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July 2007
Would you trade Marian Hossa?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While I was spraying myself down with some 30 SPF sunblock before heading out to Flowery Branch for more Falcons training camp coverage, I grew to appreciate the conditions covering hockey. Sure it gets a little cold at the IceForum in Duluth, and that “heater” they have blows even more cold air. But it’s nothing like covering a football practice outside in the middle of a hot Georgia humid day.
But before I get too heavy into Falcons stuff today, I wanted to give the Thrashers beat blog a quick update.
Alls quiet on the Thrashers front for now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate about possible roster tweaks now does it? The NHL is hitting its arbitration period pretty heavy and there are some interesting stories going on that may indirectly have an impact on the Thrashers.
If Don Waddell is to make another trade before the season starts, there’s always the possibility that he could try and take advantage of teams who lose their arbitration cases and find themselves paying more for a player than they’d prefer. Or a team could find itself in salary cap trouble after its arbitration cases are settled. That’s when your crafty GM could swoop in and land the center he denies the team needs.
The best stuff right now is coming from New York where Larry Brooks reported that the Rangers called Sean Avery a detriment to the team in its brief for arbitration. That’s an interesting choice of words for the Rangers brass considering the team was 17-6-6 after acquiring Avery from the Kings. Just ask Ilya Kovalchuk if Avery was a detriment to the Rangers during the first round of the playoffs. Or Johan Hedberg for that matter.
That story is interesting because when I talked to Waddell about the potential Thrashers arbitration cases (before he signed Exelby and Slater) he said that comments like that are in the past. He said that most of the arbitration cases were settled strictly on stats. But then again, if the Rangers depended on stats, Avery would get the raise he likely deserved.
Now I’m not saying that the Thrashers are interested in Avery (or Marcel Hossa, another Rangers RFA headed to arbitration). But its cases like these that are interesting to watch, especially with a team so tight against the salary cap. At some point these teams will have to move someone, and the Thrashers might be able to take advantage.
Now a trade I don’t think the Thrashers are inclined to make anytime soon is anything involving Marian Hossa. But since there’s little else to talk about during the dog days of summer, it makes for some fun debate, which I see you guys already started on the last blog.
Anytime I’ve asked Waddell about trading Hossa, he says it’s something that doesn’t even cross his mind. He said negotiations with Hossa’s agent are right where they need to be right now. “There’s no timetable, no rush.” Waddell said last week about the Hossa negotiations.
But I see that hasn’t stopped the trade speculation. So I’m curious - where do you fall in a possible Hossa trade? And when do you think he’d have more trade value - right now or at the trade deadline?
Playing with the lines
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So I’m enjoying a night out in Las Vegas last Monday when I get a text message from a friend of mine (and Exelby’s) that simply says “Yay for Garnet.” It’s at that point I realize two things - 1. Exelby signed an extension. 2. I can’t escape the Thrashers - even in Sin City.
But thanks to a good editor who covered for me the next day by handling the Exelby story, I was able to enjoy the rest of my vacation - despite losing more money than I should. I guess the casinos will stay in business for now. Turns out the blackjack dealers in Vegas aren’t as kind as Bob Hartley dealing at a Thrashers charity casino night. Bob often says something to those at his table like - “I’ve got Steve Rucchin, you might want to hit.” That’s a helpful tip if you know your Thrashers numbers. In Vegas, I was more likely to get dealt a Bobby Holik. But I’m back, refreshed, and ready to talk Thrashers hockey. Too bad there’s not much to talk about.
By now, the schedule released is pretty old news. And even Exelby’s signing has been broken down quite well on the comments from the last blog. My thoughts? That’s a pretty reasonable deal for the Thrashers, plus Exelby gets a little security in a city in which he enjoys playing. Good deal for both sides.
The only other developments going on now is Jim Slater’s pending arbitration (Aug. 2nd) and a potential Marian Hossa contract extension. Thanks to the beauty of the internet, there was a Q and A with Marian in a Slovakian newspaper. Now, I don’t speak Slovakian, and I read one too many Ilya Nikulin-is-coming stories that were translated from Russian, to take everything at face value, but this looks legit.
There’s some interesting stuff if the translation done on the Atlanta Thrashers message board is accurate. What I found most compelling is that Marian says he’s most interested in winning and it sounds like he’s not 100 percent convinced that can happen consistently in Atlanta. He also confirmed that the Thrashers will negotiate during the season if needed, which we have already talked about here.
The two comparable contracts I keep hearing thrown around is the Joe Thornton deal and the Jarome Iginla deal. As you know, Thornton signed a three-year extension worth about $7 million per. Iginla’s deal averages about $7 million, over 5 years. Waddell would need ownership approval to go beyond 4 years, but I’m sure he wouldn’t have trouble getting approval for something like a 6-year, $42 million contract. But then again, from the sounds of Marian’s Q and A, he might prefer something in the four-year range. Hossa will make $7 million this year in the final year of his last contract. Now that I’m back, I’ll keep you posted on the latest developments in the negotiations.
