My conclusion: we needed 5 or 6 points in the next three to consider ourselves buyers. Good luck, Thrashers!

I’m with you. We’ll know after this week what path the Thrashers should take at the deadline. I think they can be sellers and maintain their odds of making the playoffs. Trading Armstrong and replacing him with Machacek (and Cormier next year assuming he doesn’t kill anyone between now and then), trading Kari/Moose for a prospect/draft pick, and moving Kozlov (if he waives his NTC) and replacing him with just about anybody, and possibly moving Kubina and replacing him with Kulda, Lehman, or Denny. The Kubina trade is the riskiest but if the Thrashers are winless this week…. who cares.

If Kubina, Armstrong and Afinogenov don’t want to re-sign they should probably be traded. I wasn’t excited about Schubert coming here to begin with. It would be fine with me if he was traded. I think that Kozlov has earned the right to leave if that’s what he wants. He signed here 3 years ago for less than Dallas offered and while that really has not been a good deal overall for the Thrashers, still, I feel that he’s paid his dues and should be traded if he wants that. I was not at Saturday’s game, but with the scoresheet reporting that he played only 10 minutes, it would seem that Slava does not fit into the Thrashers’ current plans and he might as well go to a team where he could at least play.

Whitney seems to have something left, but at his age he’s not going to be part of the future here and it would be a waste of resources to bring him here. I’d rather see the team consider Ponikarovsky as a free agent signing than to give up anything worthwhile to get him now.

Of DW’s biggest mistakes (whether influenced by ownership or not), holding those ufas in 2008 was among the worst, in my opinion. I’d hate to see the same mistake made now.

I think you’re absolutely right on this one, Falconer. The road trip will determine the rest of this season, whether we or the team like it or not. These are huge games.

I am alright with going a midway on this, if we have players that do not want to resign with us, maybe we should trade them…but players like Kubina, that DW hinted may be resigned, and make a large difference for this team, I think we should keep…and if we can take some of Chicago’s salary cap dump that they’ll do before the trade deadline or during the summer…I think we need to do our best to be on the receiving end of that deal (depending on the players of course).

“If we believe we can resign a quality player (Kubina) then we should have DW chatting with their agent between now and the end of the Olympics and get to the real feasibility of doing so.”

 That is what was referenced in Falconer’s post about the STH meeting.

“Q What about other UFAs on the roster? Waddell: We’re been pretty busy with Kovalchuk thing and have possible goalie trade coming up. Kubina—we plan to begin talks with his agent during Olympic break. [After session was over I asked Waddell if they would re-sign Kubina if it meant having 5 quality D who make all make some $? He said yes and he was hopeful that an extension could be worked out.]”

You left out one pending UFA-Johan Hedberg-of dubious trade value but absolutely crucial to whether the Thrashers have a chance to make the playoffs.

There’s an interesting parallel between this year and the last time Hedberg was the # 1 goalie on a playoff contender, 2001-2 with Pittsburgh. That was also an Olympic year (not terribly important, I don’t think) and the Pens were the post-Jagr trade Pens, they had made the playoffs the year before, their defense was about the same (not very good) but they had fallen off quite a bit offensively as you might expect. Anyway, a week before the Olympic break they were in 10th place, only 4 points out of the top 8 with a game in hand over Montreal (8th). Hedberg had been a important part of their success-he had 6 shutouts before the Olympic break and a .911 sv pct.

Let’s hope the rest of the story is not the same this year: the Pens lost all four games before the Olympic break and spiralled out of contention with only 16 points in their final 28 games. Hedberg had an .887 sv pct and no shutouts.

No one deserves more credit than Hedberg who has made an astounding turnaround and either revived his career or can go into retirement with his best numbers ever. For his sake, I hope he can hold the fort in these next crucial games.

Worrying about 88 pts. or whatever is not what we need to look at….We’re a point out right now. We have a bunch of picks and a couple UFA’s that might not want to come back. I understand that pick are real valuable to a franchise like the Thrash, but we also just picked up a rookie and blue chip prospect. I think that makes a pick or two expendable in order to grab a scorer for the last stretch. There is something like 23 games in March/April, most of which are at home. Lets go for it! We still have plenty of pieces in place (and cap space for UFA’s) for a bright future regardless.

I’ll have to wait until the Olympic break to make a decision on whether to buy or sell for sure but right now I’m leaning sell. Unless DW is dead certain that a player can be resigned, every effort needs to be made to get the maximum return for him. True, we have some good pieces but we need more. I think that trading away “extra” picks or prospects in order to squeeze into the playoffs this season would be a mistake and would only add to future mediocrety.

seeing how we prolly wont come up with a win in April (twice vs PITT, twice vs WASH, and once vs NJ), and we’ll most likely get 2 pts out of 10 at BEST, I think it would be foolish to pretend we can make the playoffs. Even if we do make it, is it really going to be a morale boost to the team and fans to be swept again?? We’re just not a team ready for the playoffs, and acquiring a Whitney or someone else isn’t going to turn the tables against teams like Wash. and Pitt. I agree with what someone else said in here about making a decision and sticking with it. We traded kovalchuk to get young guys and assets for the future in exchange for greatly hurting our playoff chances. Now lets continue that strategy and wait for better seasons to come, instead of going the Tkachuk route.

4 out of 6 it is in the end.
not bad, but thinking with a bit of luck it really could have been 6 out of 6 is painful.