The Thrashers 2009-2010 campaign winds to a close today. The Penguins come into the game as heavy favorites, but the Thrashers have a habit of winning the meaningless final home game and hurting their draft position each spring.

Coming into this season the Thrashers increased payroll to significantly. According to www.capgeek.com the Thrashers will end up with a $52.0 million cap hit for the season, this represents a jump from the $45.4 hit the season before.

How much better are the Thrashers after spending an addition $6.5 million? One year ago they finished with 76 points and by this evening they will have either 81, 82 or 83 points. Let's say they get one point for an Overtime Loss. That would be a six point gain at the cost of $6 million in additional salary. That is a terrible return on investment. At that rate the Thrashers could go from $52 cap hit to a $59 cap max and only gain 7 more points to reach 89 points (which would normally be shy of the playoffs, but this year would just barely get them in).

One year ago the Thrashers finished 27th overall (and had the 4th overall draft pick). Right now the Thrashers are 23rd in the NHL and would pick 8th. A Thrashers loss and a Carolina win and Atlanta could drop down to 24th and have the 7th overall draft position (pending the small chance of moving up or down in the draft lottery on Tuesday).

These are the cold hard facts. After spending nearly $7 million more on the team the Thrashers are again out of the playoffs, only 5-7 points better than last year and have moved up ONLY four spots in the standings (from 27th a year ago to 23rd). The East was very weak this year--which obscures the fact that the Thrashers made only baby steps towards contending. A lot of fans are pretty disappointed with this season--they should be--it was a big missed opportunity.

Thrashers play Leafs. Discuss. Or go check out the 1,000 comments at Pension Plan Puppets.

(Sorry but I'm sick and worn out from work).

Coach Anderson said that the Thrashers will need to turn the page rather quickly after Tuesday's loss to Boston. Honestly, I will be amazed if there isn't some carry over into tonight's game against Toronto. The Leafs have one of the best records in the NHL over their last ten games. If the Thrashers can get out of the 1st period with the game tied it would be a major surprise to me.

To check up on Toronto, head over to Pension Plan Puppets where they typically have a separate thread for each period of a game! The guys there have a sense a humor and the recent struggles of the team have instilled in them a sense of modesty rarely seen in Leafs fans :)

Watching the Thrashers last night was pretty rough. In fact, I nearly turned the game off, and I almost never think about turning off a live hockey game.

It was a night where not a whole lot went right for the Thrashers: they were beat at even-strength, they were beat at special teams, they were beat on a penalty shot. They lost an important game to a division rival that clearly wanted the win more. After a strong start, the Thrashers ended up on a couple successive penalty kills and just never regained momentum.

In a game where the Thrashers were outscored 4-2 at even-strength, the "180 Line" of Little - Antropov - Bergfors ended up as a +3 with 3 points (that's +1, 1 point each) and a total of 12 shots.

12 shots! Compare that to the Peverley line (6 shots, -5, 1 point total) and the Kane/Artyukhin-Slater-Armstrong line (4 shots, -2, 2 points between the 4)... Clearly the Thrashers have found a solid top line. More on these guys after the jump...

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Atlanta Thrashers		New York Islanders
Philips Arena
7:00PM
TV: None
Radio: 680 the FAN
SBNation: Game page, Lighthouse Hockey
TSN Coverage
Johan Hedberg		Dwayne Roloson
(15-9-5, .917% 2.54)		(20-13-6, .909 2.86)

Be like Mike Ron. Hit the jump for notes.

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Thrashers got their 1st ever regulation win up in Minnesota last night. If you missed the game, it was yet another "heart in your throat" affair as the team's playoff chances hung in the balance. After blowing a 3-1 against the Avalanche, the Thrashers were desperate for points as their rivals begin to win their contests. The 2 point win puts their playoff odds at 38%--a loss would have dropped them down to just 25%.

Highlights of the win over the Wild included a standout performance by defenseman Pavel Kubina, who played almost half of the game (26+ minutes) and picked up 2 assists. He had a great defensive play to break up a dangerous rush and on several occasions used his big body to hold pucks in the offensive zone.

The Little-Antro-Bergfors line continued to be very good with crisp passing and good pressure. Bergfors continues to show some terrific hands. He reminds me a bit of Slava Kozlov in his prime in that he holds the puck to the last possible second and then makes a clean pass to spring a teammate. Bergfors ended up getting the game winner on a shot he placed just under the blocker side crossbar.

