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Sunday, January 11, 2009
Thrashers’ Mid-Season Report Card
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Thrashers have 43 games under their belt. And seeing how that’s a couple more than the exact mid-way point of the season, it report card time. Since the first quarter assessment, they have played 24 games and posted a record of 7-14-3 in that span. Where it took 16 games to get the first 7 wins of the season, it took another 26 games, last Thursday in New Jersey, before they were able to win their next 7. That is un-good and foreshadows the ultimate overall team grade.
But before we get into the grades, there is this one thing to note…so far in CY2009 Atlanta is 2-3-0. The two wins have come against teams that currently hold playoff spots, the three losses have come versus those who do not. That is a complete turnaround from the 38 games played before the Big Peach dropped at Underground.
Anyway, let’s break it down…shall we?
OFFENSE
The Good: The Thrashers are scoring goals these days at a clip of 2.84 per game, the 14th best in the NHL. This total is up from the 2.52 G/G at the time of the first quarter report card. The power play continues to impress as well, it’s the tenth-best in the NHL at 21.1% effective. That is up from a 15th place 18.3% after nineteen games.
The Little-White-Russian line has continued to impress as the trio have accounted for 48 of the Thrashers’ 124 goals and they have amassed 113 points together. Bryan Little’s 19 goals lead the team, (get better soon Bryan).
Ilya Kovalchuk’s goal scoring is well off his normal pace, (16 in 43 games), however his assists are way up. Last season Ilya had 35 helpers to go with his 52 goals in 79 games. This year, he has 27 assists in just 43 games to go with his 16 goals. At this pace, he’ll finish with something like 31 goals and 51 assist for 82 points, which would be only 5 points off last year’s total. Imagine if Don Waddell had actually been able to get a top-line center and/or top-line RW for him.
It’s also nice to have a Ron Hainsey stepping up into the O-fense. He has 5 goals and 22 points…which is a pace for 42 points. Last season, the Thrashers defender with the most points was Tobias Enstrom with 38. Thrashers blueliners have accounted for 9 goals and 55 points, a pace for 17 goals and 122 points. Last it was year’s defensives numbers were 13 goals and 91 points.
The shots taken per game stat has dipped slightly from 27.6 to 27.4…only Pittsburgh’s 27.3 S/G is worse. However…in the past 16 games Atlanta has launched an average of 28.4 shots on goal, so we are starting to see some improvement there. Either way, it’s better than last season’s miserable 25.8 S/G.
The Un-Good: Jason Williams still continues to struggle. He has 7 goals and 18 points in 41 games so far. Last season with the Blackhawks, he had accounted for 13 goals and 36 points in 43 games played. Erik Christensen has missed some games due to injury, playing in only 29 games… but still, 3 goals, 12 points and a -8 does not a top-line center make. Especially when the team is looking to re-sign Kovalchuk sometime in the next year. That being said, however, Crusher does have 2 goals and 3 points over the last 5 games played and has an EVEN +/- over that time. Maybe we are starting to see something from the kid?
The Ugly: Eric Perrin has been fighting it this year…3 goals, 6 assists in 40 games played and a -10.
The Summary: If the O-fense can continue to get close to 3 goals per game, they are doing their job. The D-men stepping into the play has played a great part in their success…but, after all, that is the John Anderson system. Now, if only the forwards can fall back and play better in the defensive zone as to return the favor.
The Grade: B, (Up from first quarter’s C+).
DEFENSE
Note: OK, first let me warn you…I’m going to put the SA/G in both the “Good” and “Un-Good” categories. There is a reason, so stick with me here…
The Good: The SA/G number of 32.6 is still waaaaaaaay too high. However, that is down ever so slightly from 32.9 from the first quarter. In fact, over the past 16 games, that stat is actually an almost-not-so-un-good 31.7. Take out the 47 shots Toronto took on us just before New Year and that number falls to 30.6 in the last 15 games. In fact, since Dec. 12, the Thrashers have held the opposition to less than 30 SOG nine times including the last three straight. Again, the overall number is still “un-good”, but the trend of late is…well…”good”.
Nathan Oystrick has been impressive since his call-up when Zach Bogosian suffered a leg injury and Boris Valabik only has 6 PIM in the last 11 games.
The Un-Good: Again, though improving of late, the “overall” 32.6 SOG is still un-good, (27th in the NHL). That stat and ranking remains almost the same as it was on the previous report card. Also, a penalty kill efficiency of only 73.9% is quite nasty… however it would be unfair if I did not mention that Atlanta has successfully killed off the last 15 in a row and now is at least better than Toronto’s. Even still, it’s down from the first quarters rate of 74.7%. The goals-allowed per game is an abysmal 3.65, which is dead last in the league and up from 3.47 just prior to Thanksgiving…however, we’ll chat about that in just a bit.
