Atlanta Thrashers 2010 Preview & Predictions

Atlanta Thrashers 2010 Season Preview, Predictions Picks & Odds

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ATLANTA THRASHERS

2009-10 record: 35-34-13
Shootout Record: 4-6
Division Finish:2nd, Southeast
Conference Finish: 10th, Eastern
Goals For: 234
Goals Against: 256

Atlanta Thrashers 2010 Preview

New Coach Craig Ramsay had a 257pound welcoming gift when he took office in June. Namely Dustin Byfuglien, a huge, in more ways than one, piece of the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup run and just one weapon Ramsay intends to use to get the Thrashers on the same road as Chicago.

The Thrashers remain the only Eastern team not to have made an appearance in the Conference Final, and general manager Rick Dudley, who had arrived only a few weeks before Ramsay, quickly went to work.

Byfuglien, with 11 playoff goals that all seemed to be of vital importance, was part of a nine-player swap. Also coming south from the champions were defenseman Brent Sopel and forwards Ben Eager and Akirn Aliu.

For a team trying to move past the departure of star winger llya Kovalchuk, this was the perfect relaunch.

Dudley had a hand in raising Southeast Division rival Tampa Bay to the 2004 Cup champions and knows the inner workings of Atlanta from his time as associate GM. He puts his faith in scouting, including eyewitness verification.

Another sure method to see improvement is to cut down on distractions and improve the level of goaltending. Neither proved easy last season when the Kovalchuk saga of will-he-or-won’t-he-stay dragged through to the trade deadline.

With great reluctance, the Thrashers parted company with their offensive star, but he did fetch them rookie Niclas Bergfors from New Jersey, a right winger who thrived in the South with 17 points in 27 games and two game-winning goals. Bergfors’s 217 shots were the most by a rookie, more than 30 ahead of the next kid, John Tavares.

And Evander Kane showed the homegrown talent cupboard isn’t exactly bare. The highest forward picked by the Thrashers since Kovalchuk, he had 26 points in 66 games, and between Kane and Bergfors, one or the other made the top 10 of nine different rookie offensive categories.

Kane and Rich Peverley later gave a helping hand to Team Canada at the World Championship.

The Thrashers did import some reliable help as big defenseman Pavel Kubina came back to the division after a couple of years in Toronto (though he departed in the summer as a free agent), joined by huge Leaf forward Nik Antropov, who had brief success with Kovalchuk. One of the League’s most exciting skaters, Maxim Afinogenov, also came aboard along with Buffalo Sabres teammate Clarke MacArthur. Antropov and Afinogenov both found the back of the net 24 times.

However, putting away opponents over 60 minutes proved far too difficult for this club, which was involved in a whopping 45 one-goal games, yet could win just 17 of them. Though they had slightly more regulation wins than losses, those missed chances came back to haunt them come April, when they finished five points out of the running.

As for goaltending, 23-year-old Ondrej Pavelec played half the games and was saddled with seven of the 13 overtime losses. Johan Hedberg offered some light at the end of the tunnel, starting with the team cutting 24 goals off its League-worst mark of 280 from the previous year. However, Hedberg departed as a free agent, replaced by the very able Chris Mason, formerly of St. Louis, who should be able to maintain that downward trajectory.

Atlanta must get off to another fast start it did raise eyebrows by winning four of its first five last year – and try to hold some of that pace through the winter. Just before Christmas, it went into a nine-game tailspin and never recovered.

2010 Atlanta Thrashers Offense:

The big question, of course, is how does Atlanta replace Kovalchuk, a two-time 50-goal scorer, who had 318 overall for the team in less than 600 games? Byfuglien will help, but more goals will have to come from a variety of sources or the Thrashers will have a pop-gun attack. Antropov, Afinogenov, Bergfors and Peverley were all 20-goal men. With nine scorers in double figures, Atlanta matched a couple of the teams that had made it into the playoffs. But there are a few Thrashers who can pick up the pace, such as winger Bryan Little, who had 31 goals two season ago but dropped way off to 13 in 2009-10, book-ended by horrendous slumps in October and March. Seven of Peverley’s goals were game winners, and remember that Bergfors and Kane still have some maturing to do. Bergfors’s six game winners tied James van Riemsdyk of the Flyers for first in the League among rookies.

2010 Atlanta Thrashers Defense:

Tobias Enstrom continues to back up his selection to the 2008 all-rookie team, with a career-best 44 assists to give him more than 100 in three seasons, in which the Swede has never missed a game. On the same topic, Ron Hainsey has missed just three games since signing as a free agent in 2008. Some saw Zach Bogosian’s drop to minus-18 from a rookie year of plus-11 as a huge setback, but he just turned 20 in the summer. His ice time went up three minutes a night to more than 20 overall and his 10 goals led the club’s blueline. Atlanta picked up the very reliable Johnny Oduya in the Kovalchuk trade, a player who has been plus-45 as a Devil for three years and was plus-six in a short span in the south. Pavel Kubina, reliable for every team he has played on, is consistently in the 40-point range, so that production will have to be replaced. Czech Boris Valabik, a 6’7″ first rounder from 2004, had his promising season interrupted by knee surgery.

2010 Atlanta Thrashers Goaltending:

Ondrej Pavelec did not respond well to the pressure of being a NO.1 last year, but that stage fright should not be a factor moving forward. Pavelec is a second rounder who led the Quebec league in goals-against average with 2.52 in ’06-07 and a year later was the best stopper in the AHL playoffs with 24 games and 16 wins for the Chicago Wolves. He ended up almost dividing the games equally with Hedberg, something that could happen again with Chris Mason. Regardless, the goaltenders will be under severe pressure if the club can’t find the scoring up-front to support them. Pavelec and the 37-year-old Hedberg combined for five shutouts last season as the latter suited up for 2,632 minutes and 21 wins, his most in both columns since his breakout season with the Penguins back in 2001-02.

Atlanta Thrashers 2010 Special Teams

Atlanta will strive again to be a top five team in road penalty killing, an often overlooked statistic. At a shade under 85%, Atlanta was bettered only by Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Jose and the Rangers. Much of that was due to good team shot blocking 16th in the League – while Peverley and Chris Thorburn combined for five short-handed goals, tied for second in the League with Vancouver and Dallas. Eight Thrashers managed at least three power-play goals, led by Bergfors’s nine, though eight came as a Devil. Byfuglien’s bulk should help, while Antropov had eight markers to give him a total of 28 during the past three seasons with Toronto, the Rangers and Atlanta. But as a team, the Thrashers obviously had shortcomings at the end of the schedule, sinking to 25th overall, despite having the seventh-most chances in the League.

Atlanta Thrashers 2010 Season Predictions

Three or four wins were all that was keeping Atlanta from making the playoffs last spring and a turnaround of a few one-goal decisions should be the difference. But this analysis has been made before and the team has just one playoff berth to show for it. Actions must speak louder this time.

We predict that the Atlanta Thrashers will finish 4th in NHL Southeast.

Atlanta Thrashers Betting

Atlanta Thrashers Stanley Cup Odds: +10000
Atlanta Thrashers Eastern Conference Odds: +4500

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