In the meantime, with the signing of guys like Exelby, Thorburn, and Boulton (and pending signing of Slater), the final roster is taking shape.
So now is the fun part — telling Bob Hartley how to do his job, which I know he enjoys. Bob is always looking for unsolicited advice on how to run his team (I need a sarcasm font for this blog). So here are my lines, with comments. These are more my opinion, rather than projected lines, because without having spoken to the man in charge in awhile, I don’t have a feel for how Hartley’s lines will shape up. But it’s fun to speculate, and I encourage you to do the same in the comments section.
Line 1:
Ilya Kovalchuk - Todd White - Brett Sterling
Comment: Kovalchuk gets a playmaking center, something he hasn’t had in awhile. White is also responsible on defense. Sterling can crash the net and knock home some Ilya rebounds. My biggest issue with this group is that a big, physical opposing line might be able to shut it down.
Line 2:
Slava Kozlov - Bobby Holik - Marian Hossa
Comment: Team is looking for more offense from Holik, and this line would give him a fair opportunity. It’s a contract year for the veteran, so I’m sure he’d like to capitalize on a chance like playing with Hossa and Kozlov. Those two play well together, so I don’t see a need to split them up.
Line 3:
Brad Larsen - Steve Rucchin/Eric Perrin - Pascal Dupuis
Comment: Is it cheating to include Rucchin? I’m still not convinced he’ll be playing any time soon, but until I get a definitive word from the team that says he’s out, I’m putting him in there. I actually like this group if healthy. I can see it being pretty effective against opposing top lines, although Dupuis would have to carry the bulk of the scoring load. If Sterling doesn’t pan out, I’d look at Dupuis on the top line. If Rucchin isn’t healthy, I’d send out Eric Perrin in his place.
Line 4:
Eric Boulton - Jim Slater - Chris Thorburn
Comment: The team is expecting a rebound season from Slater, so there might be more scoring potential from this trio than you think. Or not.
So how do these lines compare to this point last summer? I wasn’t covering the team, but as a refresher (and you can correct me if I’m wrong), last year at this time probably looked something like this:
Kovalchuk - Rucchin - Bourret
Kozlov - Kapanen - Hossa
Larsen - Holik - Vigier
Sim - Slater - Metropolit
Marr: Grant Lewis has all the tools
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Things have certainly calmed down a bit from this time last week, eh? The Thrashers prospect camp is in full swing in Duluth and I had a chance to sit down with center Bryan Little and goalie Ondrej Pavelec over the weekend for a pair of stories running this week. One will examine the options for the Thrashers hole at center and Little is doing whatever he can to remain an option. Sure he’d probably benefit from a year in Chicago, but he’s got two trainers and is constantly working out to make sure he’s in shape for training camp. He’s even boxing, although it’s strictly for the conditioning. “I’m not a fighter,” he explained.
Pavelec is an interesting story for a lot of reasons. For one, he decided to sign with the Thrashers despite the fact that Kari Lehtonen is firmly entrenched as the goalie of today and the future. But there is potential for a great rivalry between the two goalies if Pavelec goes and has a strong season in Chicago this year. He seems to have learned from mistakes from the past, including showing up last season weighing a hefty 220 pounds. He was told he’d better lose the weight or he’d watch from the stands. He lost the weight.
Thrashers Director of Amateur Scouting and Player Development Dan Marr, who is running the camp, said he’s been really impressed with the conditioning of all the prospects even before the camp started. It used to be there was a huge gap between the least conditioned and those in the best shape, but that gap has disappeared. He said the younger players are starting to understand the importance of getting physically ready for the NHL, even if they can perform well in the lower levels without being in top-notch shape.
Marr also stressed that this is strictly a conditioning camp, so there isn’t a ton of player evaluation going on. But since Grant Lewis just signed, and I don’t know much about the defenseman prospect from the Ivy League, Marr was kind enough to break down Lewis’ game for me. Here’s an excerpt from that interview:
Marr: “[Lewis] is a terrific skater. He can gain a step on you, just pulling away or in transition. He played in the Ivy League with Dartmouth so his numbers are somewhat elevated but they didn’t play enough games and he had some injury situations where he never really got into a rhythm. His first year he had his shot going and that’s when we drafted him. The next year everybody knew they were going to give him the puck on the power play so they took away his shot and so his numbers went down….
…. Grant kind of, it’s just a natural thing, you get in a routine where you don’t play as many games, it’s not hard to get things done, we really got on him this year that he had to up the tempo of his game. It doesn’t matter what the other guys are doing who are graduating and going into other fields. If you want to be a hockey player this is what you have to do. He got hurt the very first game of the season and that put a damper on his development. He battled through…
…If he would have played more games, his development would have been accelerated but it hasn’t. We’re not quite sure what we’ve got yet until he plays a lot more games. But we know that he can really skate, he’s a good athlete. He’s one of these naturally wirey athletic guys. He’ll find out soon enough if his strength is where it has to be to handle defending against bigger players and battling one-on-one. He has a good first pass which is a key for an NHL defenseman, getting the puck out of your own end. We know he has all the ingredients.”
