach for a line combo, but I'm telling you, they look good together.

* Morrisonn and Clymer get into a fight by the blue line. This is the last scrimmage of camp, so I wouldn't be surprised to see another one or two before the day is over.

Overall the scrimmage went well. A couple times Coach Hanlon would stop play and explain something, or tell players what he wanted before a face-off. The players were skating hard, making good passes, and working the puck well down low. It's a shame that some of these guys won't be sticking around, because they are all playing hard. It's too bad I can't stick around for the rest of the scrimmage, but again, class calls.

Joe Dumas 10:53 AM

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Posted by: at September 20, 2007 09:48 AM

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