THN.com Blog: Asset management has been Thrashers' undoing

Kari Lehtonen had a few bright spots during his tenure in Atlanta, but it was mostly dark days. Goalie Kari Lehtonen #32 of the Atlanta Thrashers skates towards the crease before the start of the second period during the game against the of the Montreal Canadiens at Philips Arena on March 6, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia. The Thrashers beat the Canadiens 2-0 and Lehtonen recorded the shutout. (Photo by Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images)

Rory Boylen
2010-02-10 12:20:00

We all recognize how important it is to build through the draft, especially in an age where teenagers make the direct leap more than ever. If you’re a team like the Atlanta Thrashers, who can’t afford to fill front-line roster spots through free agency, the draft is all the more important to keep the team competitive.

In trading away Kari Lehtonen to the Dallas Stars Tuesday night, the Thrashers have now disconnected themselves from all but one of their six first round draft picks from the first five drafts of the team’s existence. The one first-rounder left on the roster? Center Jim Slater, the 30th overall pick in 2002, whose career high in the NHL is 20 points.

The Lehtonen trade wasn’t a huge surprise, given the play of the much cheaper 22-year-old Ondrej Pavelec and veteran Johan Hedberg, and the fact the Stars are setting themselves up to move on without Marty Turco. But considering Lehtonen was picked second overall eight years ago, I’m not sure Ivan Vishnevskiy – even though he is a pretty good prospect – is the piece that will finally bring this team together.

Asset management is such a huge part of building a franchise and the Thrashers have failed miserably at it time and again. In the first seven years of Atlanta’s existence, they picked first overall two times and second twice, before going eighth, 10th and 16th. What does this team have to show for those lofty selection positions? Patrik Stefan, Dany Heatley, Ilya Kovalchuk, Lehtonen and Braydon Coburn have all been dealt, leaving the current team with Colby Armstrong (included in the Marian Hossa trade, who came in for Heatley), Niclas Bergfors and Johnny Oduya; Slater and 10th overall pick Boris Valabik remain, while the 16th overall pick in 2005, Alex Bourret, was dealt to the Rangers (then dealt again the next year to Phoenix).

That’s it. Jaroslav Modry, Niko Kapanen, Greg De Vries and Alexei Zhitnik were once part of trade returns for these players, with De Vries staying around the longest: two seasons and 164 games. Ouch.

And it doesn’t get any better for Atlanta in the later rounds of the draft, either. Sure, you can’t expect to build a team with just third-, fourth- and fifth-rounders, but you can hope they complement other pieces you’ve put in place and prevent you from having to make trades or sign free agents to make a competitive team. In their first seven draft years, Atlanta picked nine players outside of Round 1 who became NHLers, with the cream of the crop being current Thrasher Tobias Enstrom; the anomaly of the franchise.

Aside from him, Garnet Exelby, Darcy Hordichuk and Pasi Nurminen are the only ones to play more than 100 games and none of them are around anymore (though Atlanta was able to find a salary-dump partner in Toronto to land Pavel Kubina for Exelby, which may just be Don Waddell’s best trade of all-time). Pavelec, a second-rounder from 2006, is now being given his chance to prove himself as a No. 1 netminder.

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So with a draft record as poor as Atlanta’s, they have no choice but to rely on shrewd trades to craft a team over the long haul. But their assets have been mismanaged to the point of neglect and the perfect example of what is wrong with this franchise can be seen through Dany Heatley.

When Heatley was traded for de Vries and Hossa, the Thrashers replaced their big scorer to play with Kovalchuk and also got a good defensive defenseman to add on the back end. The team was inching closer to the playoffs and it was seen as a positive move. Two years later, after being swept in their only playoff appearance, Hossa was traded to Pittsburgh for a return we can all agree now was atrocious for such a star.

Somehow Heatley has become Armstrong and prospects Angelo Esposito and Daultan Leveille.

Lehtonen had to be traded, but it’s another case of downgrading assets for this floundering franchise.

Over the next few years, it’ll be interesting to see what becomes of Waddell’s 2009-10 trade acquisitions. First, if they develop into anything significant and second, if the Thrashers downgrade once again.

From Day 1 in 1999, the Thrashers have faltered at the most important team-building techniques over and over, never really taking any strides towards year-in and year-out consistency. Trades aren’t always about the immediate return – especially when dealing with prospects – but what you do with those assets down the road.

And while other recent expansion teams from Nashville, Columbus and Minnesota have either made multiple playoffs or look strong for the next few years, Atlanta languishes near the basement without direction. Sure they have some good young parts, but do their fans really have any reason to hope their current assets will allow management to finally build a contender?

