Au Revoir

The sad thing about the Thrashers moving is that I don’t really feel anything. While I can’t say I am or was ever part of the core group of fans for the team, I have to fit the profile of someone the Thrashers would have targeted as a potential fan. I loved hockey ever since living in Pittsburgh for two years in the early 80s, following the rancid Penguins teams that earned the right to draft Mario Lemieux. In college, I had season tickets for the Michigan hockey team and traveled to two Final Fours, one that Michigan won and then another in which Michigan was upset as a big favorite in the semifinals by BU. In short, I am a sports fan with a hockey background, disposable income, and (at least prior to having kids in 2006) free time to go to games. As my boys grow up, I would have been in a position to take them to games regularly.

When someone with my profile is fairly non-plussed about the local hockey collective moving to Winnipeg, you know that ownership has done a wretched job of selling the team. The Thrashers had so thoroughly removed themselves from the local sports consciousness that their decision to leave doesn’t inspire anything approaching the raw emotion of the Baltimore Colts or Cleveland Browns leaving their cities. The team just didn’t put down any roots. The sports business is a results-based industry and when a team doesn’t produce results, fans will not and should not pay for the product. Without winning, the tree will never take root. Additionally, as Scott Burnside explains, one of the many failures of ownership was the absence of local hockey programs:

Apparently ignorant of how to build a fan base, ownership made no inroads in selling the game. It had no commitment to build a minor hockey program in Atlanta the way Dallas did when the Stars first moved there. There was nothing in Atlanta to compare to the grassroots initiatives in Anaheim, San Jose and Nashville.

In those markets, kids play the game, connect with the team, drag their parents and friends to games, buy merchandise and build a bond. Homegrown players' names from Texas and California and yes, Tennessee are called at NHL entry drafts every year. Ownership made sure of that in those markets, and if those teams left, there would be a scar on the community, a sense of loss.

In Atlanta, the Thrashers leave without creating a ripple on the surface of the community.

Burnside also argues that Gary Bettman did, in fact, do his best to try to find local figures who would buy the team and keep it in Atlanta:

There is a common misconception that the NHL chose not to fight for the Thrashers. That theory is born out of ignorance. For months and months, Bettman and team president Don Waddell beat the bushes for an owner or ownership group to buy the team and keep it in Atlanta.

Bettman has shown himself to be resourceful in these matters, covering up ownership messes in Tampa with Jeff Vinik and Buffalo with Terry Pegula. He may even end up covering the sinkhole in Phoenix with Matthew Hulsizer.

No one stepped forward in Atlanta because it was a mess beyond saving, and the only alternative was to sweep that mess into a corner and give the people of Winnipeg the team they have been craving.

I buy this reasoning. Bettman may have an array of negative qualities, but he’s not an idiot. Atlanta is one of the largest MSAs in the country and it is full of transplants who would buy tickets and watch on TV if they were given a reason to do so. It simply makes no sense that Bettman would fight to keep teams in Nashville, Phoenix, and Buffalo – all of which are inferior markets – and then do nothing to try to keep a team in Atlanta. Maybe Bettman did nothing to help Atlanta Spirit, but can anyone blame him on that front? In the words of Sir Alex Ferguson, I wouldn’t sell them a virus.

In the end, the Thrashers’ move is sad because of the wasted potential that it represents, but it’s the right move in a free market. The only emotion I feel about the move is regret that the team was never able to turn itself into something that I cared about. I would have liked to have taken my boys to games to see a young, improving team. Given the eleven-year history of this franchise, I have no confidence that this potential contender would have emerged. In European soccer, badly-managed teams are punished by relegation. In American sports, inept franchises are usually able to keep on trucking because they are insulated from their own bad decisions by franchise protection and revenue sharing. (See: the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Los Angeles Clippers.) With little national revenue to share, NHL teams are more subject to normal market outcomes, so it’s natural that the Thrashers would move. Between the team moving to Winnipeg or local government subsidizing them to the tune of $25M a la Glendale, I’ll take the former. This is how a free, competitive market works. Sports teams are a little different than restaurants or department stores in that they are public goods in addition to being private businesses, but the moral of the story is that the Thrashers never gave Atlanta a reason to make them a public good.

I Bet the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man had a Small Five-Hole

While I was rooting around hockey-reference.com looking for attendance numbers, I came across this chart that nicely illustrates my problem with modern hockey, or at least one of my problems. Look at the change in save percentages over the years. In 1983-84, the first year for which save percentage is tracked, goalies saved 87.3% of the shots that they faced. The save percentage grows gradually over time, first getting above 90% after the 1993-94 season, which happens to be the year in which the NHL's popularity was at its modern apex, at least in the United States. Now, there were a lot of factors that led to hockey reaching that zenith: the Rangers ending their Stanley Cup drought and the attendant overreaction by the Northeast media; a dramatic set of post-season series; Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux both being active, established stars (although Gretzky was coming towards the end of his career); etc. I would add to that list the fact that offense and defense were in balance.

In this past season, goalies saved 91.3% of the shots they faced, which is the highest save percentage since the NHL started recording the stat. The Eastern Finals are being contested between goalies with save percentages of .941 and .932. These explosions in save percentage are galling to me because they are not the result of increased skill on the part of goalies. (I'm sure that goalies now are in better shape than they used to be, but the same would be true of the guys taking shots at them.) Rather, it seems inescapable to conclude that save percentages are way up because goalies get to wear a ridiculous volume of equipment, such that they take up the vast majority of the goal simply by basic positioning. I don't pretend to be enough of a hockey fan to make this argument based on extensive research and game watching, but from what little of the playoffs that I've watched, I've noticed on numerous occasions that goalies are credited with making great saves when all they did was position themselves and then let the puck hit them.*

I find the reduction of scoring based on bigger goalie equipment to be a turn-off because there is no skill involved in picking the right accessories and then getting dressed. Scoring is down and fielding percentages are up in baseball, but I have no problem with that. If teams are giving up fewer runs because they are deploying centerfielders and shortstops who get to everything, then I'm going to enjoy watching baseball more to see those athletes in full flight. (I'll acknowledge that the emphasis on better defense has come with the price of more at-bats for punch-and-judy hitters, so there is a trade-off.) In contrast, it's not exciting to watch a grotesquely-clothed goalie stop 19 of 20 shots without having to show quick reflexes. I'm not denying that goalies have to have great reflexes to play the position, but the same would be true for baseball players if they suddenly started hitting .400 with regularity because they got to use aluminum bats.

Bringing the discussion back to the soon-to-be-departed local professional hockey collective, I have to credit something that Steak Shapiro said. (There is a Jewish prayer called the Sheheheyanu that is recited whenever something good happens that has not happened for a while. That prayer seems appropriate at this stage.) When discussing the potential sale of the Thrashers several weeks ago, Steak hypothesized that the team has had trouble finding a local buyer in no small part because that buyer would not just be buying a franchise with a dwindling fan base and no profile in the local sports market, but they would also be buying into the NHL. In light of the fact that the league has allowed its product to be devalued by a basic equipment issue, that reasoning is persuasive.


* - Note that shots per game have remained relatively constant over time. It's not as if scoring is down because coaches are playing too conservatively. If that were the case, then shots would be down. Instead. the decline in scoring has to be primarily caused by goalies' equipment.

The Silver Lining

I look forward to John Hollinger articles about the Hawks because Hollinger has a statistically-oriented approach and he’s that rarest of national writers who shows more than a passing interest in the local professional basketball collective.  Hollinger is typically pessimistic realistic about the Hawks and he has written some of the best criticism of Atlanta Spirit, so it was something of a surprise to see this title to his article the morning after the Hawks took their umpteenth whuppin’ of the season, thus ending an unexpectedly interesting playoff run. 

The main focus of Hollinger’s optimism is the fact that Jeff Teague emerged in the series against the Bulls.  The prospect of playing Derrick Rose brought the best out of Teague.  Whether Teague genuinely improved this spring or this ability has always been present and the Hawks haven’t mined that talent, we’ll never know.  Hollinger describes the possibilities that Teague now provides:

In doing so, this also opens up new options for the Hawks that we hardly saw all season. Atlanta can play Teague at the point, Kirk Hinrich at shooting guard and Joe Johnson at small forward -- a look that puts a top-notch scorer, a defensive ace and a penetrating, ball-pushing point guard on the court at once. Or the Hawks can roll with a Teague-Jamal Crawford-Johnson triumvirate (if Crawford returns) on the perimeter that even the defensive-minded Bulls struggled to match up against at times.

Every since Billy Knight first assembled this team, the vision was for a young, athletic team that could get up and down the floor and score in transition.  In part, the Hawks have never been good enough defensively to make that happen, but they have also lacked the right point guard to run.  Is Teague finally that guy?

