Over the weekend I was watching the NHL Network when the names of some of the remaining unrestricted free agents scrolled across the screen. One leaped out at me: Greg de Vries.
It was hard to understand why the Thrashers let him go in the first place, although I'm sure the fact that he made $2.75 million last season was a big part of it. De Vries has size and some offensive upside (former coach Bob Hartley once referred to him as his "secret weapon" for the shootouts even though that little experiment didn't last long) but most of all he's probably one of the top character guys the franchise has ever had.
From my modest view of things, the Thrashers' roster could use an infusion of leadership. Ilya Kovalchuk is the team's captain and he was lauded for his work as captain after receiving the "C" last season. No doubt, Kovalchuk has the respect of every player in that room, but going forward it remains to be seen over the long haul if he will continue to do all of the things that a captain needs to do, especially standing up after a tough loss, taking responsibility and saying all of the right things.
That has not always been Kovalchuk's strong suit, as youth and hot-headedness have caused him at difficult times either to ditch the media -- most often, to the credit of the team's public relations staff, he would be dragged back to talk long after he had showered and calmed down -- or he would say some intemperate things. (See MacTavish, Craig; Crosby, Sidney.)
And unless he signs a new contract some time by the end of December, Thrashers media availability sessions will become a circus concerning Kovalchuk's status, as they were in 2008 with Marian Hossa, as the trading deadline approaches.
For Kovalchuk, such circumstances could be far from an ideal, just in terms of team leadership implications alone, to put it mildly.
Having been out of the room on a daily basis for a little more than two years now, I cannot personally attest to the leadership qualities of every player on the roster. However, if I had to name the team's veteran leaders/character players who play key roles (especially with the loss of Garnet Exelby) I'd say they are Slava Kozlov, who can be media shy himself at times, Colby Armstrong, Marty Reasoner, Ron Hainsey and Johan Hedberg, who, as a back-up goaltender, is hardly in much of a position to lead. (I'm not saying that Eric Boulton, Jim Slater and Chris Thorburn aren't good character players -- to the contrary, they are -- but defensemen log significantly more minutes than third- and fourth-liners and play a more integral role.)
That seems a little thin to my liking, especially on the backline where Hainsey appears to be the only player in a position to lead. Maybe Pavel Kubina will be a great leader, but I'm not quite sure that's his reputation or skill set.
Now let's take a look at what you get in de Vries, who, despite his age, hasn't played fewer than 71 games in a season over the last four and twice played a full 82 in his two seasons in Atlanta. At the end of the 2007-08 season, de Vries played with a broken rib. Notably, he scored the game-winning goal over St. Louis in the second-to-last game of the season as Nashville earned the Western Conference's final playoff berth by only three points.
That's character and it's leading by example. What's more, de Vries is a calming influence, always saying the right things at difficult times. He is one of those players who helps to build team unity, as he did in Atlanta by being one of the ring leaders of team paintball games.
There's also the small matter of his having played in 111 playoff games in 10 different seasons, winning the Stanley Cup in 2001 with Colorado.
Yes, he will be 37 during the season, but who would you rather have as a third-pair defenseman, deVo or Joel Kwiatkowski, who will be 33 in March and whom the Thrashers thought they had signed until they learned that Kwiatkowski already had inked a deal to return to Russia?
For the record, de Vries is plus-23 in 878 NHL games while Kwiatkowski is minus-27 in 282 career games, albeit having played on mostly dreadful teams.
At this stage of his career, de Vries probably is not looking for a huge contract, but he likely would not play for the NHL minimum ($525,000) either. The question is whether Thrashers general manager Don Waddell has the budget for perhaps $1 million for de Vries and whether de Vries would want to return.
Last year the Thrashers were keen on having defenseman Mathieu Schneider to help in the tutelage of budding star Zach Bogosian and, by all accounts, the experiment went well. In that sense, money for de Vries would go to that same good, mentoring cause and would accomplish the same goal -- along with having a more than competent player at a key position.
