AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > February > 02
Friday, February 2, 2007
Talking trade; Haydar called up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BLOG EDIT: THe Thrashers will be announcing shortly that J.P. Vigier is headed to the injured reserve because of a groin injury. He’ll be replaced on the roster by Darren Haydar who is being called up from Chicago. Alright, back to the blog.
Let’s take a second in this edition of the afternoon blog to overanalyze the Andy Delmore trade, because that’s what we the media do in the place of real news. And it beats talking about the Super Bowl.
First, let’s look at GM Don Waddell’s explanation for the deal. He said the AHL veteran rule, which says that AHL teams can’t dress more than five veterans (players with more than 260 regular-season games combined in the AHL, NHL, IHL or European elite league), was a major reason for the deal. Kyle Wanvig has been a healthy scratch a lot for Chicago because of the rule, and it was a better fit in Chicago to have a veteran defenseman (Andy Delmore).
A successful team in Chicago ultimately helps the Thrashers because the more games they play (playoffs, etc.) the more the young players get to develop. So if that’s all that comes out of this deal, it’s a minor plus for the team.
But perhaps there’s more. The team already has eight healthy defensemen in the NHL, and we know the Thrashers are looking for center help, so they could be dealing from a position of depth (defense). If another trade happens soon, say for an Andy Sutton or Vitaly Vishnevski (and we’re just throwing out names here), than this Delmore deal is a little more significant - if the Thrashers don’t get a defenseman back in the trade. It gives the Thrashers some more organizational depth on defense in case a defenseman is moved.
So I floated that theory past Mr. Waddell, and here was his (unedited for punctuation) response:
“You could read into it, but I don’t think if you go into the playoff drive here, the last third of the season - I don’t know if you can ever have too many defensemen. If we decide to make a move, end up trading one, — or I’m not even opposed to picking another one up at the NHL level. So depth in the organization right now - we felt like we had pretty good depth at forward, we wanted to add another veteran defenseman.”
So that clears things up, right? Okay, not really. But for everyone assuming the Thrashers are in the market just for a center (which is obviously a need), it’s interesting to note that Waddell isn’t against upgrading the blue line at the NHL level as well.
