After winning just a single point in their last six games the Thrashers have dropped down into the basement of the NHL standings. If the season ended today the Thrashers would pick 6th or 7th (they are tied with FLA in Win %). However, the teams at the bottom are very tightly bunched and if the Thrashers tailspin continues they could easily end up with the 3rd overall draft pick. Carolina has been red hot and the Thrashers play them twice more, Atlanta could easily "catch" the Hurricanes for the 3rd worst position by the end of the season.

1. EDM 49
   
2. TOR 58
3. CAR 64
4. NYI 65
5. CBJ 65
6. FLA 66
7. ATL 67
8. TBL 68

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More photos » Terry Gilliam - AP

6 days ago: Atlanta Thrashers' Chris Chelios (24) skates during warmups before an NHL hockey game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Thursday, March 11, 2010, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Terry Gilliam)

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The Atlanta Thrashes lost 2-1 in Columbus last night and effectively eliminated themselves from playoff contention. In the seven games following the trade of Ilya Kovalchuk the team won 10 of a possible 14 points to push their playoff odds to 60%. That hot stretch was followed up by an ice cold 4 consecutive losses in which the offense completely dried up.

When the the Thrashers were winning the other playoff teams were struggling which helped Atlanta climb up into the 8th position in the standing. But now the tide has reversed and the other playoff contenders are winning as Atlanta has lost--which has accelerated the team's decline.

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More photos » Gregory Smith - AP

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"Shoot!" yells the woman behind me.

"That Toby Enstrom, somebody needs to teach him to shoot the damn puck," offers her companion.

"If Toby shot more, the powerplay would be less predictable and more likely to score!" says the conventional wisdom. "But everybody knows that Toby will just pass. It's so obvious!"

It's hard to be the person who pops in to suggest that maybe, just maybe, the guy who's taken himself from an 8th round (239th overall) draft pick to the cornerstone of the Atlanta Thrashers blueline just might know what he's doing. Of course, there's no hard and fast rule for when to shoot the puck and when to maintain possession, but most hockey fans live and die by the Gretzky rule:

You miss 100% of the shots you never take.

True. But also terribly misleading. I'll try to solve this riddle with stats... after the jump.

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In appears that the Eastern Conference is in for a wild ride as 5 teams try to shoehorn their way into the final 2 playoff spots. I thought it would be interesting to look at how the last four seasons have played out following the Trade Deadline. I have constructed a table for each year that shows where each team stood on the Trade Deadline Day, how they played after Trade Day and their final rankings. Let's see what we can learn from recent history.

2005-06 East Playoff Race

The 2006 playoff race is the least interesting of the four. The 8 teams that were in a playoff position on Trade Day held serve and kept their spots--this is the only year of the four where there was no turnover after Trade Day. The Thrashers and Leafs both made a charge and increased their Winning % substantially after Trade Day but each finished one win shy of being tied for 8th.

One pattern that emerges in 2006 is that the top two seeds really coasted into the playoffs. This will be true of all four East post-lockout battles. The top seeds know they have qualified and they do not sustain their previous Win %. What is interesting is that the 3rd seed often increases their Win %--perhaps this is an effort to improve their home ice seeding for the post-season.

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The Atlanta Thrashers acquired Clarke MacArthur in exchange for a 3rd and 4th round draft picks. Let's take a look MacArthur's statistical profile in the NHL.

First up we have a table showing how this player was used in Buffalo. Since becoming a regular NHLer in 2007, Clarke has been used as an offensive minded 3rd line player. Among the Buffalo forwards he ranked 9th in ES Time On Ice (TOI) in the last two seasons. He has seen his PP TOI steadily increase over the last three seasons. Currently he is averaging 2 minutes of Power Play ice time per game. The coaches basically never use him as PKer. If you look at his cumulative ice time, he consistently ranked 9th in Buffalo making him a 3rd line guy on that team.

Coach Usage Table

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More photos » Bill Kostroun - AP

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Since the big Kovalchuk trade to the New Jersey Devils both teams have played just a small number of games. In the short run the Thrashers appear to have been energized by the trade (or perhaps by the end of the trade rumors), while the Devils appear a bit out of sync as they try and figure out how to incorporate Ilya into their system. In the 5 post-Kovalchuk games the Thrashers Point Win % is actually up from 1.02 PPG to 1.20. Can the team sustain this 1.20 pace? Up in New Jersey the Devils have seen their Points per game drop sharply from 1.31 pre-Kovalchuk to 0.83 with Kovalchuk.