Showing posts with label Thrashers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thrashers. Show all posts
Monday, July 13, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Comparing Contracts: Kotalik vs. Antropov
When I first saw the Thrashers' signing of Nik Antropov, I thought that four years at $4 million apiece for a two-time 20-goal scorer was a lot. The New York Rangers' signing on Thursday of Ales Kotalik, who received a three-year contract at $3 million per to replace Antropov on the Rangers' roster, essentially confirms that.
Let's take a look at the two players. NHL.com lists Antropov as a center, but for the last few years he's moved to right wing (where TSN.ca lists him). NHL.com lists Kotalik as a left winger/right winger. So, for all intents and purposes, if Atlanta was looking for a right winger to play with Ilya Kovalchuk, both players were available.
Antropov is 29 and was selected 10th overall in 1998. Kotalik was a sixth-rounder in the same draft year, which basically makes them the same age, although Kotalik is 30. Kotalik has played seven NHL seasons (only 13 games in his rookie season) and has scored 121 goals or an average of 17.3 per season. Throw out that one goal in his rookie season and he's averaging a round 20 goals per season and has hit that plateau four times.
On the other hand, Antropov has nine NHL seasons under his belt and 132 goals for an average of 14.7 per season.
That's a difference, conservatively, of eight goals over three seasons and, using Kotalik's higher average, of almost 16. Yet Antropov will make $1 million more per season and got an extra year.
Let's look at assists now. Kotalik has 130 in his career for an average of 18.6 per season while Antropov has 172 for 19.1, which makes them roughly a wash.
If Atlanta is counting on Antropov to produce at a higher level because he will play on the same line with Kovalchuk, consider that Antropov played with for several seasons in Toronto with one of the game's premier centers in Mats Sundin. In the second-most productive year of Antropov's career, he scored 26 goals when Sundin had 46 assists.
Kovalchuk has averaged 37 assists per season in his career and has never had more than 48, his total of 2008-09, so unless the Thrashers can find a center to channel 50 or 60 assists (Angelo Esposito, anyone?) they can basically expect Antropov to score somewhere between 17 and 25 goals.
Anything more than that and he'd clearly be producing beyond his historical levels.
One factor that Antropov does have on his side is size. At 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, he's one of the game's biggest players, especially in terms of skilled forwards. Kotalik is 6-1, 227, which doesn't exactly make him a tiny.
But if Atlanta is hoping for durability out of that size, Kotalik again has the edge: He has averaged 63.6 games per season to Antropov's 58.6. (Remove that 13-game rookie season and Kotalik again rockets to an avearage of 74.2; Antropov, in his third season, played only 11 games and had a 34-game stint that season in the American Hockey League.)
One final comparison. Should Atlanta make the second playoff appearance in franchise history next season (which, in itself, would likely seal the Antropov deal as having been worth it), Antropov does not have the greatest postseason history. In 35 games, he has four goals and four assists for eight points. His best season was this past one when he truly was one of the Rangers' best players against Washington in the first round. He totaled two goals and one assist in seven games on a very low-scoring team.
Kotalik? How about 15 points in 34 games. So, Kotalik has seven more playoff points -- which are like gold -- in one less game. Again, in fairness, Kotalik's Buffalo teams were much better than any that Antropov played on but he nonetheless performed, posting back-to-back seasons of 8 points in 18 and 16 games, respectively. For that, he deserves credit.
I don't mean to sound overly negative about Antropov -- I wrote and I believe that he will be a good fit with Kovalchuk and overall I think he improves the team -- but I'm just looking at his value in terms of what Atlanta paid.
If they signed him in large part with the design of pleasing his pal Kovalchuk and hoping that Kovalchuk would re-sign beyond the coming season, their plan had best work. If not, they could be looking at three years of a disgruntled Nik Antropov who could struggle to perform at a $4-million level if history is any indicator.
