Rob The Hockey Guy

In the latest development in what can now be considered an unusual career, the pride of Salmon Arm, Dave Scatchard will be trying out with the Canucks in training camp. Scatchard began his career with Vancouver as a 21 year old in 1997. He was a 2nd round pick of Pat Quinn (makes sense, Pat Quinn LOVED picking big centres, regardless of skill sometimes), but only proved to be a serviceable checking centre with some bad Canucks teams of the late 90s.

Scatchard was part of the trade that was supposed to fix the Canucks goaltending woes (of course it didn’t) when he was shipped off with Bill Muckalt and Kevin Weekes for Felix Potvin. With the Islanders, Scatchard had 4+ productive seasons, notching 27 goals in 2002-03. Inexplicably, his career took a nose dive after the lockout. He signed a big four year contract with Boston, was traded to Phoenix after only 16 games, and then had two sub-par seasons with the Coyotes before getting his contract bought out. Injuries contributed to this, but he still had an amazingly quick exit from the league, playing his last NHL game at only age 31.

Scatchard is only 33 years old at the moment, which should suggest that he may have something to give. That being said, I would be downright shocked if he made the team with players like Ryan Johnson and Rick Rypien already signed to contracts. Best case scenario for Scatchard: he signs a league minimum salary two-way deal and then gets called-up to play on the 4th line when Rick Rypien inevitably gets injured. If he gets that and shows what he can do, maybe he can get his NHL career back on track. It’d be great to see him make it back in the league, but I just don’t see it happening.

My best memory of Scatchard will ALWAYS be when he fought Joe Thornton…