Hollinger also points out that the possible move of the Thrashers to Winnipeg could have benefits for the Hawks in two respects:

Heck, even the hockey news might be good news for the Hawks. Sure, it’s not exactly positive for a city’s sports reputation when its history entails losing franchises to both Alberta and Manitoba, but the financial constraints that have limited some of the Hawks’ dealings in recent years could perhaps ease a bit if they can (A) unload the money pit called the Thrashers and (B) eliminate some of the competition for Hawks seats. (For the record, an owner I spoke with had nothing to add beyond “we’re looking for solutions” when asked about the rumored move of the NHL’s Thrashers to Winnipeg.)

I had always thought about the potential loss of the Thrashers as a negative for Atlanta Spirit because it lowers the value of their operating rights of Philips Arena to have one major tenant instead of two, but I can see the counter.  First, Atlanta Spirit will get an infusion of cash from the sale, which gives them the ability to spend on the Hawks this off-season.*  Second, they can focus all of their energies on one team.  (Whether that’s a good thing is another matter entirely.)  Third, Philips Arena is a cashcow for concerts, so maybe having more available dates will be a net positive.  Fourth, the owners will stop bleeding money on the hockey team.  They’re bleeding money because of their own mismanagement of the Thrashers, but to paraphrase William Munny, deserve’s got nothing to do with it.  This market is big and diverse enough to support both an NBA and NHL team, but if it has to choose between the two, I’ll take the NBA.  The city has an established African-American elite and middle class rivaled only by New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and DC.  It ought to have an NBA franchise for which making it to the sixth game of the conference semifinals isn’t a massive accomplishment.

* – The difference between the Hawks and Bulls wasn’t so much in the starting fives.  Chicago had the best player on the court, but the Hawks have a more balanced lineup.  The differences came in all of the accoutrements that a spendthrift owner will buy, namely a coveted head coach and quality pieces on the bench.  If the Hawks would have signed Tom Thibodeau last summer and the Bulls would have gone for the cheap, internal option, how would this series have played out?  As a practical matter, Thibodeau wouldn’t have been a stylistic change from Mike Woodson (although he’s obviously better at coaching defense) and therefore would have been an unlikely option (not to mention the fact that the Hawks wouldn’t have had the “come coach Derrick Rose” selling point), but the point remains that the Hawks went cheap on the coach.

Rebranding in the NHL

I recommend the article in Tuesday's New York Times about the efforts of the Tampa Lightning to rebrand their product by simplifying the uniforms:

Redesigning the Lightning’s uniforms took six painstaking months.

“This is a big, long process involving researchers and writers and designers and strategists,” said Ed O’Hara, the chief creative officer of SME Branding, the New York firm hired to make the Lightning crest and uniforms evocative of hockey’s roots.

The path to rebranding the Lightning was littered with discarded sketches for jersey and crest designs, cashiered concepts for remaking the team’s image and weekly speakerphone conferences between New York and Florida to hash it all out.

It ultimately led to a simple blue-and-white uniform: a clean design redolent of the N.H.L.’s Original Six. Tampa Bay’s uniform is only the third in the league to use just two colors, after the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings.

Lord, please let this be a trend. With football uniforms headed towards the garish end of the continuum, it's refreshing to see a pro sports franchise realize that branding itself in a more traditional way makes sense. The fact that Tampa is in a non-traditional market makes the rebranding even more important. They've clearly come to the realization that they need to downplay the fact that they aren't one of the Original Six and the way to do that is to play in duds that look like they could have come from the 1930s. Of course, they have also been able to rebrand in the one way that would save hockey in Atlanta: new ownership.

Speaking of which, Tim Vickery made a great point on the World Football Phone-in a few weeks ago regarding coverage of futbol in Brazil and the point applies to the NHL. He was talking about the discussions in England regarding whether the new tenant of the London Olympic Stadium, either Spurs or West Ham, will tear out the track when one of the clubs moves in after the Olympics. In the process of making the point that having a running track kills the atmosphere for a match, he said that Brazilian TV companies can't get enough of the English Premier League in large part because the atmosphere is so good. The fans are screaming and singing the whole time and significantly, they are close to the action, so the cameras can pick up the facial reactions of the fans when goals go in.

Vickery's point has applicability to the NHL, specifically as an illustration of yet another way in which Gary Bettman has got things all wrong. He expanded hockey throughout the Sunbelt because of the size of the markets here. In the process of doing so, he reduced the value of the NHL as a TV property. Hockey already struggles on TV because it's hard to follow the puck. The sport needs to make up for this shortcoming in other ways. One such way is passion from the fans. Hockey fans tend to be screamers, especially in places where the game has deep roots. Leaving aside the fact that I live in Atlanta and want our city to have an NHL team, what is going to be more appealing to an average viewer: a playoff game in a beautiful, but somewhat sterile arena in Atlanta or Nashville or the same game played in front of crazy fans who live and breathe the game in Quebec City or Winnipeg? The NHL already has something of a spectacle problem by virtue of iconic franchises leaving their great old arenas for new, less interesting venues. (Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, and Boston all come to mind; Hockey Night in Canada just isn't the same without Maple Leaf Gardens. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are some kids on my lawn who require shooing.) The league adds to the problem by moving its product outside of its sweet spot.

It’s the Losing, not the Lying

In a development that is entirely unsurprising, Atlanta Spirit is suing King & Spalding for malpractice, alleging that K&S made massive mistakes in drafting the agreement by which the entity would buy out Steve Belkin’s shares and then compounded the error in its representation of Atlanta Spirit in the litigation in Maryland against Belkin.  The suit is unsurprising because the source of the litigation was an ambiguously drafted provision in the sale agreement that allowed Belkin to try to control both of the appraisals for the value of his interest.  Atlanta Spirit ultimately prevailed on appeal in Maryland by convincing the Court of Appeals there that the appraisal provision was unenforceable.  The moment that happened, a malpractice claim was likely.  (Note: K&S will have plenty of defenses to the claim, one of which will be that, as the Maryland opinion notes, they had 30 hours to prepare a complex commercial document.  Another caveat: I’ve only followed this dispute through the media, so take my thoughts with a pound of salt.)

Atlanta Spirit’s Complaint makes for fascinating reading as a history of the legal wrangling regarding the ownership of the Hawks, Thrashers, and Philips Arena (albeit from the perspective of ownership).  One of the big issues that Atlanta Spirit faces is establishing damages.  OK, so K&S drafted a document with an imperfect provision regarding the determination of fair market value for the teams; what did that mean for you in terms of actual dollars and cents?  Atlanta Spirit’s claim is that they wanted to sell the Thrashers after the resolution of the 2004-05 lockout, at which point the competitive landscape would be better for a team like the Thrashers and the franchise’s value will be greater, but they were unable to do so because of the uncertainty as to who actually owned the teams: Belkin or the rest of Atlanta Spirit.  This is a somewhat embarrassing argument for the owners of a major pro franchise to make, but this is what happens when you air your grievances in the public litigation process.  Atlanta Spirit faced the same issue when it was litigating against Belkin in Maryland and had to put forward evidence regarding the vast sums that the teams were allegedly losing.  (Unrelated issue: this dispute illustrates the value of an arbitration clause in certain commercials contracts.  Atlanta Spirit would have been much better off if it could have fought with Belkin behind a wall of confidentiality.)

Naturally, Jeff Schultz has latched onto this argument to complain that we’ve been swindled by Atlanta Spirit.  Here’s his opening flourish:

They told you they cared. They lied.

They told you their biggest concern was putting out the best product for you, the fans. They lied.

They told you not to pay attention to any of those rumors of the Thrashers being for sale, although they eventually admitted begrudgingly that, yes, they were looking for “investors.” They lied.

The Atlanta Spirit is not looking for investors. They’re looking to sell the Thrashers. They’ve been looking to sell them for — ready for this? –six years.

Six . . . years.

Those are the caretakers of your franchise. Those are the ones who’ve pleaded with you since 2005 to support a mostly inferior product — and now they can’t figure out how they’ve burned so many bridges in this town why fans still feel too angry or worn down to show up for a pretty decent team. Reality never has been their strong suit.

This is hopelessly naive.  A decision to buy or sell a franchise is one of those topics about which we can fully expect owners to lie and with good reason.  If a team’s owners admit that they are looking to sell, then they immediately start to look desperate and their price goes down.  This is negotiation 101.  If I’m going to scalp tickets outside of a game, I want to create the impression that I’m not committed to getting into the stadium.  If I show up in team gear reeking of desperation, then a scalper is going to fleece me.  The apparent decision by Atlanta Spirit to lie about its intentions to sell the team is no different than a college coach denying that he’s considering leaving his program, a presidential candidate denying that he’s considering ending his campaign, or a president lying about surveillance flights over the Soviet Union.  If Schultz wants to be mad, then he ought to be mad at himself for assigning weight to the self-interested answers of Atlanta Spirit to questions that they could not answer honestly for perfectly legitimate reasons.