Rory Boylen is TheHockeyNews.com's web content specialist and a regular contributor to THN.com. His blog appears Tuesdays and his feature, A Ref's Life, appears every other Thursday.

For more great profiles, news and views from the world of hockey, subscribe to The Hockey News magazine.

COMMENTS (10)

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brian_p Posted
(2010-02-12 08:34:57)

@leftdenceman I don't believe the Sedins ever announced they would only come to North America if they were able to play together. From what I recall, what they were saying publicly was that they'd love to play together, but if they had to play separately so be it. The issue was more that scouts at the time talked themselves into the idea that the Sedins could ONLY play with each other, that if someone didn't take both of them they would never be as good of players as they are with each other. Whether or not that influenced Waddell's selection I don't know, but Stefan was pretty much the consensus #1 pick anyway. The Sedins weren't even rated 2 and 3, I don't think, I'm pretty sure Stefan's competition for #1 was Pavel Brendl. That said, I'm not sure it's fair to blame Waddell for that particular draft either; realistically it was a pretty terrible draft year. Waddell didn't have many options outside of Stefan or Brendl or taking a chance on one Sedin. He didn't have the trade options to get both twins and most people were saying getting just one wouldn't be worth it. It's easy to say in hindsight that the first overall pick that year could've been Zetterberg, but realistically, nobody had any clue who he was except the Wings, so he went 210th. The only other player in the entire draft that year who's a first liner is Havlat. That said, I don't think that anyone should be making excuses for Don Waddell; he's had more than enough time to accomplish something with this franchise and hasn't.

leftdenceman Posted
(2010-02-11 23:09:33)

Lots of background info missing in this article. Firstly, the first ever Thrashers' pick of Patrik Stefan: the Sedin twins were in the draft and they announced neither was coming over unless they could be on the same team. With pressure from the league, the Thrashers, with the second pick, made the deal to switch picks with Vancouver. That kept the twins together and the Thrashers took the next best, knowing that Stefan had concussion issues. Waddell and the Thrashers took a bullet for the league and paid for it when Stefan succumbed to the head shots. (Gueirin was the first.) And then Heatley. The guy runs his Ferrari at high speed into a wall, killing a teammate, and a few months after, the team and it's fans welcome him back -- but he demands a trade. Rather than telling him to suck it up and deal with it, Waddell accomodates and works out the best trade available. Hossa comes in return, but has no knowledge of what was in the works. He signed the big cotract with Ottawa in the morning and was traded to Atlanta the same afternoon. Of course he's pissed and will be looking to control his own destiny as soon as possible. Just saying, there's a lot more to these articles on the Web than what the guys writing them have time to research.

birdwatcher_aaron Posted
(2010-02-11 12:58:58)

Rory, I was with you until this: "But their assets have been mismanaged to the point of neglect and the perfect example of what is wrong with this franchise can be seen through Dany Heatley." Heatley is quite probably the least appropriate example. Understand, I'm not blaming Heatley for Hossa's leaving, nor am I trying to defend Don Waddell. But the fact remains that (for whatever reason) Dany Heatley had no intention of playing for the Thrashers any longer. If it weren't for Muckler having "salary specification issues" with Hossa (which, looking back, both situations should've been a clue to a whole bunch of people), Waddell would've had to get a lower value return somewhere else. Other than that, yea, the Thrashers' scouting has been pretty pathetic.

brian_kemp Posted
(2010-02-11 12:34:25)

I agree with both the premise of the article as well as some of the points that other posters have made. The Thrashers are a difficult sell for prospective free agents, because they have never won anything and they have a difficult time filling the stands. Don Waddell has made some awful decisions ("Mr. Wadell, Marc Savards agent is on line 2." "Tell him to piss off, we don't need the bum!" or "I'm just sure Kovalchuk will resign, I can tell by the way he's asking for money that will bankrupt us!"). Ownership is awful, and not owning and controlling their AHL team hurts big time. While I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that Atlanta will move, I can't see how any city could continue to hold onto a team that is this horribly mismanged and has this much in the way of institutional baggage to keep it from ever turning around. I don't see why any city would even care if a team this ridiculous moved. I'm from Detroit. There are a lot of people here who wouldn't mind if the Lions moved. At least people would stop making fun of us for their existence. I imagine there are at least a few hockey fans in Atlanta who've had similar thoughts.

fieldmarshal Posted
(2010-02-11 11:35:07)

