Toronto Maple Leafs News

Schenn among 24 attending prospects camp

The next time Luke Schenn arrives in Toronto, he’s hoping to stay for good.

The stingy junior-aged defenceman from Saskatoon, who was drafted fifth overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs at the NHL entry draft last month, is among 24 players attending the Leafs’ week-long prospects camp.

The Leafs won’t rush the franchise’s top prospect into the NHL, but that game plan hasn’t lessened the determination of 6-foot-2, 216-pound Schenn, also a member of the gold-medal-winning 2008 Canadian under-20 team.

“My goal is to make the team,” said Schenn, a defensive-minded defenceman. “I know not too many 18-year-old defenceman play in the NHL. But I’m going to work hard all summer to make the best impression I can at training camp.”

Besides his training for the Leafs’ camp, Schenn has an industrious summer planned. Last week, he was back in Kelowna, B.C., where he plays for the WHL’s Rockets, for a charity golf tournament. He stayed a few extra days to visit and work out with his former Kelowna roommate Shea Weber, the Nashville Predators’ outstanding blueliner.

After the Leafs’ prospects camp, Schenn will have a week off before travelling to Ottawa for the Canadian junior summer evaluation camp, and then he will head to Calgary to watch his younger brother Braydon try out for the Canadian under-18 team. Braydon, 16, was a rookie with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL last season and had an impressive total of 28 goals and 71 points in 66 games.

Schenn, along with Russian Nikolai Kulemin and Chris DiDomenico, were three of the more noticeable talents on the ice at the Leafs’ practice complex in Etobicoke yesterday. While Kulemin, a former teammate of Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin, is a shoo-in to start the season with the Leafs, DiDomenico is an underdog.

But overcoming the odds is nothing new for the native of Woodbridge, Ont. He was passed over twice in the OHL draft, only to wind up playing for the Saint John Sea Dogs of the QMJHL because their Ontario-based scout, Al Mason, had an eye on him. He made the Sea Dogs as a walk-on.

DiDomenico, 19, has made Mason appear like a genius. In his rookie season with the Sea Dogs, he scored 25 goals and 75 points and then improved his statistics to 39 goals and 95 points in 2007-08. The 95 points were good enough for sixth place in the QMJHL scoring race and the most production from any player in the Leafs’ organization last season, and DiDomenico’s play earned him an invitation to the Canadian junior summer camp with Schenn.

“I have surprised myself a bit,” he said. “It was a big step to go to Saint John, but I was able to get better day by day and that has been my approach - to keep getting better every day,” said 6-foot-1, 170-pound DiDomenico, who was the Leafs’ 2007 sixth-round draft selection and has another season of junior eligibility.

The Leafs re-signed centre Matt Stajan to a two-year deal worth $3.5-million (all currency U.S.) yesterday. Stajan, 24, scored a career-most 16 goals last season, and he was one of three Toronto players, along with Jason Blake and Tomas Kaberle, to play in all 82 games.

Former Leafs forward Joe Nieuwendyk, who won three Stanley Cup championships with the Calgary Flames, Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils, also arrived in town last night to hold talks with Toronto general manager Cliff Fletcher on a front-office position. The two sides are expected to swiftly agree on a contract and there likely will be an announcement on Nieuwendyk’s hiring this week.

The contracts for Ron Wilson’s assistant coaches, Tim Hunter and Rob Zettler, also are expected to be completed this week. The Leafs have a contract with defenceman Jonas Frogren, 28, and are trying to work out the final details of his release with the Swedish club Farjestads.

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