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Kirk's Call
Providing you with all the insights and expertise
on NHL players and prospects at all levels across the world for
more than a decade, Kirk Luedeke is a long-time writer for New England
Hockey Journal and hockeyjournal.com.
August 31, 2006 | 12:52 p.m.
Andricopoulos relishes hometown opportunity
If defenseman Andrew Andricopoulos
is over the obvious disappointment he felt at being passed over
twice in the NHL Entry Draft – in 2005 and 2006 – a
lot of it can be attributed to the fact that a month ago the Boston
Bruins came calling. They invited the Beverly, Mass. native to their
’06 training camp.
The rookie camp, which convenes next weekend,
will feature lots of new young faces, one of which will be the former
Tabor Academy prep star who left home at age 16 for the challenge
of major junior hockey and the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Andricopoulos
told hockeyjournal.com when reached on his cell phone. “It’s
nice to be invited to camp by the Boston Bruins after going through
two drafts and being undrafted.”
The swift-skating, hard-shooting, feather-passing
rearguard earned the distinction as a skilled offensive defenseman,
but fell through the draft for reasons that still perplex some to
this day. Perhaps some of it had to do with the strained relationship
he had with former coach Eric Lavigne (who is now the Val-d’Or
Foreurs bench boss) in 2004-05, but it doesn’t account for
his strong showing under new head coach Patrick Roy this past season.
“I don’t quite understand it,”
said Red Line Report Chief Scout Kyle Woodlief at the ’06
draft when asked about Andricopoulos’s fall for the second
time. “He’s a skilled kid and had a good year (10 goals,
43 points). He’s going to hook on with someone, though.”
That someone has turned out to be the hometown
B’s, who tendered an invitation – which Andricopoulos
happily accepted – about a month ago.
“I’m an offensive defenseman, and
I think the NHL’s new rules are something that work well with
my particular style of play and ability,” he said. “Down
the road, if I can, I would love to play with the Bruins jersey
on. Having grown up around Boston and watching the team all my life,
it would be amazing.”
The 6-foot, 180-pound Andricopoulos spent three
years with the Remparts, playing alongside Malden native Joey Ryan,
a second-round selection of the Los Angeles Kings this past June.
Winning the ’06 Memorial Cup together is something that will
keep the two close friends together for life.
“That was an amazing thing,” he said
of his team’s victory over the Moncton Wildcats after falling
short in the President’s Cup championship for mastery of the
QMJHL.
The devastating loss to Moncton in the QMJHL playoffs
was offset by the fact that because Moncton was host city, Quebec
then got to represent the QMJHL in the tournament, which they rolled
on to win.
“People say that the Memorial Cup is the
hardest trophy in hockey to win. There are 58 teams and you only
have four years to get it done. It was great for our coach, Patrick
Roy, because it was the only trophy in hockey he hadn’t won,
so coming away with that for him was a great thing for all of us,”
he said.
In addition to a close bond with Ryan, Andricopoulos
also shared a kinship with Nashville’s electrifying prospect
Alexander Radulov, who led the QMJHL in scoring both in the regular
season and playoffs. The Predators’ first-round selection
in ’04 could very well be playing in the big show this season.
“He’s a great guy, and we taught him
English,” Andricopoulos said of Radulov. “He’s
actually here now (in the Boston area). He got here a couple of
days ago and we’re skating with a group of guys and getting
ready for our training camps.”
Andricopoulos knows that the invite alone isn’t
a guarantee of a place within the Bruins organization, but he’s
grateful for the chance nonetheless.
“When you go to training camp, everyone
has an opportunity to make the team,” he said. “I believe
I’m as good as anyone, and I’m looking forward to the
chance to show the Bruins that I’m someone who can maybe help
them out down the road.”
August 30, 2006 | 11:13 p.m.
B’s chasing Rabbit
Boston assistant GM Jeff Gorton
confirmed today that the team is in fact talking contract with former
Saskatoon Blades captain Wacey Rabbit.
“We’re trying with Wacey,” he said. “We’ll
see what happens.”
Rabbit, who turns 20 in November, was the team’s fifth-round
selection, 154th overall in ‘05. Because he turns 20 before
Jan. 1 and has four years of WHL service, he is eligible to play
in Providence should the B’s sign him. He also has the option
to return to major junior for an overage season, but a source with
the Bruins said that the team wants to see the diminutive but speedy
forward play at the next level. Unless the B’s fail to come
to terms with Rabbit, don’t expect to see him back in the
WHL this year.
The Lethbridge, Alberta native scored a career-best 28 goals in
64 games in 2005-06 for the Blades.
•Two more for blue line: With
Ben Lovejoy (Orford, N.H.) and
the Lewiston Maineiacs’ Jonathan
Paiement, you can add two more interesting defensemen to
the list of training camp invites by the B’s.