Schultz is absolutely correct in the conclusion of his column: “If Atlanta loses its second NHL franchise, it won’t be because the sport failed here. It will be because ownership and management failed.”  The reason why he’s correct has nothing to do with Atlanta Spirit claiming that it was trying to sell the team when it was, in fact, trying to do exactly that.  Rather, if hockey fails again in Atlanta, it will be because the team didn’t win nearly enough games to generate interest.  Atlanta fans will respond to a winner.  We turned out for the Hawks in the 80s, we turned out in droves for the Braves in the 90s, and now we’re selling out the Georgia Dome for every Falcons game.  Atlanta fans, unlike some fans elsewhere, will not pay for a bad product.  (This does not extend to our affection for our college football teams, whom we’ll pay to see even when they are 0-11.)  The Thrashers have made the playoffs once in eleven seasons and were promptly swept.  Let’s go out on a limb and say that that qualifies as a bad product.  Indeed, one of the first defenses that K&S will make regarding Atlanta Spirit’s damages is that its alleged malpractice didn’t cause a diminution in the value of the franchise; Don Waddell’s fumbling of the on-ice product is the proximate cause of the loss.  (K&S would also point to larger systemic factors, like the economic downturn and the NHL’s descent into irrelevance.  That said, they’ll try to resolve the case on legal grounds if at all possible.  They won’t want 12 jurors trying to make these complex analyses of market value.)  At this point, we would all be happy if Atlanta Spirit sold the team, but it’s not because they had the temerity to claim that they had no interest in doing so.    

We're the New Boston!!!

Minus all the championships and the legions of a-hole fans.

On Saturday, November 1, the Thrashers got pummeled 6-1 in New Jersey to drop to 2-7-2. Few of us noticed the result, as it came on a Fall Saturday in the South. We were all more interested in why Georgia capitulated in the second half in Jacksonville, or in the Texas-Texas Tech barn burner that took place on Saturday night. I mention the Thrashers' loss in New Jersey now because it took place ten days ago and it was the last time an Atlanta pro sports team lost a game. Since that game:

The Falcons have won a pair of games to get to 6-3. The win in Oakland wasn't a major accomplishment given the Raiders' horrendous form, but a yardage margin of 309 to -2 in the first half was worth nothing. The Falcons had the rare privilege in the NFL of taking it easy in the second half. They also got to enjoy roasting DeAngelo Hall right into the unemployment line (although DeAngelo went from Oakland to the heat of the playoff race in Washington, so it's not like Michael Jenkins pushed our dearly departed corner into the Arena League). Atlanta followed up the Oakland win with a comfortable win over their rivals from New Orleans. Matt Ryan was close to perfect, the running game was effective, and the corners made just enough plays against the Saints' passing game. Speaking of New Orleans, they knew two years ago that they had an excellent offense and a suspect defense, but they've done nothing to patch up that defense. Enjoy last place.

Matt Ryan's line in the last two weeks: 33 of 45, 468 yards, four touchdowns, no picks. I've never been happier to be wrong about a player.

The Hawks are 5-0. The Lakers are the only other unbeaten team in the NBA. Swirl that around in your mouth for a minute or two. Enjoy the bouquet. In the city's one week homage to 1979 Pittsburgh, the Hawks won on the road against the previously unbeaten Hornets, dominated the Raptors from start to finish, and then gutted out the kind of road win in Oklahoma City that this team never, ever pulled out before: the road comeback when playing below their peak. The only negative to the week was Josh Smith's ankle sprain, which costs the team a player who was performing at a very high level, especially on the defensive end. The team is consistently playing very good defense.

The Thrashers are 4-0. This is the real surprise. While the Falcons and Hawks are both good teams, the Thrashers are, how do we put this gently, not. Still, with Kari Lehtonen sidelined (and where have we heard that before?), the Thrash have put together a four-game winning streak to get within a game of .500.

This fun run has to come to an end some time. The Thrashers play their bete noire - the Flyers - this week, while the Hawks travel to Boston on Wednesday for the second game of a back-to-back. With the streak about to end, we should all sit back and appreciate a ten-day stretch in which the local teams went 9-0. The odds of flipping a coin and having it come up heads nine times in a row are one in 512. Given our history, the odds of Atlanta's fall and winter sports teams winning any one game are less than the odds of winning a coin toss. After the seasons the local sports collectives had last year, we're entitled to a little Roy Wally entertainment.

Three Years Ago...

So I was thinking this weekend as the Braves were getting pummeled twice at home by the hapless Nationals that the Hawks are officially the best pro team in the city. The Falcons and Thrashers are one of the two worst teams in their respective leagues, while the Braves are meandering under .500 and have put together one of the worst outfields in recent memory. Meanwhile, the Hawks are coming off of a season in which they made the playoffs and pushed the eventual champions to a seventh game. Yes, the Hawks did so after finishing eight games under .500 and they didn't come close to winning a game in Boston, but work with me here.

Anyway, it was only three years ago that the roles were completely reversed. At this time three years ago, the Braves were en route to their 14th straight divisional title. They were in the process of reinventing the team with a corps of players from the minors, led by local products Jeff Francoeur and Brian McCann. The Falcons were coming off of a season in which they made the NFC Championship Game. They had Michael Vick, one of the biggest stars in the NFL. The Thrashers had not yet made the playoffs, but they had assembled a nucleus of Ilya Kovalchuk, Dany Heatley (one month from being dealt to Ottawa), and Kari Lehtonen. The future of all three teams looked bright. Only the Hawks were in the toilet, as they were coming off a season in which they won a whopping 13 games and finished with the worst record in the NBA.

What are the lessons here? I can think of a few possibilities:

1. As bad as things appear for our local sports collectives, fortunes can change in a relatively short amount of time. With progressive drafts and salary caps (in three of four sports), three years is an eternity in American professional sports. That said...

2. This is Atlanta and bad things will happen.

3. The Braves, Falcons, and Thrashers were all stocked with young players, but bad decisions from management of those three teams (the Thrashers and Falcons far more so than the Braves) caused the teams to founder. This is a clear lesson for the Hawks. Assembling good young talent is only the first step. That young talent needs a supporting cast. The players also need hobbies that don't violate federal law.

Is Atlanta Spirit Going to Kill Hockey in Atlanta?

That was my thought as I was reading Scott Burnside's evisceration of the Thrashers' management team. As a formerly intense, but currently casual Thrashers fan, my view from 30,000 feet is that the Thrashers are handicapped by Don Waddell's poor drafting and free agent decisions.

I did read Bruce Levenson's defense of Waddell in Sunday's AJC and was perplexed by the stance of Atlanta Spirit. Waddell has been in charge for eight years, during which the Thrashers have played exactly four playoff games and at the end of which, the roster is one of the weakest in the NHL. By every indication, the Thrashers' fan base is angry at the direction of the team and a number are unlikely to renew season tickets because of the direction of the franchise. Fan discontent is amplified by Atlanta Spirit's ham-handed decision to increase ticket prices on the heels of putting out a dreadful product this season. The natural response for ownership would be to bring in a new general manager and coach so they can sell a new beginning to the fans. Instead, Atlanta Spirit is apparently set on keeping Waddell, which would really anger me if I were a season ticket holder. It's almost like a president who knows that a military strategy isn't working and just keeps trying the same thing. That never happens.

The mismanagement of the Thrashers has serious implications. Atlanta Spirit's dogged devotion to Mike Woodson is frustrating and indicative that the ownership group is too big and/or divided to make major, necessary decisions. However, the Hawks are protected by the NBA's lucrative television contract and other shared revenue streams. Basketball is a good TV sport. Hockey is not. Whether because of the small puck or Gary Bettman's small brain, the NHL does not provide significant revenue streams to its teams. Thus, local ticket revenue is critical for every franchise. Atlanta Spirit can do real damage to its own bottom line and to the sport of hockey in this market if it continues on its present course of defending a failed manager.

Ordinarily, I would assume that Atlanta Spirit is defending its general manager because it's always a good idea to defend one's employees up until they are former employees. In this case, there is no reason not to make a move now. The Thrashers are clearly going nowhere, so there's nothing to lose by cutting bait on Waddell. If Atlanta Spirit moved quickly, they would get a leg up on other NHL teams looking for new GMs. Also, since the GM is also going to have to hire a coach, it would be better to hire one sooner rather than later. Thus, it appears that Atlanta Spirit is actually being serious when they defend a regime that has produced the third-worst record and worst goal difference in the NHL.

