AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2005 > December > 09
Friday, December 9, 2005
Waddell feeling the heat
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Obviously, the tenure of general manager Don Waddell is a hot-button issue among fans and understandably so. He is the architect of this team and has been the most powerful force in the Thrashers organization for seven years now.
I understand the fury of fans who are disappointed by the team’s performance. (As a 14-year-old, I wrote a letter to then-New York Rangers general manager Phil Esposito excoriating him after he traded my favorite player, Walt Poddubny, in what seemed an endless litany of trades that did nothing to make the team better; alas, I never heard back.)
But for those who are so vehemently against Waddell, do you really think ownership would fire him in midseason? Doesn’t that seem meaningless? What possible change could that result in that would make the players suddenly start playing better — other than the possible brief satisfaction for those in the anti-Waddell camp? Besides, a general manager search takes time and it’s not like someone would instantly step into the job and make a wiz-bang trade that would get the Thrashers to start winning games.
Like it or not, Waddell is the general manager and has the support of ownership. From a fan’s perspective, to root against the team so that the general manager gets fired — as someone suggested yesterday — seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face, especially with 52 games to play.
To debate this issue seriously, let’s try to make a pro and con list of his moves. I’ll start with a list of what I think are Waddell’s best moves in regard to the current team. (I’m going to leave out the Heatley trade, which I regard as a special circumstance; if a player asks for a trade he’s not going to be happy or productive in his current environment. Waddell would never have traded Heatley if Heatley hadn’t made the demand.) Here goes:
*Drafting Ilya Kovalchuk.
*Acquiring Marc Savard for Ruslan Zainullin (who has never played in the NHL).
*Hiring Bob Hartley as coach.
*Acquiring Slava Kozlov for three draft picks who ended up being Joakim Lindstrom, Jeff Deslauriers and John Adams.
*Acquiring Niclas Havelid for Kurtis Foster.
*Acquiring Andy Sutton for Hnat Domenichelli.
*Drafting Garnet Exelby.
I’ll leave the rest up to you.