Other heroes included Armstrong who made a nice dish to Evander Kane who showed a NHL release as his one-timer beat Backstrom. Late in the third, Minnesota made a push to get the game tied. The referees basically put away the whistle and chose not to call a trip against Minnesota, then the Thrashers Kane got away with a hit on Minnesota's goalie--which also went uncalled--until Ron Hainsey scored into the half empty net and THEN the whistle came out. The refs never should have stopped calling penalties, but they realized they were going to get in trouble with their supervisor for letting that one go and changed the standard with just 2 minutes left in the period. 

The Thrashers were then facing a 2 minute kill for the rest of the period--plus MIN could pull their goalie and make it a 2 skater advantage. But just 14 seconds into the PK, the Thrashers put forth a huge effort to clear the zone and Chris Thorburn was burning time off the clock deep in the Wild zone and a MIN player stupidly cross-checked him and refs called it to even up the man power--game over.

It was personal redemption for Chris Thorburn who made two mistakes on one shift which allowed MIN to tie the match. It was also team redemption for the Thrashers who really wilted in the last 10 minutes against Colorado. I remember Marty Reasoner, Ron Hainsey and Kubina working extremely hard to preserve the lead. Coach Anderson also shortened his bench at D and did not play Bogosian and Kulda the final 7 minutes while protecting the lead.

It was far from a perfect performance by the Thrashers. The Power Play looked poor at times and Todd White continues to play ahead of Evander Kane and Bergfors for some reason I cannot fathom. But they did what they had to do to win and the effort level was good throughout the contest. Rookie Arturs Kulda looked like a veteran in his first NHL game with a couple of quality hits and good positional defense. He looked better than Valabik in my opinion and if he plays like that every game, pencil him into your Opening Night line up for the 2010-11 season.

Tonight the Thrashers take on the Blackhawks. On paper, this is huge mis-match as the Hawks are favored by many to win the Stanley Cup playoffs and the Thrashers are scratching and clawing just to qualify for the post season. The Hawks are deep and talented. But the game is hugely important for Atlanta. A win pushes the Thrashers post-season odds up to 48% and a loss drops them down to 33%. Simply put, a 2 point win would be enormous for the club's playoff aspirations.

Hopefully, the Hawks will be looking ahead to the Olympic break and the Thrashers might be able to sneak up on them. The Thrashers best hope of victory is to play in the other team's end and keep the Chicago offense bottled up. Since the Kovalchuk trade the Thrashers have done much better in keeping the shot ratio competitive. In the post Kovy Era they are winning the shot battle 139-133 which is a big improvement.

Scoreboard Watching: ATL's playoff odds are improved if the the following teams win: PHI, FLA and NYR.

Head over to Second City Hockey for their gamethread/preview.

Atlanta Thrashers		Colorado Avalanche
Pepsi Center
9:00PM
TV: SportSouth
Radio: 680 the FAN
SBNation: Game page, Mile High Hockey
TSN Coverage
Johan Hedberg		Craig Anderson
(13-9-4, .916% 2.52)		(29-15-5, .925 2.21)

Jump for game notes.

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		v.
Atlanta Thrashers				Florida Panthers
Philips Arena
7:00PM
TV: (none) Radio: 680 the FAN
SBNation: Game page, Litter Box Cats
Johan Hedberg				Tomas Vokoun
(12-9-4, .916% 2.54)				(19-18-9, .932 2.33)

T-Day +2.

Jump for game notes.

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Tonight's another meeting of two Russian superstars. Tonight your new-look Atlanta Thrashers travel to Washington DC to take on the Capitals. Without Ilya Kovalchuk. I have absolutely no idea what to think.

Guys, writing a game preview at this point is a futile exercise. I don't know what the line combos will be. We know that Niclas Bergfors and Johnny Oduya will play. They will wear their old numbers (18 and 29, respectively.) Outside of that, I simply don't know what to say.

I'm creating this topic so we have a place to discuss the game. I probably won't be watching live (I usually let it run for about 30 minutes on DVR so I can fast-forward through the commercials... sorry, sponsors...) so you'll hear from me after the game. And, I assume, the rest of the BWA writers.

Game's at 7. Go Thrashers!

		v.
Atlanta Thrashers				Tampa Bay Lightning
Philips Arena
7:00PM
TV: SportSouth   Radio: 680 the FAN
SBNation:  Game Page, Raw Charge
TSN Coverage
Ondrej Pavelec				Antero Niittymaki
(12-13-4 .903% 3.47)				(12-9-5, .916% 2.53)

Games don't come much bigger than this. Why? Find out after the jump.

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