AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > December > 14
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Um, Don… How “Close” Are We Again?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Thrashers and their fans saw first-hand over the weekend just why the Boston Bruins are the best team in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. That team is fast, plays solid defense, has superior goaltending and takes advantage of everything a team gives them and every opportunity afforded them.
They are good. In fact, there’s just not enough “O”s in “good” to describe them.
And they didn’t get to 21-5-4 by playing games against teams like…well…Atlanta every night. They are where they are today based on decisions made by the owner and in the front office. Good decisions.
After Mike O’Connell was fired in March of 2006, Peter Chiarelli was hired as GM of the Bruins the following April. Apparently team owner Jeremy Jacobs didn’t feel that missing the playoffs for the first time in five years was…ahem…”moving in the right direction”.
Now, the Boston Bruins today are a far cry from the Bruins team that finished the 2005-06 season with 74 points and the 2006-07 season with 76 points. They are even light-years better than the playoff team that finished last year’s regular season campaign with 94 points seeing that they are currently on a pace to net 126 points.
Playing the way they are…they are “close” to putting away the Northeast Division and “close” to do the same with the conference’s top seed.
Conversely, over the same period, the Thrashers have gone from 90 points, to a playoff-qualifying 97 points, to 76 points last year…and now are on pace to get something like 62 points.
That’s sixty-frickin’-two points.
To say these two organ-I-zations have been heading in opposite directions would be much like saying the same about George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
And…like the Bruins…the Thrashers are where they are today based on decisions made by ownership and in the front office. Un-good decisions.
So… I’d like Don Waddell to tell us again just how “close” it is that we are…and just what it is that this disorgan-I-zation is “close” to.
“Close” to the bottom of the standings…again? Yup. Thanks a pant-load, Don…again.
“Close” to watching as Ilya Kovalchuk “Hossas” us next winter? Yup… Of course, Waddell has another trade deadline and off-season to bring in another Erik Christensen or Jason Williams to try and convince him that the team is “moving in the right direction”…doesn’t he?
“Close” to tying the franchise record of ZERO playoff victories at the end of the year…again? Oh, I’d say we’re well on our way to that.
“Close” to looking like a first-year expansion team? Well, the current 62-point pace is closer to the 39 points earned by the Thrashers in their initial season than the 97 points of two seasons ago, so… Don may not have us quite there yet. But we are “moving I the right direction” in that regards.
Just give him another trade-deadline deal or so, and we might just be “close”.
“Close” to seeing the fan base in Blueland dwindle to the point where they…ahem…”become one”? Well, unless about 9,000 fans are regularly showing up disguised as empty seats… I’d say “Yup” to that as well.
Folks, the word that needs to be used here is not “close”, as in “being near in space or time”…but “close”, as in “to shut” or “bring to an end”.
As in… It’s time for the Spirit Boys to pull their collective heads out of their…um, out of the sand…and bring to a “close” the Don Waddell era as GM of the Atlanta Thrashers.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…and do it now as to allow whoever replaces Waddell to come in, get a feel for the team and be ready two and a half months from now when the trade deadline is upon us.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…before he “Coburn for Zhitniks” the team again.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…and give the organ-I-zation a fighting chance to re-sign Kovalchuk. Otherwise, stand by while he “Heatleys” … “Savards” … “Hossas” …us next year.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…before the Thrasher sink further into the abyss of the standing, and further away from the realm of respectability.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…and give John Anderson a fighting chance to prove he can be successful at this level if given a competent general manager who can ice a competitive team, as was the case in Chicago with Kevin Cheveldayoff.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…and do so right now. Or Bruce Levenson and the rest of the Spirit Boys will be “close” to proving to the hockey community, once and for all, that they truly lack the cerebral, intestinal and testicular fortitude that is required to do the right thing as owners of an NHL franchise.
“Close” the Waddell era as GM of the Thrashers…or all we will hear from the general manager for the coming years is just how “close” this team is…again, and again, and again.
