AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > September > 14
Friday, September 14, 2007
Thrashers kick things off - without Rucchin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Well, it started. The Thrashers are in full swing of things right now at the IceForum in Duluth. They’re sporting their new practice jerseys. They’re selling their new Rbk EDGE jerseys, and there will be a big press conference later talking about the new jerseys. But you REALLY don’t care about any of that, now do you? How about some lines, it’s never too early take a look at those, now is it?
The team handed out rosters, and on that were some lines for the two teams practicing, Team A and Team B. Hartley has been working primarily with team A and was true to these lines during practice. So first, here they are:
TEAM A
Kovalchuk - White - Sterling
Larsen - Perrin - Dupuis
LaVallee - Little - Haydar
Pospisil - Krog - Deveaux
Crabb - Hamilton - Machacek
Zhitnik - Havelid
Valabik - Popovic
Kwiatkowski - Lewis
Lehman
Comment: I like the Kovalchuk line a lot. White gives Ilya the playmaking center he never had last season and Brett Sterling is put in a position to succeed. The checking line of Larsen-Perrin-Dupuis is interesting just because there’s no Bobby Holik (who is skating with Hossa).
TEAM B
Kozlov - Holik - Hossa
Boulton - Slater - Thorburn
Stuart - Giroux - Schultz
Bartovic - Holzapfel - Fretter
Exelby - Klee
Enstrom - Pilar
Oystrick - McCarthy
Denny - Fahey
Comment: The Hossa line has scoring pop and responsible defensive players. I like that mix as well. The Slater line is full of grit and could be fun to watch. I think the defensive pairings are interested. I thought maybe you’d split up Exelby and Klee and put each one with a younger defenseman.
Obviously you don’t see Steve Rucchin’s name out there. He failed his physical - despite being in great shape, he’s still getting headaches when workouts get strenuous. Things don’t look good for Rooch, but Waddell will get into that more during the 1 p.m. presser.
