Friday, July 10, 2009

What Just Happened Here? Atlanta Thrashers

Blogger: Vance
Movin' on to that team in the Southeast.



Free agents:
C Eric Perrin, 750,000 (u)
D Nathan Oystrick, 577,500 (u)
C Chris Thorburn, 535,000 (u)
G Kari Lehtonen, 3,000,000 (r)
RW Colby Armstrong, 1,200,000 (r)
D Boris Valabik, 925,000 (r)
C Jim Slater, 800,000 (r)

In
RW Nik Antropov, 4 years, $16M (Rangers)
C Chris Thorburn (re-signed)
C Jim Slater (re-signed)
D Joel Kwiatkowski, terms undisclosed (Russia)

Trade In
D Pavel Kubina, 1 year, $5M
C Tim Stapleton, RFA

Out:


Trade Out:
D Garnet Exelby
C Colin Sturt


What do I think about the moves here? Well outside of needing to sign their franchise goaltender to an extension, you can't really say they haven't done anything to hurt themselves, but probably more like appease Ilya Kovalchuk. There's a bit of criticism of Don Waddell (when isn't there?) going around that he's not really improving his team, but simply showing Kovalchuk that he's bringing in guys to play with him, hoping for that extension.

But honestly, how is bringing in the best players from Toronto, who finished...well, we all know where they finished...into Atlanta going to improve your team? An interesting thought to say the least.

Now the funny story with the Thrashers offseason. Waddell signed Joel Kwiatkoski to a contract...days after he had already signed a deal with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL. Kwiatkowski doesn't have an agent, he represents himself, so apparently he wasn't aware of all the, you know, rules. Guess what? He's headed back to Russia.
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