If you’re looking for more breakdown from the camp, Ben Wright has been blogging from the camp on the official Thrashers blog. The Falconer also did some blogging from the prospect camp.
Thrashers re-sign Kozlov
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Thrashers have re-signed forward Slava Kozlov, to a three-year deal worth $11 million, according to general manager Don Waddell.
MORE TO COME
Alright, here is the ‘more to come.’ In light of what some of the free agents out there are getting, this is a totally reasonable contract. Kozlov wouldn’t comment on any of his other offers, but Mike Heika with the Dallas Morning News reported that the Stars offered Kozlov just under $12 million. Even that is a good deal.
Ultimately it came down to a no-trade clause, which didn’t happen until this morning. That sealed the deal for Kozlov, who wanted to stay in Atlanta all along.
I thought maybe his house being for sale was a negotiating ploy, but he said it’s still on the market, then asked: “Do you want to buy it?” I’ll think about that one for awhile, but I might have to wait until the AJC ponies up an $11 million deal. I don’t even need a no-trade clause.
We’ll get into what’s next (Hossa negotiations, Exelby arbitration filing, Prospect conditioning camp, etc.) shortly. Right now, I’m going to celebrate the 4th of July with the family. Feel free to leave more thoughts on the signing and ramifications here, I’ll respond in the morning.
Klee signs, Kozlov waits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Besides the Kozlov family, I’ll be the happiest one around when Slava finally signs. With anybody. The wait is killing me. I’ve been stalking his agent for the last week, heard “Under the Bridge” (Kozlov’s reverse ringtone) more times in the last few days than I did my entire freshman year in high school and have run out of ways of asking Don Waddell if anything is close.
Ken Klee? Now that guy knows how to get a contract done. Gets an offer from the Thrashers and a half hour later he accepts. I didn’t have a lot of room to get into Ken Klee in Tuesday’s story in the paper, so we’ll do it here on the blog.
It’s a two-year deal, worth a total of $2.5 million. Basically, he’ll play the veteran d-man role played by Greg de Vries last year. Since he was kind enough to chat for a few minutes after getting the deal done, and I couldn’t use any of it in the paper, here are a couple comments from Ken Klee.
Klee on finally signing with Thrashers, after rebuffing them in the past:
“They’ve shown interest in me whenever my contract has been up. They’re an up and coming team with a lot of young, talent guys. I’m excited.
Klee on mentoring some of the Thrashers young defensmen:
“You can never get too high or too low to play an 82-game schedule. You can’t be teetering on a bad play, you have to get right back out there. That’s something I learned over time and brought that to the young D here in Colorado and I’ll bring that to Atlanta.
Klee on his role with the Thrashers.
“I see myself in regular defensive role, more of a stabilizing factor. I try to put pressure on myself to be the player you can count on in the last two minutes. [I’m a] solid two-way player, can play a little power play, penalty kill but always think defense first.”
The Klee signing was pretty much summed up by one Avalanche insider: “He’s a ham and egg defenseman. Nothing more, nothing less.
Now back to Kozlov. Bertuzzi signing with Anaheim is an interesting development in that if the Wings got Bertuzzi done at a decent price, they probably wouldn’t have a need for Kozlov. Now suddenly the Red Wings might be back in the picture. Dallas also remains a team closely connected to the Kozlov negotiations. If the price is right, teams like Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Ottawa might be interested, but not for anything in the Kariya, Nylander price range.
Klee’s signing has no impact on Kozlov negotiations other than perhaps enticing him to stay if he feels like Klee is a defenseman who can get him the puck.
Dupuis and White start things off
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Busy day already, but what did we expect? George Richards, the fine Florida Panthers beat writer for the Miami Herald dubbed today National Hockey Signing Day, which I think a southern audience can relate to. Because really, it is all about recruiting and landing a few blue-chippers, now isn’t it?
So did the Thrashers land a blue-chipper in Todd White? It is a 4-year deal, worth $9.5 million, which works out to about $2.37 million against the cap per season. It’s hard right now to say if that’s a good value until we see what some of the other centers are going for on the market this summer. He is responsible on both sides of the ice, and you can pencil him in for about 18-20 goals if he stays healthy. I was mildly surprised to see the length of White’s deal, but Bruce Levenson assured me that ownership wouldn’t get in the way of long-term deals, and that he doesn’t remember any time during the Atlanta Spirit’s tenure that a Don Waddell proposed contract got shot down by ownership. Currently there is a court order that requires unanimous approval from all the owners for any multi-year contract over four years.
Pascal Dupuis kicked things off, signing a 1-year deal worth $880,000. So with White and Dupuis, the Thrashers should have a little more speed to start the season than they did last year. That’s a plus.
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