Let's take a look at the two players. NHL.com lists Antropov as a center, but for the last few years he's moved to right wing (where TSN.ca lists him). NHL.com lists Kotalik as a left winger/right winger. So, for all intents and purposes, if Atlanta was looking for a right winger to play with Ilya Kovalchuk, both players were available.
Antropov is 29 and was selected 10th overall in 1998. Kotalik was a sixth-rounder in the same draft year, which basically makes them the same age, although Kotalik is 30. Kotalik has played seven NHL seasons (only 13 games in his rookie season) and has scored 121 goals or an average of 17.3 per season. Throw out that one goal in his rookie season and he's averaging a round 20 goals per season and has hit that plateau four times.
On the other hand, Antropov has nine NHL seasons under his belt and 132 goals for an average of 14.7 per season.
That's a difference, conservatively, of eight goals over three seasons and, using Kotalik's higher average, of almost 16. Yet Antropov will make $1 million more per season and got an extra year.
Let's look at assists now. Kotalik has 130 in his career for an average of 18.6 per season while Antropov has 172 for 19.1, which makes them roughly a wash.
If Atlanta is counting on Antropov to produce at a higher level because he will play on the same line with Kovalchuk, consider that Antropov played with for several seasons in Toronto with one of the game's premier centers in Mats Sundin. In the second-most productive year of Antropov's career, he scored 26 goals when Sundin had 46 assists.
Kovalchuk has averaged 37 assists per season in his career and has never had more than 48, his total of 2008-09, so unless the Thrashers can find a center to channel 50 or 60 assists (Angelo Esposito, anyone?) they can basically expect Antropov to score somewhere between 17 and 25 goals.
Anything more than that and he'd clearly be producing beyond his historical levels.
One factor that Antropov does have on his side is size. At 6-foot-6 and 230 pounds, he's one of the game's biggest players, especially in terms of skilled forwards. Kotalik is 6-1, 227, which doesn't exactly make him a tiny.
But if Atlanta is hoping for durability out of that size, Kotalik again has the edge: He has averaged 63.6 games per season to Antropov's 58.6. (Remove that 13-game rookie season and Kotalik again rockets to an avearage of 74.2; Antropov, in his third season, played only 11 games and had a 34-game stint that season in the American Hockey League.)
One final comparison. Should Atlanta make the second playoff appearance in franchise history next season (which, in itself, would likely seal the Antropov deal as having been worth it), Antropov does not have the greatest postseason history. In 35 games, he has four goals and four assists for eight points. His best season was this past one when he truly was one of the Rangers' best players against Washington in the first round. He totaled two goals and one assist in seven games on a very low-scoring team.
Kotalik? How about 15 points in 34 games. So, Kotalik has seven more playoff points -- which are like gold -- in one less game. Again, in fairness, Kotalik's Buffalo teams were much better than any that Antropov played on but he nonetheless performed, posting back-to-back seasons of 8 points in 18 and 16 games, respectively. For that, he deserves credit.
I don't mean to sound overly negative about Antropov -- I wrote and I believe that he will be a good fit with Kovalchuk and overall I think he improves the team -- but I'm just looking at his value in terms of what Atlanta paid.
If they signed him in large part with the design of pleasing his pal Kovalchuk and hoping that Kovalchuk would re-sign beyond the coming season, their plan had best work. If not, they could be looking at three years of a disgruntled Nik Antropov who could struggle to perform at a $4-million level if history is any indicator.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Thoughts on Kubina Deal
If the Thrashers felt that they were too small of a team last season, they certainly would appear to have one of the biggest top fours in the NHL with the addition of 6-foot-4 Pavel Kubina. Kubina goes with 6-2 Zach Bogosian and 6-3 Ron Hainsey and 5-10 Tobias Enstrom.
New Atlanta associate general manager Rick Dudley's fingerprints have to be all over this deal, as Dudley was general manager in Tampa Bay for several seasons while Kubina was on the team.
Kubina brings a big shot and his 17 goals in 2003-04 for Tampa (during its Stanley Cup season) tied for the league lead among all defensemen.
