Capone ready to live draft dream
East Haven native, UConn freshman expected to be picked
The reality that his dream is about to come true hit Nick Capone at some point during the hour-long drive from his East Haven home to the UConn campus in Storrs back in midAugust.
Next week, Capone will achieve something that only a select few New Haven hockey prodigies have accomplished when he is selected in the NHL Draft.
The 18-year-old Capone finished 126th on NHL’s Central Scouting list for North American skaters for Monday’s and Tuesday’s draft. Last year, Nick Abruzzese and Mason Millman both went in the fourth round after being ranked 122nd and 125th among North American skaters.
The first round will be on Tuesday at 7 p.m. Rounds 2-7 will take place on Wednesday, starting at 11:30 a.m.
Capone doesn’t know which round his name will be called or which team will secure his rights, so he is trying to calm his nerves by not thinking about it too much.
“I am already nervous thinking about it,” Capone said. “It is just going to be a crazy feeling.”
When Capone is selected, he will add to the list of New Haven area prospects picked by NHL teams.
New Haven’s John Glynne was selected in the NHL and WHA amateur drafts in 1975, three years later Brian O’Connor was picked by the St. Louis Blues, and in 1985 Southington native Carl Valimont was a 10th round pick by Vancouver.
Things changed the following year when Cheshire’s Brian Leetch was the ninth overall pick by the New York Rangers. New Haven area products Matt DelGuidice and Joe Aloi were selected in the fourth and sixth rounds in 1987. Mike Pomichter of North Haven and Todd Hall of Hamden were among the top 53 selections in 1991, Eric Boguniecki of West Haven was picked in the eighth round in 1993.
Hamden’s Jonathan Quick, still the No. 1 goalie for the Los Angeles Kings, was a steal in the third round of the 2005 draft. More recently, New Haven’s Adam Erne, a second-round pick in 2013, played parts of three seasons with the recently crowned Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning before spending the 2019-20 campaign with the rebuilding Detroit Red Wings.
“I wouldn’t say any NHL players got me into hockey. I would say my dad definitely did,” Capone said. “Watching some players, the Rangers are my favorite team so definitely watching them more and more.
“When I was like 11, I decided that this is what I want to do and I started to work for it. I was scoring more and changing the level I was on and continuing to do good and that was when I started to realize I could do something.”
Capone began challenging himself with the teams he played on. When he was 12, he crossed paths with Steve Novodor, a youth hockey coachwho witnessed Capone transform from being a big, physical presence to a complete player learning to use his frame that now is listed at 6-foot-2, 202 pounds.
“I thought he was a big body, he had good skill to his game,” Novodor said. “He put a lot of work on the ice, off the ice, in the summer really training hard and just doing a lot of the things that he really needed to do to be the player that he is today just with his work ethic and the way he kind of approached just wanting to be the best on the ice. I think for him, he has always gotten better each year. He’s never been satisfied with where he is at and I think that has gone a long way for him.”
That hard work was evident when he burst onto the scene with 40 goals and 48 assists as a freshman at East Haven High School to earn All-State honors. He added 33 goals and 43 assists in 57 games during his two seasons at The Salisbury School, a program that counts six-year NHL defenseman Alex Biega, former NHL forward Paul Carey, and former Yale forward Mark Arcobello (24 goals in 139 NHL games) among its alumni. The next step was a big one as he left Connecticut to join the USHL, where Capone had seven goals, 12 assists, and 96 penalty minutes in 34 games for the Tri-City Storm in 2019-20 season.
“I think it is tremendous for him,” said Novodor, a national championship winning coach with the powerhouse Junior Bulldogs program. “Going to a school like Salisbury, a prep school, he kind of learned how to be a student-athlete away from home at a young age and I think it helped him mature and grow as a person and as a player. Obviously playing in the USHL which is the top junior league, and to be as much of an impact player as he was with Tri-City, maybe not so much always putting up points on the board but just his physical presence in the lineup and making things happen around him. I think he learned how to become a man at a young age, which has allowed him to go to UConn sooner than some kids are going to school.”
UConn coach Mike Cavanaugh has been working with Capone — who had committed to Maine before choosing UConn last year— and the other players on the team three times a week. While there haven’t been 5-on-5 drills, it hasn’t taken long for Capone to impress his new coach.
“He has done a nice job,” Cavanaugh said. “He has acclimated himself pretty well. He is big and strong. We are still in pods of eight players at a time so I think he will shine even more when it is 5 on 5, when he gets to go up and down the ice and be physical.
“I naturally had seen him play quite a bit because he is a Connecticut kid, he made a decision to commit to school [Maine] very early but you still watch him, we would be out watching Salisbury play all the time. I thought he just kept getting better and better, I saw him play in the USHL and I thought he was just fantastic.”
It was during his time in the USHL that Capone decided to stay home and be part of the program Cavanaugh is building at UConn.
He could be one of four UConn players picked in this year’s draft. Sophomore defensemen Yan Kuznetsov and Jacob Flynn are ranked 36th and 122nd on the Central Scouting list while freshman forward Artem Shlaine is ranked 93rd among North American skaters.
Quinnipiac freshman Ty Smilanic could be the first player with ties to Connecticut to come off the board, unless likely top-10 pick Jake Sanderson — whose father Geoff Sanderson scored more than 30 goals four times with the Hartford Whalers — is included.
Also in the top 100 among North American skaters: Capone’s former Tri-City Stars teammates Mitchell Miller and Colby Ambrosio. Capone couldn’t help but improve his game in practices.
“It’s been a different lifestyle for me than many kids,” Capone said. “You just have to adapt to it and moving away from home was definitely different. It made me mature quicker and grow up a little bit, so it definitely helped for college.
“I think it helps you so much playing every day with guys making this happen and they work just as hard as you and when you get to play on the weekend too with guys who will get drafted.”
Capone also had to deal with uncertainty due to COVID-19. He had a video tape made up of events he would have done at a combine in a normal year just to give NHL teams as much information as possible.
“The start was a little tougher than it is now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, but in the beginning it was a little tough with the two-week quarantine not being able to work out or skate,” Capone said.
Capone was able to skate and work out before reporting to UConn, and believes he put himself into position to make an impact as a freshman. Whether he will play on the wing or at center, Cavanaugh said it is too early to say.
Capone just wants to play. Both Capone and Cavanaugh said it is looking like the college hockey season could start in late November and when that happens, Capone will be eager to help the Huskies in any way he can.
“It’s always been my dream to play college hockey and to be here now and live out that dream ... it is really fun,” Capone said.
There will be plenty of proud coaches when Capone gets drafted, including Novodor, East Haven High’s Lou Pane and Anthony Noreen, who has a 98-45-16 record in three seasons as Tri-City Storm’s head coach. Novodor speaks for all of Capone’s coaches when he says it is Capone who willed himself into this position.