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Thrashers building with long-term plan
You have to be pleased with what the Thrashers are trying to do: Aiming for some immediate excitement but building with a long-term plan. General manager Don Waddell, who seems more like a seasoned suit than a rookie GM, says the Thrashers will play an aggressive style. Bravo. The expansion Nashville Predators were aggressive in 1998-99, and though they fell far short of the last playoff berth in the Western Conference, they were at least more interesting to watch than some teams that did go to the postseason. A look at what the Thrashers got in the expansion draft Friday, and considering what they might get in coming days as they trade and trade some more, reveals this truth: They'll play their aggressive style with only minimal offensive ability. Of the players Atlanta drafted, St. Louis forward Terry Yake had the most points last season -- a meager nine goals and 18 assists. Also Atlanta appears set to go to battle with goalies -- Damian Rhodes whom they acquired in a trade from Ottawa last week, and backup Norm Maracle whom they plucked from the Red Wings in Friday's expansion draft -- who are talented but who could easily be rattled by the pressure of a high-flying style. Advice to Thrashers fans: Enjoy the running and gunning this year and don't let the losing get to you. There will be better days. The Thrashers assembled the basis for a young team, with an average age of 25. Of the veterans, Capitals defenseman Mark Tinordi will be taken by someone as a free agent in July (The Thrashers will get compensatory draft picks in return, which is why they took him) but Edmonton's aged winger Kelly Buchberger could be in Atlanta to stay. He could be a fine captain, warrior and leader for this green team for a couple of years. Waddell is wisely pointing this team beyond the millennium. He passed up the opportunity to take potentially potent veteran goal scorer Geoff Sanderson from the Sabres, for example, because Buffalo agreed to trade him rugged young forward Dean Sylvester; Atlanta also got the Sabres' Darryl Shannon in the draft. Already, some of the players who made up the Thrashers historic first team are gone. Flamboyant goalie Trevor Kidd (taken from Carolina) was sent to Florida for Gord Murphy and two other players; defenseman Jamie Pushor (from Anaheim) was dealt to Phoenix for a draft pick and Peter Ferraro was sent back to Boston in exchange for center Randy Robitaille the AHL's second-leading scorer this year. Robitaille is just the sort of young player who might one day be on a winning team in Atlanta In explaining why he took forward Johan Garpenlov from the Panthers, Waddell said that he thought that, "in the right circumstances Garpenlov could score 15 goals for us." Even in today's low-scoring NHL, that's not much of an offensive threat. The Thrashers will be fun to watch this year but they're not going to pot a lot of goals, and they're not going to win many games. The goal scoring, and the winning, are for the next millennium.
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