Over the last two seasons, Kubina posted back-to-back 40-point totals and was a plus-player in his first two seasons with the Leafs on bad teams -- both positive signs for Atlanta. The biggest challenge in using Kubina for Atlanta will be how coach John Anderson manages ice time between Kubina, 32, and defenseman Tobias Enstrom, 24, who represents the future.
The Thrashers now have something that they have never had in their history: some huge minute-munchers on the back line. To me, the most telling statistic for a defenseman, and truly players in general, is time on ice because it shows which player or players the coach has the most confidence in. If a guy is on the ice the most, there's a reason.
Last season Enstrom led the Thrashers in ice time at 23:31 and Hainsey ranked second at 22:22. Bogosian averaged 18:06, impressive for a rookie, especially considering the length of time he missed with injury. Expect his ice time to rocket upwards in Season Two.
Last season for Toronto, Kubina ranked third in average time on ice at 22:03 behind Tomas Kaberle and Ian White. Rookie Luke Schenn ranked only 31 seconds behind Kubina, which is probably what made Kubina expendable, along with his $5 million salary. Schenn is the future while Kubina represents the past as Leafs general manager Brian Burke cleans house to build his type of team.
In that sense, Garnet Exelby, once known as one of the game's premier hitters, is right up Burke's alley. The big challenge for Exelby, especially playing in Toronto under that huge microscope, will be re-establishing that reputation.
I know there had been feeling around some in the Thrashers organization for years that Exelby's physical side had slipped because of his concussion history and that he was not nearly the fearsome presence on the ice that he once was. (Leafs fans surely will talk over and over about the hit that Exelby put on Mats Sundin a few years back.)
Exelby, one of my favorite players when I covered the team, is a strong character guy and was stepping into his own as a team leader, even with his ice time ranking him as the team's No. 4 defenseman. From the comments that I read after games, he was willing to speak up, take responsibility and say when performances were not up to snuff.
But back to Enstrom. For much of the first two thirds of last season, he regressed from his strong rookie year after the team acquired Mathieu Schneider and Schneider received more minutes and more power play time. Once Schneider was traded to Montreal, however, Enstrom flourished.
Will Kubina's acquisition represent a repeat for Enstrom: High-salaried, offensively skilled defenseman reduces Enstrom's time and, as a consequence, his productivity?
Certainly, Enstrom is an enormous part of the Thrashers' future and impeding his development would not help the franchise. The biggest challenge for coach John Anderson will be managing the ice time between Kubina and Enstrom so that both produce.
There's one other possible caution for Atlanta in the deal. Could Kubina represent a replay of the signing of Jaroslav Modry? Like Kubina, Modry was a big, Czech defenseman with offensive upside who could play big minutes.
Unfortunately, what the Thrashers learned in the 2005-06 season, to their surprise, was that defensively Modry was one of those defenders who made his way in the pre-lockout NHL as an obstructionist.
When the new rules came into effect, Modry was a step (or two) too slow and often had to resort to hooking or holding which landed him far too often in the penalty box. As a result, Atlanta could not play him against other teams top offensive lines since he was too much of a liability and Modry became mostly a power play specialist, where he succeeded with 38 points. The next year, he was shipped to Dallas.
Modry was 34 when he played his first season for Atlanta. Kubina is 32. In all likelihood, Kubina is a far better skater than Modry was, has that benefit of being two years younger than Modry was, and there's no new rules to skew any analysis of his game.
But for Atlanta to be a playoff team, they'll need Kubina to return to being a plus player, which he has been three of the last five seasons but which he never was for the first six of his NHL career.
Those were mostly bad teams (although the 2002-03 Lightning were a playoff team), but they were not all that different from Atlanta has been for the last two.
How this trade works out should define the Thrashers' season.
New Atlanta associate general manager Rick Dudley's fingerprints have to be all over this deal, as Dudley was general manager in Tampa Bay for several seasons while Kubina was on the team.