As a team, Atlanta struggles in the team-defense department. True, defensive play begins with strong defensive players, but the forwards on this team consistently fail to back-check as they should and are often caught out of position.
The Ugly: Mathieu Schneider and that big, fat hairy -17. Sure, Hainsey is a -18, but Ron has played in all 43 games. Schneider has compiled that in only 30 games, including the -3 he pasted on the stat sheet Saturday. His +/- rating as well as his 3 goals and 5 assists put him on a pace that would net about 6 goals and 16 points and finish at about a -32 for the season…should he remain here that long. Compare this to his previous season in Anaheim where he accounted for 12 goals and 39 points along with a +22…and you see where the major disappointment that most Thrashers fans have in him comes from. Sure, the Ducks and the Thrashers are two birds that are flying in totally different directions…but still, that’s a loss of 23 points and a difference of -54 in the +/- stat.
The Summary: Still too much of the same overall, even though there are some encouraging signs in the SA/G and penalty kill department of late.
The Grade: D+, (Unchanged from first quarter).
GOALTENDING
The Good: Just not a helluva lot to chat about here. Let’s see, Moose has lowered his GAA to 3.62 from .404 at the end of the first quarter. And Kari did get the team’s first shutout the other night. Oh, and there was that strong start in Ottawa for Opie sandwiched between the Boston and Pittsburgh disasters. Other than that…
The Un-Good: The blame for the 3.65 GAA cannot entirely be pinned on the keepers…but a great deal of it can. All three goalies have losing records and GAA and SV% that are below their NHL career averages. The butt ugly numbers:
Kari Lehtonen: 5-11-2 with a .900 SV%, 3.41 GAA and 1 SO.
Johan Hedberg: 6-7-3 with a .887 SV%, 3.62 GAA and 0 SO.
Ondrej Pavelec: 3-6-0 with a .884 SV%, 3.55 GAA and 0 SO.
I’ll start with Opie…he’s right where he needs to be now, in Chicago. Like last year, he was called upon to fill in for an injured Lehtonen. Also like last year, he started out strong, winning his first two starts after making 6 saves on 6 shots in relief of Moose in New Jersey last November. But in his last two losses before being thrown back to the Wolves he allowed 8 goals on only 18 shots in 45:25 TOI. Even with the good start in Ottawa between those two steamers, in his last 3 starts he let up 9 goals on 38 shots, (.763 SV%) during 105:25 TOI…a 5.14 GAA.
Oh, and did I mention, he could be going under the knife?
Grade: N/A - Sent back for remedial classes.
Moose, the backup keeper, is 6-7-3…going 3-4-3 in the second quarter of the season. His GAA is the highest of the three, but he has the best win/loss record of the trio and he’s also the only one to have won three consecutives starts this season.
Grade: C
Kari…His record prior to the injury was 2-5-2 with a .904 SV% and 3.44 GAA. Since returning after 21 games out, he is 3-6-0 and his GAA is a virtual unchanged 3.41 and the SV% is now .900. Kari has not won back-to-back starts since his last two of the previous season. While he will show flashes of brilliance at times…see also the 29-save shutout in New Jersey, the solid 26 saves on 28 shots performance against Boston and the 35 saves from 38 Vancouver shots in a shootout win…he always seems to follow them up with stink bombs. I’ll admit, a lot of the grade that I give him stems from “expectations”…but that comes with the territory of being considered the teams “Premier Goalie”. Unfortunately, that is a label he has all but lost in the first half of this season.
Grade: F
Also un-good is the fact that this organ-I-zation fails to employ a true goalkeeper coach. Steve Weeks acts as such, but…as glovesave29 has pointed out…is normally running drills at practice, not working with Kari, Moose and Opie. This may have something to do with what ails us between the pipes, maybe not. Regardless, this is a professional sports franchise and to not bring in the necessary help for these guys is downright negligent by Don Waddell the Spirit Boys.
But then… that’s pretty much par for the course when it comes to these clowns.
The Ugly: Again, Pavs’ starts against Boston and Pittsburgh as well as Kari’s third period in Florida Saturday. You or I could not have done worse in those situations.
The Summary: If the first half of the season is indicative of what is to come, the Kari Lehtonen era in Atlanta is but months…if not weeks…away from being officially over.
Overall Team Grade: D, (Down from C-).
