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Thursday, July 10, 2008
Overall Grade Still To Be Determined
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Earlier in the week Scott Burnside of ESPN.com posted his thoughts on how he figured teams out west had faired since the June 1 free agent signing season began. And, as surely as day follows night, Wednesday he posted his thoughts on the Eastern Conference teams.
In it, he concludes that the Atlanta Thrashers are trending downward…which is a tough trick to pull off for a team that finished as close to the bottom of the league standings as… YOUR AT-LANTAAAaaaa THRAAAAAA-SHERS!!!!
The basis for his position, obviously, is the failure of the team to make much of a splash in regards to UFA signings. He points out Don Waddell’s flip-flop on Alexei Zhitnik, the failed attempt to lure in the highly coveted Brian Campbell, and the departures of Mark Recchi and Bobby Holik. Burnside also points out the signing of defender Ron Hainsey, but then indicates that, “he will be more valuable on the offensive side than in the Thrashers’ own zone”.
Honestly, I cannot take any exception to what he writes and concludes about the current situation the team is now in. In fact…I would say that Atlanta could feel fortunate that Burnside gave them just a “Trending Downward” grade and did not invent a new scaling factor for the Thrashers…something along the lines of “Could they possibly make it any more obvious that they intend to win the John Tavares sweepstakes”?
But lucky for us, the overall grade for this summer’s activities will not be solely determined by how many free agents the Thrashers sign and how much they paid for them. Oh sure…it’ll be a big part of the grade, but not 100% of it.
If you take into consideration the on-line poll question currently running on the Thrashers web page of the ajc.com…two-thirds of you give the team a D or an F so far this offseason. 3.83% give an A grade… so Waddell can take some comfort in the fact that some of the Spirit Group employees took time out of their busy schedules to register their votes.
As for me…the final grade is still yet to be determined.
In my opinion, D-Dub and the organ-I-zation will be judged on the overall performance…the hiring of John Anderson as head coach, selecting Zach Bogosian and the draft overall…the UFA signings, or lack there-of…and then whatever trades can be pulled off to address some of the gaping holes in the lines.
This last part we’ve discussed quite a bit. There are a few teams out there who have UFAed themselves near to or right over the cap. So, there are some deals out there to be made…which is a good thing for Waddell and this team.
Certainly I give some high marks on hiring Anderson, drafting Bogosian, waiving Zhit, signing Hainsey, allowing Holik to skate and bringing back Boulton. I’m ambivalent as to Recchi heading to the sun coast. I would have loved to have seen us land Campbell, but whatchagonnado? And I’m not going to even try to sugarcoat the disappointing fashion this past week and a half has played out.
Incomplete test grades include the Kari Lehtonen signing and what may become of the Ilya Nikulin situation. These will factor into the final evaluation once complete.
All that leads to this… Don needs a good grade trading for some players. If not, John Anderson’s first test… this upcoming season… is going to be a lot tougher than it needs to be.
Other Items For Your Cerebral Intake
According to Adam Proteau of The Hockey News…guess who would be the #1 worst signing so far this summer?
Eric Boulton seems to be very happy about re-signing with Atlanta and has a different take on being in the team’s future plans then a certain former Lighting-now Sharks player.
Allan Muir acknowledges Tampa Bay has certainly made a “Big Splash” with all their signings of late, but points out that they need to address the blueline.
Wednesday the Thrashers released their pre-season schedule. Looks like we may not have long to wait to see first-hand Hossa’s assimilation into the Big Red Borg.
The NHL and Russian hockey league seem to have made nice-nice.
And finally…this has nothing to do with hockey, but it seems like there is a little something more than line dancing going on during “Country Jam” every year out in Grand Junction, Colorado.
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