The 6-foot-2, 214-pound Lovejoy was a former Deerfield
Academy standout in hockey and lacrosse, and spent one season at
Boston College (2002-03) before transferring to Dartmouth for the
2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons. He played both hockey and lacrosse
for the Big Green.
He comes from an athletic family, as his father,
Carl played hockey at Colby College, while his mother, Cari was
an All-American lacrosse player for UMass. Lovejoy scored 4 goals
and 31 points in 64 ECACHL games for Dartmouth in two seasons.
Paiement, a Montreal native, just finished his
five-year junior career in Lewiston after breaking into the QMJHL
with the Sherbrooke Beavers in 2001-02. He was an eighth-round (247th
overall) selection of the New York Rangers in the 2004 NHL Entry
Draft, but was not signed and became an unrestricted free agent.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pounder is said to be a below
average skater, despite averaging nearly a point per game in his
first two Lewiston campaigns (65, 62 points) before dropping off
to 49 points in 63 games in 2005-06. He plays a hard-nosed game,
but will be challenged to earn a contract with the organization
given its depth.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Paiement
and B’s second-round pick Milan Lucic have a go at camp –
Lucic loves to fight, and Paiement certainly won’t shy away
from the challenge. Lucic may give him more than he can handle,
though.
August 30, 2006 | 4:01 p.m.
Hedman faces contract battle
When B’s Director of Amateur Scouting Scott Bradley called
Swedish winger Anton Hedman’s
name in the eighth round of the 2004 NHL draft, he appeared to be
a footnote along the lines of other late-round picks from that country
the B’s have swung on and missed over the years (Jens Ohling,
Steffan Malmqvist, Joakim Persson, Anders Soderberg and Andreas
Lindstrom, anyone?). He garnered little attention, especially given
the fact that he was coming out of an inferior hockey developmental
program in Stocksund.
Two years later, Hedman has put in a lot of work,
time and sweat into making himself a prospect that the B’s
will eventually have to make a tough decision as to whether to sign
him or release his rights.
If it were based on hard work alone, he’d
have a spot already locked up, but with the system much deeper and
populated than ever before, the competition’s fierce, and
Hedman may be on the outside looking in. He was dealt to the OHL’s
Owen Sound Attack by the Wolves on Aug. 29.
“He can play the physical North American
game as good as anyone over here,” former Sudbury Wolves teammate
Nick Foligno told hockeyjournal.com. “He really works hard,
too. That’s easily one of his greatest attributes.”
Hedman spent the 2004-05 season in the Djurgarden
junior system and played well, but wanted to come to North America
and play junior hockey here, so he made his wishes known, allowing
the Wolves to pick him up in the CHL Import Draft.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound left winger got off to
an excellent start offensively under head coach (and former B’s
nemesis with the Sabres) Mike Foligno, and impressed teammates and
opponents with his work ethic and willingness to play a physical
game and even drop the gloves. Blessed with soft hands and a scorer’s
natural instincts, he scored several highlight reel goals for the
Wolves and at times showed off the kind of upside that makes scouts
drool.
“He’s a strong, strong guy,”
the younger Foligno said. “He’s a got a lot of size,
and so he’s tough to move from in front of the net. And, he
wouldn’t take crap from anyone, either. Some guys found that
out the hard way. He’s a much better fighter coming out of
Sweden than a lot of us thought.”
The biggest knock on Hedman, and the reason he
fell so far in the draft, is his skating; specifically, his lack
of initial burst and top-end speed. To the youngster’s credit,
he’s done a lot of on- and off-ice work to improve his foot
speed, including working out with Boston scout Adam Creighton, a
former gargantuan NHL forward who had to overcome concerns about
his own skating to fashion a strong career in which he played more
than 700 NHL games and fell just short of the 200-goal mark.
“He’s definitely been working on his
skating, and he absolutely has to,” one Boston scout said
about Hedman earlier this spring. “But the question is –
will it be enough? He’s on the bubble, and next year is going
to be huge for him. He’s got to pick up a step and produce.”
Hedman has demonstrated that he has the heart
and desire to be a player, but with so much skill and speed in the
system at the forward position, he’s got his work cut out
for him.
“He’s a great teammate, and
you’d love to see him get a shot because of the other things
he does so well,” Foligno said. “He’s fun to play
with, and although he struggled with the speed (in the OHL) a little
early on, he really picked it up at the end.”
August 29, 2006 | 7:48 p.m.
Rask up to task?
Some say that B’s prospect Tuukka
Rask is the best goaltender not playing in the NHL, and the
Finnish native will get a chance to solidify that reputation this
year with his SM-Liiga club Ilves Tampere.
The lanky (6-foot-2, 175 pounds) cat-quick puck-stopper
has made a living in recent seasons of carrying his teams. He first
came to prominence in December 2003, at the Viking Cup in Camrose,
Alberta. I still remember talking on the phone to a Red Line Report
scout who was at the tourney, about him. I was interested in how
Paul Stastny looked, but all he wanted to talk about was Rask.
