Officials with the NHL’s Washington Capitals say they’re still gathering details after the arrest of one of their prospects, Cam Allen, on charges of drunk driving in London.
The 20-year-old London Knights defenceman was a fifth-round pick to the team in the 2023 NHL draft. He was charged following a crash in southwest London’s Lambeth area shortly after 3 a.m. on Saturday, police say.
“We are aware of the serious and concerning incident from London, Ontario regarding our prospect Cam Allen,” Sergey Kocharov, the NHL team’s senior vice-president of communications and broadcasting, said in a statement sent in response to Free Press questions.
“We are currently gathering additional information and will refrain from making further comments, as this is a legal matter.”
London police say officers responded to a single-vehicle collision near Colonel Talbot Road and Clayton Walk at about 3:20 a.m. on Saturday. Officers arrived and found an unoccupied, running vehicle with blood on the driver’s side door and leading away from the vehicle, police said. Officers arrested a person at a nearby address, police said.
One of the passengers was taken to hospital with minor injuries, police said. The identity of the injured passenger was not immediately known.
Allen, who turned 20 last month, is charged with impaired driving, impaired operation exceeding legal blood-alcohol levels, failing to remain at the scene of a crash, failing to report an accident and having a blood-alcohol concentration above zero as a novice driver.
He hasn’t addressed the matter publicly. But in a Sunday night statement, the Knights said Allen “takes this matter very seriously and has assured us that he will fully cooperate with the court process.”
It’s hard to project how a player will develop at the NHL level. McKeen’s, a hockey publication, doesn’t include Allen in a list of Washington’s top 15 prospects. But Allen has had a strong OHL career so far – he was selected No. 3 overall in the 2021 draft and was named OHL rookie of the year in 2021-22.