Burnside does an excellent job of explaining the extent of the Thrashers' mismanagement. I found the following facts striking/depressing:

1. The Thrashers are last in the NHL in terms of draftees currently in the NHL. The Thrashers have five players from its system in the regular lineup, one-third of the totals for the Devils or Sabres.

2. This is simply unbelievable:

Levenson seemed surprised when asked about the team's dotty record in the draft and the widespread belief the team's relationship with its AHL affiliate in Chicago is among the worst in the NHL.

The Wolves are not owned by the Thrashers, but are an independent entity. Their focus is not on developing players for the Thrashers, but in putting a winning team on the ice for their fans. Wolves coach John Anderson is not evaluated by how players perform in the NHL when they're called up, but by how the Wolves perform in the AHL. Sources close to the Thrashers told ESPN.com that players who are called up regularly ask to see tape of the Thrashers' system so they can figure out what they're supposed to do.

The Wolves' lineup is filled with journeyman players; Jason Krog is the team's leading scorer, and Steve Martins and Joel Kwiatkowski are on that list, too. Brett Sterling couldn't stick with the big club this season and neither could Darren Haydar.

WTF? Every NHL team needs a capable farm system because of the pressure of the salary cap. The Thrashers especially need help from the minors because they play in a non-traditional market and therefore don't have the money to throw around at free agents that established teams do. Instead, the Thrashers have a minor league team that is not designed to produce prospects. Is it possible that the problem isn't Waddell's drafting, but rather a farm team that has no interest in developing talent when it is trying to win with journeymen? This is especially obvious in Atlanta, where we are blessed with a baseball franchise whose farm system regularly produces quality players (as long as those players aren't pitchers).

I don't like knee-jerk "fire [insert name of coach/GM]" arguments. It's the easiest stance to take, the ultimate sports radio cliche, an emotional reaction that any mediocre mouth can voice. I am, after all, the blogger who thinks that Billy Knight gets a bad rap. All that said, as one of Waddell's GM friends says, "I love him, but I can't defend him." Atlanta Spirit does not have endless goodwill for hockey in this city and they are coming dangerously close to exhausting the supply.

Free-Form Airport Blogging

I have been freed from the work prison that kept this brotha (note: I'm not actually Black, but I'm so in love with Obama that I'm feelin' it, especially after yesterday's jihad on Peter King) down for the last two weeks, so this post will be brought to you by the lovely free wireless at TPA and as much Bass as the Wharf Brewhouse can supply before a 7:39 flight back to the 404. (See! I've got soul! And I'm superbad!)

OK, so in no particular order, here are my thoughts on the last couple weeks:

Hawks

I really dug watching the games against Golden State and Utah. The Golden State game was pure pleasure, mainly because the Hawks do well against teams that can't defend and because it was nice and new to see the Hawks put two dead-eye shooters on the court at the same time. Joe was on, Bibby showed why we traded for him, and Salim Stoudemire gave the team some good minutes. What the hell happened to him? I forgot that he played for the local professional basketball collective. You would think that a team that can't shoot threes would play its best shooter, but Woodson and Knight might have been so cowed by the "you don't have a point guard!" criticism that they refused to play their 6'1 guy who is least like a true one. The thing is that Salim punishes opponents for doubling, which none of the other points did (with the exception of Tyronne Lue, especially late in games).

The Hawks fought like hell against Utah. Going into the game, I was smelling a blowout because of the combination of the team's road record, Utah's terrific home record, our abysmal record at the Delta Center, and the fact that the team only made it to SLC around lunctime of the game. Despite all of that, the Hawks were right in the game at the end. It was great fun to watch. I did not see the San Antonio game, so I couldn't be titilated by the fact that we allowed five points in the first quarter and still managed to lose by 15, but it's a roadie against the defending champions, so mulligan there.

I'll play Thomas Friedman and proclaim the next few games as critical. No one expect the Hawks to take off on the road against five Western Conference playoff teams, but they need to rally back in their home games coming up. It goes without saying that they ought to beat Sacramento and the Knicks in the next two games. Hell, they shouldn't just win those games; I want to see them play well. Is that too much to ask? Eh? (I'm channeling Chris Farley from the Herlihy Boy skit on SNL with Adam Sandler. Just laugh along.)

Barca

Holy hell! I know it was just Celtic and an unpaid Levante side that narrowly decided to actually show up for the match, but the verve is back! The Celtic match was outstanding. I honestly can't tell you how much credit to give to Barca's midfield finally linking up properly, the strikeforce being healthy, or Messi showing Cristiano Ronaldo what a big game performance looks like. (Incidentally, I don't buy the argument that Ronaldo doesn't perform in big games. He was Portugal's best player on the pitch in the World Cup semi against France.) I don't know if Barca's performance was the result of Gordon Strachan being either naive or desperate because of Celtic's dreadful road record in Europe and thus allowing his side to permit Barca spaces that its domestic opponents know not to surrender. In any event, Celtic-Barca was thorougly entertaining. Although the score was a respectable (for Celtic) 3-2, Barca made them look like a pub team. The Blaugrana had constant possession and were creating chances with that possession. Every time that Celtic got the ball, Barca's front six pressured them into a turnover. Celtic may be crap, but they have beaten Milan and Manchester United at home in the last two years and Barca basically had their way with the Hoops.

(Note: I'm writing this without knowing what happened in the Copa del Rey first leg against Valencia. My opinion might change after the DVR produces its bounty.)

Der Draft

While I respect the opinion of guys like Peter King on draftable players as much as I trust Jim Traficant on proper fashion, I do pay attention to the opinions of guys like Mike Mayock and Todd McShay because of their scouting backgrounds. McShay and Mayock are less likely to be persuaded by the "He's White! He's from the Northeast! He went to Doug Flutie's school! He fits with out limited ideas of what a quarterback should be!" line of thinking. So what gives here? I'm honestly wondering.

Hossa

The Thrashers weren't going anywhere with their wretched defenseand Hossa has been underwhelming in his contract year. This is no different than the Braves unloading Andruw if they would have been bereft of hope at the MLB trade deadline. The Thrashers need a new GM who can identify competent defensemen, they need to spend some money on free agents, and they need to build a better base of talent.

America's Wang

If a Dawg fan has a little tolerance for esoterica, then he/she should make a sign for the Cocktail Party next year with the following quote from a soldier stationed here during the Seminole Wars:

"If the Devil owned Hell and Florida, he would rent out Florida and live in Hell."

This is what I'm trying to do when I'm Wailing on Peter King or Stewart Mandel

I'm a big fan of Fire Joe Morgan, and this might be their apex. Mocking the mainstream media is one thing, but when you can work in mockery of Derek Jeter, Yankees fans, and stupidity in general, you've really accomplished something. Salut!

We Have Consensus

Scott Burnside:

But the Thrashers' 0-6-0 start goes far beyond coaching, which is what makes the future of this franchise so troubling and begs the question: When does ownership finish the job?

The short answer: not yet, despite the fact that the failure of the coach is as much a failure of personnel as it is of coaching acumen. Waddell, if he doesn't know that, is about to find out when he takes over the team he built Thursday night against the New York Rangers.

Allan Muir:

Safe to say, Hartley deserved the collar. He was part of the problem...but hardly the only part.

It was Waddell, after all, who asked Hartley to win with a roster that included neither a legitimate No. 1 or No. 2 center. It was Waddell who failed to replace Marc Savard, who departed for Boston in the summer of '06, and who this summer committed four years and nearly $10 million to Todd White, a free agent who scorched opposing goaltenders for 44 points last season. It was Waddell who maintained a scouting department that has delivered sub-par results in any situation other than a chip shot like calling Ilya Kovalchuk's name first overall in 2001. It was Waddell who painfully cashed several layers of the team's future, for the departed Keith Tkachuk and a couple of diminishing assets in Alexei Zhitnik and the dime-a-dozen Pascal Dupuis. And it is Waddell who's yet to come to terms with Marian Hossa, the team's most important asset, and one who seems more likely by the moment to head elsewhere when he reaches free agency this summer.

Jeff Schultz:

Waddell took heat for mortgaging the future with pre-deadline deals last year. He shouldn’t. Those deals got the Thrashers into the playoffs. But blame Waddell for the holes that existed before the trades, and the holes that remained unfilled after the season.

Player development has been dreadful. There is little to show for nine drafts and 82 players. Of the 28 defensemen drafted, the only two here are Garnet Exelby (eighth round, 1999; blind squirrel, meet acorn) and Tobias Enstrom (eighth round, 2003; just got here).

