AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > October > 06
Monday, October 6, 2008
Preseason Recap - Setting The Roster
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With Saturday night’s 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues, the Thrashers finished the exhibition season with one win and five losses. The lone win coming in Nashville to begin the preseason.
In the six games, Atlanta was outscored 29-14…outshot 215-147, (24.5 S/G vs. 35.8 SA/G)…the power play was a decent 20.0% efficient, (7 goals in 35 man advantages)…but the defense killed off penalties only 74.4% of the time, (32 times out of 43).
Outside of that…it went pretty good.
Keeping things in perspective…last year the Thrashers were 5-2-0 during the preseason then followed it up immediately by starting the regular season 0-6-0…ending the Bob Hartley era in Blueland…on the way to 14th place in the Eastern Conference.
Conversely, the Boston Bruins went 1-4-1 during their preseason last year scoring 13 and giving up 19 goals. Boston then went on to grab the eighth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They then took the top-seeded Montreal Canadiens to a seventh game in the first round of the playoffs. Cal-Gary went 1-5-2 during the same preseason, scored 13 goals and let up 24. They finished last spring with a record of 42-30-10, which was good enough for sixth in the Western Conference.
Now…am I predicting that the Thrashers are this year’s version of the Bruins and Flames based on the now-finished preseason? Nope…not at all. I’m merely pointing out that preseason records are not necessarily indicative of future results. The faux games of the last couple of weeks are a way to allow coaches to evaluate talent, break in new game plans, to take a look-see at what lines do or don’t work and all that jive.
Nothing more…nothing less.
Plus, as pointed out by Mark Knobler, the team is still “A work in progress” as many players are still getting comfortable with John Anderson’s new system. Camp only started just over two weeks ago.
Now… so that no one thinks I’m simply whistling past the graveyard here…there are a few things that do concern me moving from postseason to regular season play. Allowing almost 36 shots on goal is disquieting. Being outshot by an average of 11.3 per game in distressing. That eleven of the twenty-nine goals scored on Atlanta were of the power play variety raises an eyebrow. Kari Lehtonen allowing ten goals in three starts is troublesome, however I temper that with the fact he faced 107 shots and made 97 saves, (90.6 SV%).
But Friday, none of it matters. We start from scratch…for real.
By Wednesday, the team will need to trim its roster by three…taking it from 26 to 23 players. The team could chose to send four more down and carry only 22, but with Little and Williams possibly having to miss action this weekend due to injuries, I would opt to keep the extra forward around for a while.
Oystrick is the obvious odd-man out on the blueline, same with Crabb up front. I see the final two spots between Sterling, Hoffman and Stuart. If I’m given that choice, Stuart and Hoffman stay.
That being the case, here is what I believe the opening-night roster will look like:
First, in goal…Kari starts and Moose will back-up, (DUH5).
Defense…
Tobias Enstrom - Nic Havelid
Ron Hainsey - Mathieu Schneider
Zach Bogosian - Garnet Exelby
Boris Valabik the healthy scratch.
Up front…
Ilya Kovalchuk - Erik Christensen - Jason Williams*
Slava Kozlov - Bryan Little* - Colby Armstrong
Eric Perrin - Marty Reasoner - Todd White
Eric Boulton - Jimmy Slater - Chris Thorburn
Scratches would be Colin Stuart and Mike Hoffman
I think it’s entirely possible that White and Little could swap positions listed above…but outside of that, there’s my lineup.
*This lineup assumes Williams and Little are able to play this weekend depending upon their injuries. From all I’ve heard, they are not serious but we’ll have to see for sure. If they are not able to go…Hoffman and Stuart could play.
LET’S DROP THE FREAKIN’ PUCK ALREADY!!
Update-Oct. 6,2008 2:21pm: At 2:03 pm Monday the Thrashers web site announced that Crabb, Stuart and Valabik are the three players sent to Chicago.
