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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
So much for the youth movement
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hey, remember when the Thrashers had four rookies make the team out of training camp? On Wednesday, Tobias Enstrom will be the only rookie contributing against Boston. With Bryan Little’s demotion to Chicago, which was preceeded by a Mark Popovic ankle injury, which was preceded by Brett Sterling’s demotion to Chicago, I think it’s safe to say the youth movement is over.
That’s not to say the future isn’t bright - I think Little showed us enough during his time in Atlanta to lead us to believe that he’s going to be an NHL player for a long, long time. And Sterling has been lighting it up in Chicago since he was sent down. And Popovic, when healthy, has been solid. And let’s not forget Ondrej Pavelec.
But with the Thrashers gearing up for an important stretch of the season, once again, they’ll be leaning on veterans. And it looks like that goes for the goalie situation as well. Johan Hedberg will get the start in goal on Wednesday as Don Waddell proves he’s a man of his word. He said that the goalie who played better between Hedberg and Kari Lehtonen would play more. I interpreted that as, Kari would start a majority of the games and Moose would spell him. But maybe Don actually meant what he said.
Some goalie competition is good, but what would be better is a productive offensive second line. This morning it became apparent that that second line would be Kozlov - Perrin - Recchi. There’s potential there for that to be a line that can put up some points. Perrin said he’s most comfortable at center, and he’s excited about the potential playing between two veteran scorers. Think about this for a moment: Let’s imagine Perrin skating in on Alex Auld on a breakaway with his linemates. To his left is a guy with 313 career goals. To his right is a guy with 510 career goals. Those are some good options, especially considering the same breakaway a few games ago had Perrin skating with two guys with a combined total of four career NHL goals. This isn’t a knock on Little and Darren Haydar, who both might turn out to have long NHL careers. But you can understand why Perrin is excited.
So do you like the Little move? Do you still think he has a good future with the team? How about Johan instead of Kari?
Pascal Dupuis is back on the Bobby Holik line and Larsen will be back in the lineup with Darren Haydar headed to the press box on Wednesday night.
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