While I Was Out

Trying to actually live up to the title of this here blog:

Hawks

Far be it from me to be melodramatic, but last week might have saved the Hawks' season. After a 1-8 start to the second half, the team eked out three wins over Washington, Memphis, and Minnesota to halt their collapse. 35 wins, which was my goal for the season, is still attainable, although it will require an 10-8 finish and this club has shown an ability to tread water, but not much of an ability to get over .500 for an extended stretch. The interesting aspect of the three-game winning streak is that the Hawks accomplished it with Joe Johnson on the sidelines, which clearly indicates that the team had grown stagnant and dependent on its star player. While some have said that the Hawks' winning streak is a bad thing because it damages their lottery position, that claim doesn't really ring true to me because this team has plenty of young talent and it's more important at this stage that they learn how to win and play with one another. Durant or Oden sure wouldn't hurt and the winning streak only marginally decreases the chances of the Hawks landing one of them. The team is four and a half games out of a playoff spot, but they're also six games out of last place in the East. After 64 games, the Hawks are probably where they're going to end up. Whether they play well in the final 18 games will determine the future of Mike Woodson and possibly Billy Knight. OK, that and a law clerk for the Maryland Court of Appeals.

Thrashers

En Fuego! The team is 6-1 since acquiring Zhitnik and Tkachuk and there is a decent case for causation here outside of the usual platitudes of "Waddell showed the team that he cares" (although there might be something to that). Zhitnik has eight assists and is +7 since coming over, while Tkachuk has four goals and is +7. Add in Eric Belanger's 11 points and +1 in his 13 games since joining the team and you have good evidence that Waddell's efforts to improve the team's depth have been successful. Interestingly, the one area in which Tkachuk and Zhitnik were supposed to provide the greatest impact - the power play - has not been affected substantially, as the team is only 6/34 on the power play (17.6%) since the trades. That said, we do have sample size issues here, so insert customary caveats about how we would know more if Zhitnik and Tkachuk had been with the team for 5,000 games.

Braves

Mike Hampton is hurt again and Chipper injured his ankle yesterday, although the latter injury is relatively meaningless. I put almost no stock in spring stats, at least until the end of spring when there is a month's worth of data and the teams are playing a little harder by late March. I just want the team to be healthy when they emerge from the Magic Kingdom and Hampton's injury is problematic. I would be more excited about Mark Redman if Leo Mazzone was still rocking in the dugout, but he's a decent option for the fourth or fifth starter spot, especially since I don't have much faith in Kyle Davies based on what I've seen from him so far. The Braves' rotation doesn't look much better than it did last year, but then again, the Mets' rotation looks worse. Speaking of which, I found this snippet ($) from the Baseball Prospectus to be interesting:

Consider that 2006 Mets starters threw the third-fewest innings in the National League. If you think it’s counter-intuitive for a good team to be among the leaders in relief innings pitched, you’re right. Looking at innings pitched by starters over the past five seasons (2002-2006), the top 10 National League teams in that category averaged a 92-70 record, while the bottom 10 averaged 74-88. (For comparison, the 10 teams clustered around the average of 951 innings were right in between with their average won-loss as well, going 83-79.)

Much as we all fetishize the 1990 Reds and imagine that Gonzalez, Soriano, and Wickman can be our Nasty Boys (just like Texas fans are probably fetishizing Danny and the Miracles right now), good teams tend to have starting pitchers who shoulder most of the pitching load. The Braves' rotation, after Smoltz, is a series of question marks and the margin for error is going to be lower this year because of presumed offensive decreases from the first and second base spots.

Don Waddell Saw the Same Game that We All Did

I made my first Thrashers game of the year on Saturday night and here are my observations:

1. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the gulf between watching hockey on TV and seeing it in person cannot be overstated. Watching the pattern of play is totally mesmerizing, regardless of whether your seats are close. The speed and motion of hockey is unlike any other sport, which makes sense since it's on ice and all.

2. The Thrashers were a little like Barcelona against Liverpool last night: they had a great ten-minute spell early in the game and then they couldn't get out of their own way for long stretches. The second half of the first period highlighted a whole lot of flaws with the team, starting with the fact that the defensemen just aren't very good. The Hurricanes scored twice, once on a wrap-around that Lehtonen stopped and the defense couldn't clear the rebound or the player, and the second on a tap-in from an uncovered player on the weakside doorstep. Later in the period, the Hurricanes spent whole minutes in the Thrashers' zone because Atlanta's defensemen could not control the puck and get it out.

The second period was a system-wide meltdown. The Thrashers couldn't string passes together properly, so they spent the whole period seeing their attacks broken up easily. In a must-win game, down by two goals, they got a whopping three shots in the second period. The period also highlighted the little things that Lehtonen hasn't mastered yet, namely rebound control (the gulf between him and John Grahame in that area was obvious) and puck-handling (there were several near-disasters when Kari handled the puck outside the crease).

The Thrashers, to their credit, played better in the third, drawing to within 2-1 on a nice shorthanded shot from Garnet Exelby (who is mostly exempt from the criticism of the defensemen) and creating a couple good chances to tie, but their flaccid powerplay not only flubbed a chance to tie, but also allowed the Canes to salt the game away when a Kovalchuk shot from the point deflected right to a Carolina player coming out of the box. Overall, the game highlighted all of the Thrashers' weaknesses: below-average blue-liners, a mystifyingly bad powerplay, and minimal scoring depth behind Kovalchuk, Hossa, and Kozlov.

3. Don Waddell, who surely knows that a failure to make the post-season in year eight will make his post rather uncomfortable, has rolled the dice by acquiring Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik. ESPN.com's take is here and the AJC's take is here. Tkachuk will certainly improve the team's scoring depth, although he's not exactly the smallish, passing center that I had in mind for an acquisition. Zhitnik gives the Thrashers a quarterback for the powerplay, which they desperately need. The problem is that these trades are only necessary in the first place because the Thrashers haven't developed the depth necessary to complement their stars. I don't claim to be an expert on the NHL, but if it's like the NFL or MLB, then the key to success when working within economic restraints is to have 3-4 stars who are worth what you pay them and then a bunch of good, young, cheap players to surround them. Depth cannot come from free agency or trades unless you constantly find diamonds in the rough that are undervalued by the rest of the market. The Thrashers have several excellent players, but they had to mortgage their future because Waddell's drafts haven't produced good complementary pieces to play with Ilya, Marian, and Slava. That's an indictment of Waddell, but it's also a sign that the steep price that the Thrashers paid in terms of draft picks is not the end of the world.

Outsourcing the Thrashers Analysis

Work and babycare duties have forced me to cut back on my sports consumption this winter and unfortunately, that's meant that I haven't been able to spend much time watching or thinking about the Thrashers (naturally when the team is finally good). Fortunately, my friend Ben is one year ahead of me on the propagation of children front and has been able to pay rapt attention to the local hockey collective this year. This is the first of what I hope is a regular feature on this page...

BEN LUVS PUCKS!!!

(My comments are interspersed in italics.)

I want to address the question you posed in your last e-mail first: is the Thrashers' 20-10-6 record a mirage because of their only +5 goal differential? (I read too much of the Baseball Prospectus and now I have to get all Pythogorean with the NHL.) Having watched just about all their games either live or on TV, I will say their record is not a mirage. In fact, they should be a touch better than their record. The goal differential matters a lot in the long run, and recently they have been a huge scoring slump (which I will get to later). Since the calendar flipped to December, they have been outscored by 12 goals, a fairly hefty number which has significantly reduced their differential. This has also coincided with their 5 game losing streak, and present 7 game streak in which the opposing team has taken at least 1 point from them. The points left on the table are obvious, Tampa on 11/24, and Washington on 12/5. In both of these games they allowed scores with fewer than two minutes to go. To sum up, goal differential is not all that bad considering what has happened in the past month. However, and there is always is a however, these losing streaks under Hartley are beginning to concern me. Three in the past calendar year of over 5 games.

My real concern is that the Thrashers have played well in October and November on a number of occasions (2000-1, 2003-4, and 2005-6) and then have been pegged back down to earth in embarrassing fashion when the rest of the league starts playing hard (not unlike Virginia Tech in the several years after Michael Vick when 7-0 would become 8-3 every November). I'm worried that the slumpy December is the real team and not the torrid October and November, but I don't watch every game, so take that with the salt in the Dead Sea.

