In case you missed it, former Cap goaltending prospect Maxime Ouellet signed a deal with the New York Islanders late last month and will try to work his way back to the NHL, starting with a stint in AHL Bridgeport.Ouellet was the second goalie taken in his draft class (Nashville took Brian Finley sixth overall), but has seen action in only a dozen NHL games and found himself playing in Germany last year. He actually had a couple of very solid years with the Portland Pirates when he was a member of the Caps' organization, but his game went downhill from there and in December of 2005 the Caps traded him to Vancouver for a fifth round pick.
So good luck to Max, and if his story shows us nothing else, it's to have cautious optimism regarding young goalie prospects. After all, Ouellet was taken with the 22nd pick in the 1999 Entry Draft - one spot ahead of where the Caps took Simeon Varlamov in 2006.
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Speaking of Varlamov, did you notice that he had been named to the Russian squad for the upcoming "Super Series?"
http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/news_story/?ID=214045&hubname=canadian_hockey
Josh Godfrey and Karl Alzner were also named to the Canadian Team
http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/feature/?fid=11092&hubname=
Good stuff - thanks. For everyone else's information:
"The tournament for players under 20 begins Aug. 27 and will have two games each in new arenas in Ufa and Omsk, Russia, and four games in Canada.
"Sites selected for the games in Canada are Winnipeg on Sept. 4, Saskatoon on Sept. 5, Red Deer, Alta., on Sept. 7 and the finale in Vancouver on Sept. 9."
Varlamov is often listed as both Semen Varlamov and Simeon Varlamov - the NHL is inconsistent on their usage (for example the 2006/078 NHL Guide and Record Book uses both and in the same paragraph about the draft). I assume he will bne known as Simeon in North America (because Semen is not a PC name) but this is not 100% clear. Some sources called Miroslav Satan - Miroslav Santan before he came to the NHL. DO you know for sure if he will be known as Simeon? And isn't it a shame that Semen will not be used since it is more accurate to his actual name?
PSH - see the comments here. Almost any time you're going from one alphabet to another, you're gonna have some discrepencies on spelling. Even within the same alphabet, it happens (for example, given the accent in the Caps' Calder candidate's last name, his name is pronounced more closely to "Beckstrom" than "Backstrom," but here he'll spell it without the accent and will be known, undoubtedly, as Backstrom).
In a related story, I hear he has a 14-year AHL contract.
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