How much of this can be attributed to Ilya alone? Certainly one player cannot be account for everything in a team game. In the Thrashers case both their Goals For and Goals Against are up somewhat since Kovalchuk left. The Thrashers played 4 out of 5 on the road and 3 out of 5 against quality playoff teams (WSH, CHI, COL). For Atlanta, the big news is increased productivity at Even Strength. The power play has produced about the same number of PP goals per game but the ES Goal per game is up. The goal scoring has been a pleasant surprise considering Kovalchuk's past contributions in that area.

In the case of New Jersey, their team GAA is up sharply in the last six games. However, if you break that down into special teams and Even Strength, the problem in New Jersey is brutal a PK unit of late. The team had allowed just 0.55 PKGA but over their last six games that number has exploded to 1.17. Since Ilya doesn't play on the PK he can't take the heat for that particular team failure.

A quick check of the shot stats shows that the Thrashers appear to both taking and allowing more shots post-Kovalchuk. In New Jersey the opposite is true as the Devils are taking an allowing fewer shots with Ilya. Unlike Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk is much more selective about his shots. I'm uncertain how much of this can be explained by the trade. The Thrashers PP% has struggled, but perhaps with some practice time they can figure out how to incorporate rookies Bergfors and Kane into the extra man unit. The Thrashers PK has been VERY good of late nearly 90%. The goaltending has been about the same as it was before.

For New Jersey, the PP has suffered quite a bit as they attempt to merge Kovalchuk into their man advantage. The PK has been incredibly poor--just a touch over 70%--and the SV% is also way down over the last few games.

Conclusion

It is probably silly to read too much into these numbers because the sample size is so tiny, however, I did learn something from this exercise. Namely that the Devils struggles of late have more to do with their PK unit than anything else. It will be interesting to check back on this after another month passes to see what trends emerge or remain constant.

Every NHL franchise has three ways to build a roster: draft, trade and signing free agents. Lately, the Thrashers have traded away high former 1st round picks Kovalchuk and Lehtonen. These trades have added players to the NHL roster and stock of prospects. I thought it would be interesting to see how each draft year has translated into the current NHL roster and the talent in the farm system.

So in the table below I have a number of columns. In the "Drafted" column we can see which current Thrashers were picked by the team in which year. In the "Trade" column we can see which current Thrashers were acquired via a trade. Each trade acquisition is listed in the row belong to the pick or player they were exchanged for. For example Exelby was drafted in 1999 and was dealt for Kubina, so Kubina is listed on the 1999 row.

In the next two columns we have NHL players acquired via "Waivers" or "Free Agency" and they are arranged according to the year acquired. Finally, we have the top "Prospects" listed in the year they were drafted or if they were received in a trade (noted by the "=>" symbol), and the pick or player they were traded for.

Observations

Trades: Slava Kozlov was acquired for a 3rd rounder and a swap of 2nd rounders--that trade was an incredible win for the franchise. Most people point to the Savard deal as Waddell's best trade evar, but that Kozlov deal should be ranked right behind it. The Exelby for Kubina trade is a big win for Atlanta if Kubina sticks around and extends his contract. Most of the value from the Heatley and Lehtonen picks has been converted into prospects, not roster players, time will tell how valuable those prospects are.

Free Agents: The Thrashers fare poorly with their free agent signings in the 2005-2007 period, but the last two summers have they have done much better. The last few waiver wire pick-ups have been beneficial to the franchise as well.

Prospects: The Kovalchuk, Heatley and Lehtonen picks have significantly increased the prospect base of the Thrashers franchise. My guess is that if you look at most NHL franchises, they would not have so many prospects whose origin stretches back to the 1999-2002 period.

As part of the 10th Anniversary of the Atlanta Thrashers we are taking a look at the evolution of the roster over time. First we looked at defense, then at scoring forward positions (aka "top six") and today the checking forwards (aka "bottom six").

In the NHL checking line players are important, but the ability to play defense in the NHL is not as rare as the ability to score in the NHL. Therefore, most teams see more turnover in the ranks of their bottom six forwards. Certainly that has been true of the Thrashers if you peruse the table below. The longest checking forwards with continuous service in Atlanta were Stefan, Slater and Svartvadet.

3rd and 4th line players lack the skill to play on a higher line and they typically post modest point totals. The Thrashers had hoped that Stefan, Bartecko and Metropolit would post more NHL points than they did. It seems to me that the current 3rd line players on the Thrashers are better than at any point in team history except perhaps the Petro-Stefan-Bondra group who were fairly productive.

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