AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 16
Friday, March 16, 2007
Who would you re-sign?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What a miserable morning. I’m staring at giant windows here in the Philadephia airport, with streams of water running down them. My flight is already an hour delayed, and now there’s no chance of me catching the Rangers at the morning skate at Philips. I’ve been scrolling the blog comments on both the beat blog and IceMan, and boy is there some venom out there. You guys are even letting P & S get under your skin - c’mon now, you’re better than that.
So rather than rehash the loss to Philly, which was summed up pretty nicely by Tkachuk and Hartley, let’s look ahead to the summer, shall we? I know, I know, the Thrashers are in the middle of a playoff run, but I was chatting with the infamous Eklund last night at the game, and we were talking about free agents this summer, and it got me thinking about who the Thrashers will keep and who they won’t.
I tend to believe Don Waddell when he says the play through the end of the season and into the playoffs will dictate who stays, but that shouldn’t stop us from speculating, now should it?
Even better than that, we’re going to spend some of the Atlanta Spirit cash. I’m giving you guys a tight $5 million budget to resign current Thrashers who will be UFAs — let’s not forget Hossa is due an extension soon, so that’s why we’re going to be frugal here. This is just the first $5 million, so the guys you pick are your priorities. These are the players you’re calling at midnight on July 1st. I’ll also assign salaries for next year, based on raises over salaries this year. These estimated salary demands aren’t based on what I think they’ll get on the open market, because right now that’s tough to estimate. As one pending UFA said, you just don’t know until July 1. We won’t get into contract length. Let me know how you would spend the money:
Budget: $5 Million
Players and our fake contract demands :
Keith Tkachuk - $5 million (and a first-rounder to St. Louis)
Greg de Vries - $2.2 million
Slava Kozlov - $3.5 million
Andy Sutton - $3 million
Eric Belanger - $2.5 million
Scott Mellanby - $1 million
Pascal Dupuis - $2 million
Jon Sim - $1.5 million
Shane Hnidy - $1.5 million
J.P. Vigier - $750,000
Eric Boulton - $750,000
Brad Larsen - $750,000
So how are you spending your first $5 million?