I think there is one major problem on this team; lack of any support up the middle. Their centers are non-existent. Well maybe the exist, but the suck, and are very old. Mellanby is close to 40 and does not create chances for other players beyond the fore check. He is not a table setter. Holik and Rucchin are good defensive center men who win a ton of face-offs, but they also do not set up any easy goals for teammates. Kovy scores so many of his goals on the power play because he is set up at the point. I wish we had a center man who would do the same for him, otherwise I feel a funk developing. (As a side note, last year with Savard at center, Kovy had 52 goals, 27 on the power play with Savard setting him up there as well. This year he is only on pace for around 41 goals, and 21 on the power play, a significant decline). I don’t know if it is due to planning or frustration, but I have seen Kovulchuck carry the puck into the defensive zone much more recently. Granted he is much more under control than his younger years, but he is not having any success carrying the puck over the blue line and firing on goal from 40 feet with the net minder set in perfect position.

This implies that things aren't going to get a whole lot better as the season progresses unless the team trades for an offensive center who can play Adam Oates to Kovalchuk's Cam Neely or Petr Bondra. I don't really fault Don Waddell for this. The Thrashers' weakness throughout franchise history has been terrible defensive play and he's spent most of his picks and free agent money on improving that side of the ice. Now, the Thrashers are much better defensively with Lehtonen between the pipes and Sutton, Exelby, Havelid, Vishnevski, McCarthy, de Vries, and Coburn in front of him, the team doesn't ship goals by the bushel like they used to. The downside is that they spent their high picks on players like Lehtonen and Coburn and their cap space on a player like Vishnevski, so there wasn't money for Marc Savard. It seems impossible to put together a truly complete team in the NHL these days unless you absolutely rock in the Draft and/or find players who play far above their established value.

Hossa is having a great year, but if you watch, Kozlov is acting like a center for him, looking and finding him whenever they are on the ice together. I think we are getting shut down now because teams are getting accustomed to this and jumping all over him right when Slava has the puck. When the other teams' defensemen only have to concern themselves with two forwards on the Thrashers, stopping them is much easier. After his past two shootout performances, I really think Slava has a great shot and wish he would use it more, but then again, he is reduced to the role of the playmaker when Sim or Kapanen or Metropolit or Slater is on the same line as them.

Waddell has talked about making a move, and we have a few extra blue liners, so I hope he makes a move to get somebody, who is available, I have no idea what would work for the cap, but I would love one more dynamic offensive player, and then I will believe in our chances at winning the cup. In the meantime, I have seen our defensemen pinch a bit more the past few games in an attempt to keep up the fore-check and create offence. Coburn can do this because he is such a great skater, McCarthy is good as well. Look when they are paired and on the ice next time, they really jump into the play nicely. This style seems to really wind DeVries and Hnidy, so I hope they don’t have to keep doing it.

Sounds reasonable, but I worry about this style being dangerous at playoff time when the hockey is more defensive and the risks of pinching go up. Then again, just being able to discuss the Thrashers' style applying to the playoffs would be such a welcome treat that beggars can't be choosers.

For some reason, I have Mike Comrie in mind as a good addition to the team if he would fit under the cap. OK, I have him in mind because he's a Michigan guy, but he was the first player who popped into my head when I was thinking about a smallish, table-setting center to put alongside Kovalchuk and improve the Thrashers' scoring depth. He's currently toiling for the dreadful Coyotes, so he couldn't be that hard to acquire, could he? And we'd make Michigan grad Billy Jaffe happy...if only he was still the color guy for the radio feed. I loved watching Jeff Odgers fight and I treasure my Odgers bobblehead, but he doesn't exactly exude charisma over the air waves. And what happened to the sweet, bushy fu manchu?

Our schedule gets brutal pretty soon. We really need to win these next two because we go on the road for an extended period of time in January, come home for 7/8 and than go West for 7/9. The good news is that we finish with 11 out of 17 at home, so a final push sets up nicely if we can just get through the winter doldrums and not repeat last years Jan-Feb slide.

Having the last two Stanley Cup champs on the heavy rotation doesn't help, although Tampa is a shadow of their former selves without the Bulin Wall.

Here is what excites me about the Thrashers as a whole. The Hawks are not creating any kind of buzz, and with the huge blown lead this week, many fans are probably thinking same ol' Hawks, true or not. The Thrashers have a chance to capture this market and really build something. For all the talk about failure of hockey in this area, Carolina and Tampa have won big recently and they are both in the top half of the league in attendance, with Tampa at #3. The Thrashers have a real chance with the Falcons failure, and the Hawks mediocrity, to be front and center of the sport page every day with a little streak here. That is very exciting stuff. Now just get me a playmaker, and it will happen.

I totally agree with this. Although the Hawks are certainly a better story than they have been for the past couple years, if they don't string together some wins in the near future, they're going to be out of the playoff picture, such as it may be in the Eastern Conference, and mostly off the local sports radar. Once the Falcons' season ends with a loss in Philly, there's going to be a void that should be filled by the Thrashers. Tech basketball doesn't look terribly promising this year, and while the Georgia hoops team looks good, they've never moved the meter that much. Finally, the Braves' fan base isn't exactly geeked for the coming season with Time-Warner's complete non-chalance to improving the product, so the Braves aren't going to be a huge story in February and March.

Catching Up with the Local Sports Collectives

Falcons - The Abraham deal got done, with the Falcons moving down in the first round and picking up a third- and fourth-rounder to boot. (Naturally, the AJC managed to confuse me today by stating or at least implying that the Falcons don't pick before the second round. Would it be too much to ask that AJC reporters understand the deals on which they're reporting? Remember Sekou Smith's belief last year that the Hawks were going to lose the first-rounder they got in compensation for Antoine Walker? I digress.) The team signed him to a six-year, $45M contract, which naturally means nothing and I'm still looking for a breakdown on the deal. The Falcons need to get four good years out of him to make up for the fact that they traded away the chance to draft a young, cheap, productive player with the #15 pick. The defense does look a lot better now with the safety and defensive end weaknesses addressed. Now, they can focus on getting a corner who can relegate Jason Webster to the nickel and keep Allen Rossum from having to cover anyone, along with a left tackle who can at least impede opposing rushers from getting to the franchise. I'd also like to see them get a space-eater to put next to Rod Coleman to give the team a dream defensive line, but that might be too much to ask.

Thrashers - They followed up their big comeback in Boston with an even bigger comeback against New Jersey on Thursday night and then left a real stinker on the ice in Uniondale. This, combined with Montreal sweeping the Maple Leafs (thanks for the help, Toronto), leaves the Thrashers three points out with 11 games to go. Thursday night's game with Tampa is an absolute must-win. If the team doesn't make it, then chalk their failure up to an average defensive corps that have left Kari out to dry on too many occasions. Braydon Coburn, this is your life calling.

Braves - I'm going to go on record now as saying that trading John Thomson would be an enormous mistake. He's a legitimate #3 starter and giving him away for left-handed relief help, which is completely fungible, would be stupid. I know that the Braves want to get Kyle Davies into the rotation, but it's far more likely that they'll do so when one of their starters gets hurt (it's like clockwork with Tim Hudson and need I remind our fearless GM that the ace of the staff is 38 with a history of arm problems) or when Horacio Ramirez or Jorge Sosa blow up. Ramirez and Sosa both had suspect peripherals last year and have not set the world on fire this spring. Spring ball is never a good barometer of success once the pitches start flying for real, but for players about whom we already have doubts, weak spring performances are a concern. Ramirez and Sosa aren't Greg Maddux, intentionally f***ing with hitters by throwing them cheese that will confuse them when Greg sees them again in June. They both allowed a ton of runners last year, with Horacio adding the special treat of letting those runners score at a canter on the heels of another home run. I'd much prefer Davies and possibly Chuck James replacing them in the rotation if one or both suck.

Hawks - The team is firmly back in the crapper after a solid February. They aren't competitive with the good teams and they're losing to most of the bad teams. The players seem as if they've hit a wall, which is probably to be expected with a young team, but still discouraging. The only good news is that they're earning themselves a few more lottery balls.

The Atlanta Regional - I had a good time at the game on Thursday night, although I might never forgive my friend Billy for convincing me that Texas had things wrapped up at halftime and thus depriving me of seeing dueling clutch threes from Pittsnogle and Paulino in person. Still, I got to see Redick weep off the court after crapping the bed in his final game, so the trip was certainly worthwhile. Some assorted thoughts:

1. If Coach K didn't have his carefully crafted image of "more than a coach," then he might get some criticism from inside the periphery that his post-Grant Hill/Laettner teams have mostly underachieved in the tournament. He brings in the best high school talent every year, but almost every time Duke plays a similarly talented team in the tournament, they lose. No one can look at the talent that Coach K has brought in over the past decade and claim that his teams haven't underachieved, but since he has a healthy platoon of Caucasians (who are "gritty" and "heady" instead of "talented," despite the fact that they were huge recruits with similar physical skills to those "naturally-gifted" Black guys playing for other programs) and the aura of Duke University and Duke basketball behind him, he doesn't get criticized. And why do his teams underachieve? Possibly because he doesn't use his depth? Possibly because his coaching style, especially on defense, can be exploited by teams with quality size and those are the teams that Duke inevitably confronts in the later rounds of the tournament? Possibly because he doesn't spend as much time on the tactics that he excelled at earlier in his career and has instead entered a Bobby Bowden stage where he's more CEO than hands-on coach?