“Awesome kid – he’ll be a first-round
pick for sure in ’05,” he said.
Clearly the most dominant goaltender of the tournament.
And that was a full 18 months before the Toronto Maple Leafs snagged
Rask out from under Boston’s nose with the 21st overall pick.
Fast forward one year, and all Rask has done since
his draft year was to establish himself as the Ilves starter, prompting
Jeff Gorton to put on a major push to get Rask’s rights from
Toronto at the June draft. He’s poised to play even more in
2006-07, the last season he’s expected to play in Finland.
Although the Bruins have yet to sign him, barring a collapse of
Evgeni Ryabchikov-ian proportions, the deal is but a formality and
will be done prior to the June 1 deadline.
Rask is an outstanding athlete who plays a hybrid
butterfly/stand-up style. He’ll drop to the ice quickly a
la Hannu Toivonen, but he’s also not afraid to stay up on
his skates and come out aggressively to challenge shooters and cut
down the angles. This, I’m told, is the biggest difference
between the two, immensely talented goaltenders.
Look for Rask as the key to the Ilves season.
The Tigers will go as far as Rask carries them, and he’s been
outstanding for them since breaking into the elite league as a part-timer
in 2004-05. As a junior in the Under-20 league that year, he was
on another planet, compiling a sub-one goals against average (0.87)
in 10 playoff games, including 6 shutout. And that was following
a regular season in which he posted a 1.86 GAA and .945 save percentage.
He’s set the bar pretty high, though. He
posted a 2.09 GAA and .926 save percentage in 30 elite league games
last year, then carried Team Finland to a bronze medal at the 2006
World Junior Championships in Vancouver after being named the tourney’s
top netminder. If anyone can duplicate and even surpass those feats,
it’s Rask.
In 2006-07 he’ll be a second year starter
in Finland’s highest league, and he gets the chance to compete
in the WJC for a third consecutive season. All at the tender age
of 19, too.
“He doesn’t ever get too high or too
low,” said Rask’s agent Bill Zito, who also represents
the current B’s tandem of Toivonen and Tim Thomas. “He’s
down to earth and gracious; he understands he’s good, and
doesn’t care. He doesn’t let that stuff go to his head.
He does know that he’s not good enough that he can stop working
and putting his time in like everyone else.”
The B’s have a gem in Rask, and fans
of the Providence Bruins ought to reserve their ducats for the 2007-08
season right now- the kid is a treat to watch!
August 28, 2006 | 6:23 p.m.
Hannu hooks up Zdeno
I just talked to B’s goalie Hannu
Toivonen, who confirmed that he is relinquishing his No.
33 to new Bruin (and possible the captain) Zdeno
Chara.
“It’s just a number,” Toivonen
said this afternoon on his cell phone from Boston, after arriving
from Finland Saturday. “Zdeno (Chara) asked me if he could
have it, and I really don’t have any superstitious things
associated with it. He’s a terrific, terrific guy, and if
he wants 33, I’m happy to give it to him.”
Toivonen explained his new choice of 54 as homage
to his father, who was born in 1954.
“I wore No. 57 in junior hockey because
that was my mother’s birth year,” he said. “When
I got moved up to the (HPK Hameenlinna) senior team, that was taken,
so I wanted 33, which was my grandfather’s birth year. It
just makes sense for me to do something special for my father now.”
Toivonen, who will spend the next few weeks skating
regularly and getting into shape for training camp, which opens
for veterans on Sep. 14, is glad to be back in Boston.
“This is such a great place to be right
now,” he said. “We’re skating in Wilmington and
getting used to the time difference. I’m a little messed up
in the head right now, but I’m thrilled about the new season
and the chance to be playing hockey again.”
Toivonen also talked briefly about his new mask,
which he’ll debut in camp for the B’s faithful in attendance.
“Let’s say that it’s a mask
from back in the day,” he said. “True hockey fans should
instantly recognize where it comes from.”
•Trevelyan signs:
The B’s announced today that they had signed former St. Lawrence
University standout and 2006 Hobey Baker finalist T.J.
Trevelyan, 22, to a multi-year contract, believed to be three
years in length.
The undrafted 5-foot-10-inch, 170-pound free agent
out of Mississauga, Ont. led the ECACHL in scoring in 2005-06 with
20-28-48 totals, while copping First Team All-American and ECACHL
Player of the Year honors. He is only the second St. Lawrence player
in school history to lead the league (formerly known as the ECAC)
in scoring.
Although small, Trevelyan is fast and plays
a gritty game despite his diminutive stature. Expect him to see
extended time in Providence depending on how quickly he adapts to
the challenges of pro hockey. He should form part of what is shaping
up to be an outstanding nucleus of young talent up front for Boston’s
AHL affiliate.
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