I firmly believe that Waddell has made some rather big mistakes as GM of the Thrashers, but I also believe that once you factor in the location of the team, the very meager game attendance and the team's single playoff appearance (in which they were unceremoniously swept in four-straight by the NYR), Waddell should be given even a small degree of latitude. Its shocking to see first-rounder picks Heatley, Lehtonen, and now Kovalchuk are all gone (and to a much lesser extent, Stefan), but I doubt very much that Heatley would have stayed in Atlanta, even if Waddell had made him the highest-paid player in the league. Heatley had a few playoff runs with the Sens and is now with probably the best team in the West. For all his faults (and I'm an Oiler fan, so I despise him!), Heatley wants to play with a winning team. Same with Kovalchuk. NJ has a decent chance of making some noise in the playoffs, and since Kovalchuk has only made it to the post-season once, doesn't it make sense that Waddell has somewhat of a tough time trying to hold onto players? The returns he's acquired on some trades haven't been great, like losing Hossa for a small amount and Savard for nothing, but the Thrashers still can't generate much interest in Georgia even when they're having a decent season right now. Let's face it, no player wants to remain with a floundering franchise and while the team may be only four points out a playoff spot right now, it wouldn't matter if they by some miracle won their division and finished 3rd in the East. People don't care much for hockey in Atlanta, which makes Waddell's job one of the toughest in the league. I'd firmly expect Bagosian and Kane to be traded in a couple years if Atlanta even still has a team, regardless who their GM is.

singollo Posted
(2010-02-11 09:05:26)

@mbreau makes an extremely good point. I've read the same thing about the Thrashers orgnization, multiple times and from several different sources. For most NHL clubs, the AHL team's primary purposes is not to win the Calder Cup (though that's always nice) but to properly develop prospects for the big league. Apparently in Atlanta, the reverse is true: the Wolves are an affiliate only, and are not under the Thrashers direct control. Therefore, the Wolves are going to do what's best for them as a franchise: win as many games as possible, even if by doing so it means playing career minor leaguers instead of young NHL prospects.

markopolo Posted
(2010-02-11 00:12:21)

Waddell is probably the worst GM in the league and perhaps the Mike Milbury of the Post lockout NHL. If he was in an actual hockey market, he would have been fired a long time ago. After having such talent as Heatley, Savard, Kovalchuk, Hossa, and now Lehtonen go for next to nothing to show for it, Atlanta should give up on the Thrashers. Forget the talk about Phoenix... fold Atlanta and hold a dispursal draft so Evander Kane can go to a team that will care about him.

frankjacob1 Posted
(2010-02-10 23:17:14)

Yes the Chicago Wolves were the darlings of Chicago hockey when the Hawks were being mismanaged by old man Writz. In order to fill the place they needed to win. They had prospects but they also had veteran AHLers and past the prime NHLer ie. Chris Chelios. While the Thrashers players experienced winning I wonder how much teaching went on? Also when the chips were in play the vets played over the kids.

mbreau Posted
(2010-02-10 19:28:46)

Isn't one of the biggest problems the Trashers' AHL team? I've always heard that the Chicago Wolves, being under separate ownership, have always been focused on winning at the AHL level with as many veterans as it takes, as opposed to developing prospects? While I can't cite any specific examples, could it just be that, in the AHL, the NHL-calibre prospects are getting benched in favour of the ones who can compete at an AHL level but will never do much in the big leagues. (Brett Sterling comes to mind as the latter type) I know that there aren't THAT many examples of big-name stars who've had to develop in the AHL before hitting the NHL...lately, most tend to go straight from junior, college, or Europe to the NHL...but it still is the best way for developing depth within an organization.

singollo Posted
(2010-02-10 14:01:46)

While it's hard to fault the general premise of this blog, (and I fully agree that Don Waddell has made enough blunders to merit a tarring-and-feathering by the Thrashers faithful) I don't fully agree with the implication here that Kovalchuk and Lehtonen should have fetched a bounty of assets in return. The Kovalchuk deal has been analyzed ad naseum: he was an impending UFA likely to demand an exorbitant contract, and he had made it abundantly clear that he wanted out of ATL. None of that gave Waddell any leverage - teams were (quite wisely) unwilling to give up top-end talent or prospects for Kovalchuk. Similar story for Lehtonen: the fact that the guy was a second overall pick nearly a decade ago isn't going to impress many GMs today. He's a brittle goalie who hasn't lived up to his potential. What in the world should Waddell have been able to get? Look at the meager return for Phaneuf: the guy was a Norris finalist a mere two years ago, and was dumped for spare parts this season. In general, the knock on Waddell would be that he waits too long to deal players: once he knew Kovy wasn't signing, he should have been dealt LAST SEASON. Then there might have been a king's ransom to be had. Same with Lehtonen...the team knew last summer that Pavelec showed promise, so the gutsy (read: correct) call would have been to deal Kari then, and the return would have been greater.