1a. One major caveat: Coach K is still the same guy who made seven Final Fours in nine years, at times with relatively untalented teams. (The 1990 team comes to mind, for instance.) Billy Donovan was being written off as a one-hit wonder before this season, but now, he has reminded us all that he's the same guy who did a fine job in riding Florida to the title game in 2000. If we just used the past several years as predictors, then we never would have guessed that the Pac Ten and SEC, two conferences that have struggled mightily to place teams in the Final Four, would have three-quarters of the representatives, while the fourth representative would come from the mid-major Cinderella class that hasn't produced a Final Four team in decades.

2. The hanging scoreboard and buzzer didn't work at the Georgia Dome on Thursday night. Given the efficacy of our city and state government, I can't say that I'm overly surprised.

3. The NCAA does everything they can to make the experience of going to a tournament game as antiseptic as possible. Maybe I've been spoiled by Hawks games (and when did you ever think you'd hear that?), but the interminable commercial breaks after every four minutes of game time were made much worse by the absence of any entertainment. No videos on the Jumbotron, no t-shirts being shot into the upper deck with bazookas, nothing but me and my thoughts. Don't they know that Gen X needs constant stimulation? Entertain me, dammit! And because the NCAA piously refuses to allow the sale of beer at the Tournament (they want to get rich of the unpaid labor that are their athletes, but they apparently don't want to get THAT rich), I couldn't even maintain a buzz.

4. Naturally, it took mere hours following GMU's win over UConn before I heard the first "why can't college football have a tournament so they could have their George Mason story?" remark (courtesy of Steak Shapiro on Mayhem in the AM). First, college basketball was not discussed at all until the NFL season ended (including on Mayhem) and even afterwards, there was more of a search for a storyline ("Hey look, there are two white guys scoring a lot of points for top ten teams! And one was home schooled while the other is a Marxist! Let's hype this story to death!") than there was interest in the games themselves. College basketball has reduced itself to a three-week impact on the sports consciousness of the country. College football has a season-long playoff.

And if you don't believe me, contrast the impact that Ohio State-Texas had on your memory with Duke-Memphis or Memphis-UCLA. If you were like me, you were probably surprised to find out that the Oakland Regional final was a rematch, mainly because no one cares about college basketball until late in the season. This is the wrong year to be bitching about college football's structure, since it worked perfectly, building up all season to the two best teams meeting in the Rose Bowl and then producing an absolute classic. Isn't that better than the second-place team in the CAA playing the second-best team in the SEC for all the marbles? I'm not saying that college football's system is perfect. 2004 surely illustrated that. However, the solution is a four-team playoff, not some sort of soulless 32-team monstrosity designed to allow casual fans to ignore the entire regular season and then pick up in December.

Second, there's no way for a George Mason to compete in football. College basketball requires a limited number of good players and a limited financial investment. That's how a team like George Mason can do better than the richer, bigger flagship schools of the Commonwealth. College football requires a large number of very good players and a larger financial investment. There's no such thing as a Danny Manning in football because one great player can't single-handedly win a game. (A great player with good teammates, like say, Vince Young? Sure. Vince Young with Middle Tennessee State talent around him? Eh, not so likely.)

Third, does anyone else find it a little cheap that a team that couldn't win the Colonial Athletic Conference has a good chance to win the national title?

If the NHL Regular Season Ended Today...

Then the Canadiens would be wondering why it is that the Thrashers got to play one more game than they did. Thus, although I'm excited that the Thrashers have moved into 8th place, it's an incomplete victory since the Canadiens still have a game in hand. The better news is that the Thrashers are playing some of their best hockey of the season, certainly better than the other seven teams fighting for the final three spots in the Eastern Conference.

If the team does indeed make the playoffs, then last night's come-from-behind win over Boston might stick in our memories the same way as David Justice's epic game-winning blast off of Rob Dibble in game 158 of the 1991 season to help the Braves rally from a 6-0 deficit against the defending World Champions stay in first place. It's not quite the same as a critical win in the process of going worst-to-first and winning the divisional title against your hated rival and their obnoxious, SlimFast-hawking manager and coke-swilling leftfielder, but still, coming back from two goals down with seven minutes to play is a big deal.

The only negative from the game is that the Thrashers bled another two power play goals. Only six teams in the NHL have an inferior penalty kill percentage. Even if the Thrashers make the playoffs, they won't be going anywhere if they don't shore up the penalty kill. We can't blame the goaltending for the penalty kill, as Kari Lehtonen has been consistently good since the Olympic break. The defensemen aren't great, but that isn't going to change for the rest of the season. Getting Patrik Stefan back would be very important. If he's healthy, he can be the defensive center that Bobby Holik is supposed to be and he could make the penalty kill better.

Although every game is big, the next three are all enormous: home against the Devils, followed by trips to the Island and Tampa. Each game is going to be a four-pointer in the playoff race, so a good stretch in these next three outings could go a long way to making the last few weeks of the season more about playoff seeding and less about biting our fingernails for that first playoff berth.

The Thrashers Are Dead!!!

Since Sunday, when I blogged about the fact that the Thrashers' chances of making the playoffs were very bleak, they've taken maximum points in two games (including a win over the #4 seed Rangers) while the Canadiens have taken one point in their last two. As a result, the Thrashers are now only one point behind the Canadiens, although the Habs have two games in hand. Tampa sits four ahead of the Thrash with a game in hand, but they are about to embark on a four-game trip to Ottawa, Buffalo, Toronto, and Montreal, so they might be coming down as well. So since it was clearly my profession of pessimism that led the team to narrow the gap between it and eighth place, I'll have to keep saying over and over again that the Thrash aren't going to the playoffs this year.

I hate simplistic explanations of why teams win or lose, but it's hard to get past goaltending with the Thrash. (If anyone knows of a hockey equivalent of the Baseball Prospectus that uses all sorts of space age stats with long acronyms like PECOTA to explain why all of my neanderthalic notions are wrong, please let me know. Speaking of which, my copy of the BP arrived on Tuesday, which, along with getting my bonus for the year, Barca knocking out Chelsea, and the Hawks reaching 20 wins, made it a great day. A book report is forthcoming.) They were winless in shootouts before Lehtonen's groin healed (BLGH) and they're unbeaten in shootouts since that blessed event (ALGH). The Thrashers' season can neatly be divided into those two epochs, with the somewhat inexplicable lapse that ended right before the Olympic break standing as an exception. (Maybe Kari was banged up?) It makes me feel good that if the Thrashers can somehow pull even in the 8th spot, they'll have the advantage going down the stretch, as long as they don't get complacent at that stage and stop playing as hard once the arrears have been eliminated. Wait, I forgot that I need to be pessimistic. Waddell sucks! Hartley sucks! Ilya plays no defense! Slowdry will ruin everything! Lehtonen's groin is a ticking time bomb!

You Are What You Are

As of this morning, I'm not very positive on the Thrashers' playoff chances. The danger of being in a four-team race for one spot is that if one of those other three teams get hot, you're in a lot of trouble. That's the problem right now. Montreal has taken 14 points in their last ten games and have opened a four-point lead on the Thrashers with two games in hand. The way they've been playing recently, we could project them taking three points in those two games, which means that the actual deficit is seven points, a significant sum with 23 games to go. And it gets worse when you look at Montreal's home/road situation down the stretch. They have five more home games than road games down the stretch and they're 16-7-4 at home this year.

What I'm getting at is that the Thrashers are going to have to play their asses off to make the playoffs. Assuming charitably that the Canadiens go .500 down the stretch, they'll end up with 91 points. To finish with 92 points, the Thrashers have to take 30 points in their final 23 games. What are the odds that they'll play that well when they've taken 62 points in their first 61 games this year? To be optimistic, we have to take that flight of fancy that sports fans always take: imagining that their team is better than what the results actually show. The Thrashers are a .500 team over 61 games for a reason. They've been outscored by seven goals on the season. They bleed more goals than just about anyone else in the NHL, especially on the penalty kill. I'd love to think that they could win 16 of their final 23 games. Maybe their record is deflated by the fact that they had to play minor league goalies for the first several months of the season. Then again, they've come out of the break with an impressive win in Buffalo, a dispiriting loss in Boston, and an ugly home win against the third-worst team in the NHL. Is there any evidence in that three-game stretch that they aren't a .500 team?

