Free agent player tryouts more than long shots

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Theoren Fleury

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

Rw year it seems that there are a number
of player reclamation projects in the NHL.
Several teams usually dole out free agent
tryouts to past-their-prime players looking for
a chance to stay in the league or in some cases,
get back to the NHL.

Training camp this season is no different.
After getting benched in the Stanley Cup finals
last season, Petr Sykora wasn’t retained by the
Pittsburgh Penguins, despite finishing the year
fourth in team scoring with 25 goals and 46
points. But at 32 and with his benching, he was
immediately labelled as unreliable. So far, he’s
been the league’s most notable tryout success,
signing a $25. Million, one-year contract.

Kyle Calder was once a mainstay with
the Chicago Blackhawks who scored 26 goals
in 2005-06. Several unsuccessful stints with
Philadelphia, Detroit and Los Angeles later
combined with a dramatic dip in his goal totals,
he found himself on the unemployment line
this off-season. Now he’s battling it out in
Anaheim’s training camp. After not playing
hockey last year and looking at retirement, Dan
Cloutier was invited to Detroit this year for a
try-out with the Red Wings.

Vancouver got into the mix as well by
offering try-out deals to Mark Parrish and Dave
Scatchard. Parrish, who is still just 32, has six
20 goal seasons under his belt and is looking to
rejuvenate his career after a disastrous last two
seasons split between his hometown Minnesota
Wild and the Dallas Stars, where he scored just
eight goals in 44 outings last season.

Scatchard is just trying to get back to
the NHL. The former Canuck, who played
in Vancouver from 1997-2000, has been in

freefall mode for the last few years. He’s
played just 109 NHL games over the past
three years and is a long way from 2002-03,
when he scored 27 goals and posted 45 points
for the New York Islanders. Last year he

was a free agent try-out in the AHL and was
released by both the Hartford Wolf Pack and
the Milwaukee Admirals after a combined 11
games.

Perhaps the biggest name on the list this
year is Theoren Fleury, who hasn’t played in
the NHL since 2003 and was last seen playing
in the British league for the Belfast Giants.

At 41 he’s a long shot to make the Calgary
Flames this year as a walk-on tryout, but he
was always a dynamic player, and Calgary is
where he played his glory years, winning a
Stanley Cup and posting a pair of 100-point-
plus seasons.

While the odds of any of the above
actually making their respective teams and
playing regularly in the NHL this year are long
(aside from Sykora), they aren’t impossible
by any means. Kyle Wellwood was in the
same boat last year with Vancouver after
being waived by the Toronto Maple Leafs due
to fitness issues and laziness. After an initial
demotion to Manitoba of the AHL, Wellwood
was packing for Russia when injury struck
the Canuck roster and he was recalled. He
stuck with Vancouver the rest of the year and
eventually settled into a shutdown role as the
team’s third line center and also chipped in for
a career high 18 goals last year.

One of the best things about sports is that
it isn’t over until it’s over. Don’t write any of
these guys off just yet. Any number of things
can happen and a roster spot can open up at any
time.

 

 

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