AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > November > 27
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Kovy movin’ on up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A nice long practice this morning. Eric Boulton (back) and Eric Perrin (flu) were the only guys to miss practice. Brad McCrimmon ran the practice today because Don Waddell is in Chicago to watch Kari Lehtonen’s rehab start tonight. The performance of Lehtonen this week may be more important than how the Thrashers actually perform on Thursday and over the weekend. If Kari Lehtonen is outstanding that could mean more to the long-term benefit of this team than a win or two. The same goes if he struggles.
It’s not something anybody really wants to consider, but what if Lehtonen really struggles? What do you do then? What if he mentally hasn’t recovered from the playoffs, and physically can’t stay healthy? That would really put the Thrashers in a tough spot. Do you have a solution, or would we rather not even think about it?
Bruce Levenson will be representing the Thrashers at the board of governors. A few of you saw Scott Burnside’s story saying that GMs want to be able to eat salaries to help promote trading. And no, the Thrashers aren’t interested at all in Bryan McCabe, but Scott raises a good point. It would help increase trading if teams could keep a little salary to spur the deal. Some of you are ready to ship out Alexei Zhitnik and his high-priced contract - well, something like this would certainly help the cause. So we’ll follow the results of that one closely. The league is also expected to get rid of the unbalanced schedule and talk about requiring the use of visors, which was a topic in which the Thrashers shared their opinion with new NHPA boss Paul Kelly during a recent meeting in D.C.
If you were voting for the Thrashers, what stance would you take on the schedule, the salary and visors? Is there any other realistic changes you’d bring up for the agenda?
Ilya Kovalchuk has moved up to sixth in All-Star voting, passing Dany Heatley. If you look at the people ahead of him in the voting, it’s not like he’s being beat by a bunch of no-names. As one observer said today at practice, “That Alex Ovechkin is a pretty good player too.” Point taken. Here are the latest forward tallies, and I cut it off at Kozzy:
Forwards
Player NHL Club Votes
Sidney Crosby Pittsburgh 177,873
Daniel Alfredsson Ottawa 80,211
Vincent Lecavalier Tampa Bay 73,743
Daniel Briere Philadelphia 62,867
Alex Ovechkin Washington 55,692
Ilya Kovalchuk Atlanta 52,948
Dany Heatley Ottawa 47,957
Saku Koivu Montreal 46,554
Maxim Afinogenov Buffalo 33,080
Evgeni Malkin Pittsburgh 32,688
Chris Drury NY Rangers 27,481
Jaromir Jagr NY Rangers 26,267
Mats Sundin Toronto 25,683
Jason Blake Toronto 24,333
*Alex Kovalev Montreal 23,922
Simon Gagne Philadelphia 22,946
Jason Spezza Ottawa 21,748
*Mike Richards Philadelphia 19,783
Thomas Vanek Buffalo 17,101
Marian Hossa Atlanta 16,854
Patrik Elias New Jersey 15,519
Martin St. Louis Tampa Bay 15,080
Eric Staal Carolina 14,200
Brendan Shanahan NY Rangers 11,873
Bill Guerin NY Islanders 9,460
Vyacheslav Kozlov Atlanta 9,294
Oh, and thanks for the birthday wishes. It’s No. 31 for those of you scoring at home.