OK, how about one positive thought: there's a non-trivial chance that the Thrashers could catch Tampa. The Lightning have lost two in a row, bleeding 14 goals in the process. They have a home game against Ottawa, followed by a five-game road trip on the docket. Could the Lightning and their shaky goaltending collapse enough that the Thrashers could make up the six-point deficit and pass the Stanley Cup holders? The teams have three games remaining against one another, all of which are in Tampa, and the Lightning are 3-2 against the Thrashers this year, having shut our local hockey collective out twice. OK, that possibility isn't that great. Wouldn't it be lovely if both the Falcons and Thrashers missed the playoffs at the expense of our jean-shorted, Camaro-driving, Quiet Riot-listening friends down I-75? I suppose that's the price we pay for not being overrun by these hordes for the month of March:

A Little Fight from the Thrashers

After a seven-game losing streak that looked like it had killed their season (and possibly the jobs of Bob Hartley and/or Don Waddell,) the Thrashers had a big week leading up to the Olympic break, winning three out of four, including big wins on the road against Ottawa and Montreal that were headlined by great play by Kari Lehtonen. When the Thrashers were starting their collection of opening acts and roadies in goal earlier in the year, they positively could not win games in which they failed to score four goals. In the last two games, which were dubbed must-win by the hardy few members of the Atlanta media who pay attention to our local hockey collective, the Thrashers have scored a whopping three goals in regulation, but they've taken four points nonetheless.

So now, we go into a 17-day hibernation period, hoping that all of our playres come back from Turin healthy, and then we start the 24-game, 49-day sprint to the finish. Anything is possible with this team, as they've played significant stretches where they've been damn-near unbeatable, along with stretches in which they would have struggled to take a point off of the Damian Rhodes-Hnat Domenichelli-Denny Lambert Thrasher teams from the franchise's infancy. They're two points behind the Canadiens, who have two games in hand, and a point behind the Maple Leafs, who have one game in hand. There's no much time remaining in the season that there's no reason to panic, but another wretched stretch will mean that Philips Arena will still be playoff-less (excluding the Georgia Force.)

Catching Up with the Local Sports Collectives

Hawks - Tyronne Lue continued to bolster his status as the Rafael Furcal of the Hawks (with slightly better driving skills in two different ways) by returning to the line-up on Monday night and leading the team to its 11th win of the year. Prior to Lue's return, the Hawks were playing their worst basketball of the year, which really says something. They had lost six of seven, despite the fact that five of those seven games were at home, and had been within single digits in only two of those six losses. The performances against Detroit and Milwaukee were execrable, leading Salim Stoudamire to question how hard the team was playing. Lue upgrades the Hawks point guard play from atrocious to merely below average and with the rest of the lineup being pretty good, they're a 30-win team with him around. That said, they need to get something for Al Harrington before the trade deadline, as this team is obviously not going anywhere close to the playoffs and it makes more sense for them to get something for him, give Marvin Williams some minutes to develop, and tank the rest of the year to multiply their lottery balls. Unfortunately, the upcoming draft class is apparently bereft of quality big men and point guards ($), so it appears that the team really blew it when they didn't take Chris Paul last June. Have I mentioned that before?

And one other repetitious note: Josh Smith continues to regress. He hasn't hit double-digits in points in his last seven games, despite getting at least 29 minutes in all but one of those games. He has the lowest field goal percentage and assist/turnover ratio of any of the nine players on the team who get regular run. Moreso than the record, his craptastic play has to be the most discouraging aspect of the 2005-6 Atlanta Hawks, which is similar to being the least well-adjusted contestant on Flavor of Love.

Thrashers - I was all ready to proclaim that the team had arrived after they won in Dallas last Wednesday night, but since, they have managed to follow up that big win with three straight losses. In the last two games, they've managed a hefty total of two goals against John Grahame and Tim Thomas, neither of whom are going to be confused with Ken Dryden any time soon. I kinda figured that they couldn't sustain the torrid pace they had shown through the Dallas game, which makes this recent regression a natural correction, but this team has shown prolonged streaks of excellent and abysmal play, so the worry is that this three-game losing streak is the beginning of something yucky. The power play, which is the team's source of offense, has gone dry and there's no definitive reason to explain why that is so, other than the natural ebb and flow of a season. So in other words, there's no reason to panic.

Falcons - The big news is that they have hired to Bill Musgrave as the new quarterback coach for Prince Michael. (The picture to the right is the best representation of his storied NFL career. I wanted to find a shot of him at Oregon to highlight his awkward, Kosar-esque throwing delivery, but Google failed me.) What I haven't seen mentioned yet is that Musgrave is a pure West Coast Offense guy. He played in San Francisco and Denver in his relatively short NFL career, both of which were running the WCO (although San Fran was running a purer form, since Denver was in their "toss sweep left, toss sweep right" phase) and then ran the pure WCO at UVA with none other than current Falcons back-up Matt Schaub. On the one hand, if the Falcons are going to run this offense, then it's best for them to totally immerse Vick in it, including his quarterback coach. On the other hand, if the offense isn't the right fit for him, then bringing in Musgrave is a bad idea. This is, however, the perfect coaching staff for Matt Schaub, so if Vick gets hurt, Schaub ought to do really well (and won't that put this town in a tizzy, given the rumblings that Vick might not be a savior that are starting to get louder.)

"You fell, you fat pig. Have another doughnut."

That seemed like the appropriate title the day after going to a game reffed by the famous Don Koharski. Anyway, with apologies to Koharski (who obviously did a fine job last night, as evidenced by the fact that Nashville ended up with eight more penalty minutes) and Jim Schoenfeld, here are my thoughts on my first in-person immigration to Blueland of the year:

1. I had forgotten how great hockey is in person, especially when sitting behind one of the goals to see the spacing and the development of the plays. I had also forgotten how much the netting behind the goals annoys me, especially because the thick top border of the netting obscured my view of the far goal.

2. The Thrashers were clearly the better team, but the game went to a shootout because of outstanding goalie work by Tomas Vokoun, who lived up to billing by stoning the Thrashers for two periods plus, despite the Thrash creating some really good chances. Initially, the Thrashers were just getting shots on net and he was saving everything. Then, they started to get freaked out by Vokoun's Czech spell and they missed the net for a significant period of time. Finally, they broke through on a shot by Slava Kozlov (set up by a great cross-ice feed from Andy Sutton) and then had offensive success for the rest of the game.

3. Nashville's power play reminded me of Italian calcio (at least before a team takes a lead and goes into a catenaccio shell): they probed and probed and probed by swinging the puck around and it looked like they were accomplishing nothing, but all of a sudden, they had shrunk the Thrashers' formation and they were getting chances close to the goal with everyone in position for rebounds. Unlike the Italians, they didn't punctuate their probing with a series of dives, followed by histrionics and stretchers.

4. Ilya is, and will likely always be, a mesmerizing offensive talent who once or twice a game takes risks that cause me to hit myself on the forehead and exclaim "Ilya, what are DOING?" He also needs a nickname in the worst way. "Kovy" just isn't going to go into Valhalla with "The Great One," "Super Mario," "The Russian Rocket," or "The Grim Reaper."

5. It's no coincidence that the Thrashers won their first shootout of the year on a night on which Kari Lehtonen was between the pipes instead of the AHL crew.

6. As is their wont being sports radio hosts, the Mayhem in the AM crew overreacted this morning by saying that the Thrashers are almost in 6th place in the East. Their position is far more precarious than that. They're three points behind Toronto for 6th, but Toronto has two games in hand. They're three ahead of New Jersey, who just got Petr Sykora back, and the Devils have two games in hand. They're four ahead of Montreal in 10th and the Canadiens have a full four games in hand. In other words, if their competitors win their games in hand, then the Thrash will be on the outside looking in. If the team keeps playing the way they are (11-2-3 in their last 16; unbeaten at home since December 1), then the games in hand won't matter and the Thrashers will get a nice, mid-level seed (and thereby avoid playing Ottawa in the first round.) The fact that their rise has coincided with the return of their starting goalie is evidence that they can keep playing at or close to this clip. That said, it's hard to keep playing this well and if they come back to earth, there are plenty of teams who could leave the team playing golf in April again. The home game against St. Louis on Friday night is as much of a lay-up as there is in the NHL; the back-to-back roadies against Dallas (#2 in the West) and Los Angeles (#5 in the West) next week will be telling for this team's future. Last night's win over the #4 team in the West was encouraging.