Bs Sign Karsums
By Kirk Luedeke
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rThe Boston Bruins hope to bottle some of Latvian lightning bug Martins Karsums’ skill, tenacity and passion next year and beyond, signing the second-round pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft to a three-year deal Monday.
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“I wanted to be a Bruin very badly,” the former Moncton Wildcats winger told hockeyjournal.com. “They picked me in the draft and spent a lot of time helping me since then, so there was no other place I want to go.”
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Although generously listed at 5-foot-10 and a shade less than 200 pounds, he’s a big man trapped in a small man’s body – playing the game like a heat-seeking missile. The smallish Karsums plays an aggressive, physical game without regard for his own limitations, so he’s had to contend with a series of debilitating injuries that destroyed much of his 2004-05 campaign and threatened his long-term potential in the professional ranks.
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“He had a serious ankle injury that required surgery, but since nobody had seen it (the type of tendon damage) before, it took some time to properly diagnose and then recover from it,” said a source close to Karsums. “He was very frustrated and disappointed with his play last year as a result of that surgery and rehab, but he feels 100 percent now. He’s really loving the hockey and looking forward to beginning his pro career.”
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The B’s made Karsums the second of two back-to-back selections after realizing that they had the opportunity to come away with a pair of players they had ranked inside their top-20 list. Former GM Mike O’Connell swung a trade for the 63rd overall selection acquired from the San Jose Sharks, using it to take talented Czech playmaking center David Krejci. Then, with the 64th pick (previously acquired from Los Angeles through Detroit for Jozef Stumpel), Scott Bradley and his scouts made the call to grab the diminutive but prolific scoring forward, who potted 30 markers in his first QMJHL season with the Wildcats.
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“Karsums was a player we liked a lot because of his skill and competitiveness,” Bradley said recently. “We’ve talked to him, and he said that his ankle feels great. He’s excited about the possibility of moving up to the pro level soon, and we’re excited about the player he is and how he could help the organization in the future.”
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The Riga native bounced back from his injury-plagued second season to post career-bests in all offensive categories in 2005-06 (34-35-69 in 49 games) after missing time at the beginning of the year recovering from off-season surgery. He then went on a tear in the Quebec League playoffs, leading the Wildcats to the championship while winning the Guy Lafleur Trophy as postseason MVP right before Moncton hosted the 2006 Memorial Cup tournament.
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“It was nice to win (the MVP), but I would be nothing without my teammates,” Karsums said. “For us, we looked at winning the President’s Trophy (QMJHL championship) all along, and never tried to go after that by thinking of the Memorial Cup before we took care of our first goal. Our team has been unbelievable all year, and whenever we had to win, someone stepped up.”
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Stepping up was something that Karsums took to another level during the ’06 postseason, potting seven game-winning markers en route to his MVP performance. Then he added more in the Memorial Cup, leading his Moncton to a Game 1 victory against the WHL champion Vancouver Giants.
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One of the little-known facts about Karsums was that he spent half a season with the New York Apple Core of the Eastern Junior Hockey League (EJHL) in 2002, playing 20 games and getting drafted by the Waterloo Black Hawks of the USHL that summer with their last pick. Karsums returned to Latvia for the 2002-03 campaign in hopes of attracting the attention of Canadian Hockey League teams, and the strategy paid off as he caught the eye of former Wildcats GM Allan Power, who saw the electrifying Karsums compete in Walpole, Mass. while skating for a Latvian exhibition team at age 16.
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The Wildcats made Karsums the 34th overall selection in the 2003 CHL Import Draft (their second choice after C Konstantin Zakarov- 22nd), and he went on to tremendous success the following year, aided by his previous stint in the EJHL, where he adapted quickly to the North American culture and lifestyle.
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“Hockey is my life,” said Karsums. “It’s all I know how to do, it’s the only thing I love to do. To be able to play for the Boston Bruins would be a dream for me, but I have a lot of work to do before that happens.”
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Karsums has an outside chance of making the Boston roster out of training camp in the fall. His versatility and work ethic could give him the inside track on a big-league job on the B’s third or fourth line.
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Kirk Luedeke can be reached at [email protected].