AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > April > 03
Thursday, April 3, 2008
‘07-‘08 Post Mortem Pt. 1 of 3
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Standing in the morgue, pulling on smock, slapping on rubber gloves, sliding on mask… Rawhide stands over the mortal remains of the ’07-’08 Atlanta Thrashers season.
Friends…thank you all for coming. Please, gather around and let’s just get this over with.
There are too many things that went terribly wrong with this 2007-’08 Thrashers season…there is no way to cover them all. But there are a few main topics that we can discuss as this disappointing campaign closes out. Once doing so… we then take it out, shovel dirt on these issues and leave the whole sorted affair buried from this point on.
Yes, I know there is another game to play, but for all intense and purpose…this season is dead, toes up. It has assumed room temperature…kicked the oxygen habit.
First item to discuss: The players. After all, they are the ones that perform or don’t. And this year, more times than not, they didn’t.
However, let’s start off with some good…namely the play of rookie Tobias Enstrom. The young Swede has played in all 81 games thus far, leads the team with 24:26 TOI, averages 25.5 shifts per game, (which is only 0.1 behind team leader Ken Klee) and has chipped in with 5 goals and 38 points. For much of the season he hovered around a +6 or +7, but recently has seen that drop to a -6. Still this is not terribly disappointing considering the amount of time he logs for a team whose GF/GA differential is -59.
The pairing of Enstrom and Niclas Havelid has been as solid of a defensive line we’ve had all year. Havelid is currently a +1, the only Thrasher in the positive who has played for the team all season.
Of course there is Ilya Kovalchuk. His 52 goals so far tie his career high. He has scored one quarter of the 212 goals tallied by the team. Factor in assists and he’s been in on 40.5% of them. For much of the season he was leading the NHL in goals but was slowed after taking a knee-to-knee shot from Pittsburgh’s Jarkko Ruutu just after the All Star break.
He didn’t wear the ‘C’, but the ‘C’ in him came through all year.
And now…the un-good.
To say that certain veteran players were a major disappointment would be quite the understatement. Let’s highlight four specifically:
Slava Kozlov: After inking a new contract last summer, the usually reliable forward disappeared quicker than doughnuts at a weight-watchers meeting. He has gone from 25 goals and 71 points two years ago and 28 goals 80 points last season to 17 and 40 this year. If you are one to give him the benefit of the doubt, it’s entirely possible his game slumped because of the poor play around him.
Trying to remain optimistic…certainly next year HAS to better for Kozlov.
Marian Hossa: Like Kozlov, he had a sub-par season before being shipped to Pittsburgh. Was he doggin’ it because he knew he was to be traded and did not want to get hurt? Were his numbers reflective of the supporting cast as well? Was the uncertainty of his future affecting his play? Who knows for sure?
However, the hard reality of his refusal to re-sign with the Thrasher is that he felt the team was not, yes I’m going to say it, moving in the right direction. Besides, how can one truly gauge the future of the team when the organ-I-zation cannot even move to name a head coach?
Bobby Holik: In fairness, the captain’s numbers this year improved from last. 11 goals and 29 points were upped to 14 and 33…similar to two seasons ago. But the glaring stat for Holik is the -15. In the past two seasons he was -3 and -6. Too many times Holik was not the dominating force in the defensive zone we needed from a center.
To be brutally honest, he seemed more adept at shoving a teammate under the bus than an opposing forward out from in front of the net.
Also, the team was in need of leadership in the man wearing the ‘C’. To me, that never really came from Holik.
Alexei Zhitnik: OK, where do we even begin. Let’s go with the -8, which is down from a +1 with three teams last year and his 3 goals and 5 helpers are off from 7 and 38 with those teams as well. To contrast his full season here, in the 18 games played for the Thrashers after the trade with Philadelphia last season he had 2 goals and 12 assists.
Many cheered his arrival a year ago, myself included, but some warned of the price paid. As it turns out, the price was indeed too steep. Compounding the aggravation is how Braydon Coburn has developed with the Flyers this season. That plus we are still on the hook for Zhit’s salary in ’08-’09.
He has viewed the games from the press box since the beginning of March and many would like to see him waived or bought out if a trade can’t be arranged.
These are but a few of the players who I have chosen to point out from this season we are beginning to examine. Feel free to step forward with your thoughts regarding those mentioned as well as others.
Lastly, I feel it necessary to point out the even though it is fair to call out the performances of these veteran players…it is also just as fair to contemplate the failings of the general manager for the squad that was assembled on the ice.
For me, it’s not as much as the players he provided in as much as the voids that were left. Last summer it was clear the team needed big time help on the blueline…his response, Ken Klee. Oh, a serviceable enough defender, but not the impact player needed to anchor a top defensive pairing. And there is this issue with the #1 center…something that has, for the most part, gone un-addressed since the departure of Marc Savard 2 summers past…unless you call Todd White the answer.
However, Don Waddell is a subject for later in these ceremonies.
But before we even get to him, we will next discuss the coaching situation of this soon-to-be departed season. Or, better stated…the lack thereof.
Until then….
zipping up the body bag over the decrepit remains, pushing corpse back into the cooler to keep ‘til next discussion
Brrrr, it’s chilly in here.
