MONTREAL - On Thursday afternoon, the Ottawa Senators' team doctor, Don Chow, and Gerry Townend, the team's athletic therapist, spent about 30 minutes prodding the right knee of Spokane Chiefs defenceman Jared Cowen.

Cowen

Photograph by : Christinne Muschi

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Cowen is only just recovering from comprehensive surgery on the knee, to repair the ACL, the MCL, and some of the meniscus. That's about as thorough as a knee injury can be. The surgery was done on February 18 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

What Chow and Townend found was that the knee is recovering perfectly and there's no reason to believe it will be an impediment to a long and successful NHL career. So with their ninth pick in the first round, the Senators took the 6-5, 220-pound defenceman.

While other players that were ranked higher were still available, Pierre Dorion, the team's chief amateur scout, said there was zero concern about Cowen's knee. He was the player the scouting staff believed would most help the Senators win in the future.

Dorion said that Cowen, who missed the final 35 Spokane games, would have been a Top 5 pick if it weren't for the knee injury. They thought they might have a chance at him and were happy "when he fell into our lap."

In the NHL's central scouting rating, Cowen fell to ninth in the final list from seventh at mid-season.

George Fargher, the team's amateur scout in Western Canada, sent Dorion six DVDs of Cowen's games, and that sealed the deal.

"We obviously know with our team drafting (defenceman) Eric Karlsson last year, we have skill," Dorion said.

"And we traded for Chris Campoli. They're both skill guys, so we felt the need, as a group, was that we needed to get bigger, and Jared Cowen is a big defenceman that is more defensive-mined, but he'll log a lot of minutes for us in the future."

Cowen, 18, had modest expectations of where he'd go. The only other team to examine his knee was the Minnesota Wild.

"I've always liked Ottawa. It's one of my favourite teams, so to go there is a dream come true," the Allan, Sask., native said.

"I didn't really know what to expect. I don't think I expected too much. I was ready to go high or low, but where I went I've very happy with."

He's skated twice so far, last Sunday and the Wednesday before. The first time he got on the ice he was scared. He didn't know how his knee would react. But the second time was better.

His work regimen is strenuous. He's in the gym six days a week, sometimes twice a day, and he swims on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The recovery period was supposed to be six months, and he's slightly ahead of it.

"It's a good learning process but a lot of hard work," Cowen said.

He expects to be ready for the Spokane Chiefs training camp on Aug. 17. Ottawa's camp is a month later. He'll probably be in Ottawa in July for the development camp, but that hadn't been decided yet.

"He's a big, strong kid who's going to play hard," said Fargher