Kubina brings a big shot and his 17 goals in 2003-04 for Tampa (during its Stanley Cup season) tied for the league lead among all defensemen.
Over the last two seasons, Kubina posted back-to-back 40-point totals and was a plus-player in his first two seasons with the Leafs on bad teams -- both positive signs for Atlanta. The biggest challenge in using Kubina for Atlanta will be how coach John Anderson manages ice time between Kubina, 32, and defenseman Tobias Enstrom, 24, who represents the future.
The Thrashers now have something that they have never had in their history: some huge minute-munchers on the back line. To me, the most telling statistic for a defenseman, and truly players in general, is time on ice because it shows which player or players the coach has the most confidence in. If a guy is on the ice the most, there's a reason.
Last season Enstrom led the Thrashers in ice time at 23:31 and Hainsey ranked second at 22:22. Bogosian averaged 18:06, impressive for a rookie, especially considering the length of time he missed with injury. Expect his ice time to rocket upwards in Season Two.
Last season for Toronto, Kubina ranked third in average time on ice at 22:03 behind Tomas Kaberle and Ian White. Rookie Luke Schenn ranked only 31 seconds behind Kubina, which is probably what made Kubina expendable, along with his $5 million salary. Schenn is the future while Kubina represents the past as Leafs general manager Brian Burke cleans house to build his type of team.
In that sense, Garnet Exelby, once known as one of the game's premier hitters, is right up Burke's alley. The big challenge for Exelby, especially playing in Toronto under that huge microscope, will be re-establishing that reputation.
I know there had been feeling around some in the Thrashers organization for years that Exelby's physical side had slipped because of his concussion history and that he was not nearly the fearsome presence on the ice that he once was. (Leafs fans surely will talk over and over about the hit that Exelby put on Mats Sundin a few years back.)
Exelby, one of my favorite players when I covered the team, is a strong character guy and was stepping into his own as a team leader, even with his ice time ranking him as the team's No. 4 defenseman. From the comments that I read after games, he was willing to speak up, take responsibility and say when performances were not up to snuff.
But back to Enstrom. For much of the first two thirds of last season, he regressed from his strong rookie year after the team acquired Mathieu Schneider and Schneider received more minutes and more power play time. Once Schneider was traded to Montreal, however, Enstrom flourished.
Will Kubina's acquisition represent a repeat for Enstrom: High-salaried, offensively skilled defenseman reduces Enstrom's time and, as a consequence, his productivity?
Certainly, Enstrom is an enormous part of the Thrashers' future and impeding his development would not help the franchise. The biggest challenge for coach John Anderson will be managing the ice time between Kubina and Enstrom so that both produce.
There's one other possible caution for Atlanta in the deal. Could Kubina represent a replay of the signing of Jaroslav Modry? Like Kubina, Modry was a big, Czech defenseman with offensive upside who could play big minutes.
Unfortunately, what the Thrashers learned in the 2005-06 season, to their surprise, was that defensively Modry was one of those defenders who made his way in the pre-lockout NHL as an obstructionist.
When the new rules came into effect, Modry was a step (or two) too slow and often had to resort to hooking or holding which landed him far too often in the penalty box. As a result, Atlanta could not play him against other teams top offensive lines since he was too much of a liability and Modry became mostly a power play specialist, where he succeeded with 38 points. The next year, he was shipped to Dallas.
Modry was 34 when he played his first season for Atlanta. Kubina is 32. In all likelihood, Kubina is a far better skater than Modry was, has that benefit of being two years younger than Modry was, and there's no new rules to skew any analysis of his game.
But for Atlanta to be a playoff team, they'll need Kubina to return to being a plus player, which he has been three of the last five seasons but which he never was for the first six of his NHL career.
Those were mostly bad teams (although the 2002-03 Lightning were a playoff team), but they were not all that different from Atlanta has been for the last two.
How this trade works out should define the Thrashers' season.
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