Micheal Aldred

Sudbury, ON • Canada • 27 Years Old • Male

Preview: Atlanta Thrashers

Primary Staff: Rick Dudley (GM) Craig Ramsay
2009-10 Stats: 82GP 35W 34L 13OTL 83PTS
Place: 2nd Southeast, 10th East, 23rd NHL
Top Scorer: Nik Antropov – 24G 43A 67P
Captains: None

OFF-SEASON MOVES

OUT:

Joey Crabb (Dealt to Chicago)
Marty Reasoner (Dealt to Chicago)
Colby Armstrong (Free Agent)
Johan Hedberg (Free Agent)
Pavel Kubina (Free Agent)
Todd White (Dealt to NY Rangers)
Colin Stuart (Free Agent)
Clarke MacArthur (Free Agent)

IN:

Brent Sopel (Acquired from Chicago)
Ben Eager (Acquired from Chicago)
Dustin Byfuglien (Acquired from Chicago)
Andrew Ladd (Acquired from Chicago)
Chris Mason (Free Agent)
Donald Brashear (Acquired from Rangers)
Freddy Meyer (Free Agent)

The Atlanta Thrashers are a bit of a strange team. Instead of rebuilding or adding to the club, they simply retooled their depth. A few role players (Armstrong, White) and one of their best defencemen (Kubina) were out, and in came more youth (Byfuglien, Ladd) and grit (Brashear, Eager, Meyer). They dealt away goaltender Kari Lehtonen to the Dallas Stars at the deadline, allowing Ondrej Pavelec to grab the bull by the horns in net, and then added experienced and consistent netminder Chris Mason in the summer.

While Ilya Kovalchuk remains the club’s biggest loss over the last season, the additions of Ladd and Byfuglien and the potential arrival of Angelo Esposito and Alex Burmistrov, compounded with a more experienced Bryan Little and Evander Kane could be more than enough to off-set Kovalchuk’s departure.

The Thrashers announced today that newcomer Dustin Byfuglien will kick off training camp as a defenceman. Scoring is still an issue with this club, especially with Kovalchuk’s 40+ goals now displaced from the score-sheet, so moving a top six power forward to a number 5 or 6 defenceman could be costly. Byfuglien will be utilized as a net presence for the team’s powerplay, but his services could be better accommodated as a forward than a defenceman. This could prove to be a significant error on behalf of head coach Craig Ramsay.

Prediction: 3rd Southeast, 12th East

THRASHERS DEPTH CHART

Andrew Ladd – Nik Antropov – Niclas Bergfors
Evander Kane – Rich Peverley – Bryan Little
Ben Eager – Jim Slater – Chris Thorburn
Eric Boulton – Jared Ross – Patrick Rissmiller
Jason Krog
Spencer Machacek

Tobias Enstrom – Ron Hainsey
Zach Bogosian – Dustin Byfuglien
Johnny Oduya – Brent Sopel
Freddy Meyer – Boris Valabik

Ondrej Pavelec
Chris Mason
Peter Mannino

For more articles by Micheal Aldred, visit http://www.thecheckingline.com