Thrashers.Today.Com

By Bud L. Ellis
thrashers.today.com

ATLANTA – Want the recipe for a rotten season? Here you go: allow the most goals in the NHL, allow the most shots in the league and play defense like you’re allergic to stopping the opposition.

Voila! You have last season’s Atlanta Thrashers.

It doesn’t take a lot of scientific research, deep fact finding or a PhD in Hockey 101 to realize the Thrashers were abysmal on defense last season … wait. Abysmal just called, and he’s offended we’d associate him with the pitiful excuse of a defensive unit the Thrashers employed in 2007-08.

Maybe horrendous is a better word. Putrid, maybe? How about just plan out-and-out suck?

And to think, it could’ve been even worse. Where would the Atlanta blueliners have been without Tobias Enstrom, the undersized rookie who led all NHL first-year defenders in points and ice time?

Don’t answer that.

The Thrashers gave up an NHL-worst 272 goals last season (an average of 3.32 per game). They allowed 33.9 shots per game, also worst in the league. Only one defender, Niclas Havelid, finished with a plus-minus rating in positive territory (just barely, though, at plus-2). Alexi Zhitnik, acquired from Philadelphia for promising prospect Braydon Coburn at the 2007 trade deadline, spent the tail-end of the season on the bench, then was released in the offseason.

In 21 games last season, Atlanta allowed five goals or more. Its record in those contests? 0-21.

Yeah, gotta fix the defense obviously. And the Thrashers have made some moves to try and shore up their blueline, signing veteran Ron Hainsey and using the third overall pick in the draft on super prospect Zach Bogosian, who could make the opening-night roster. Enstrom will have to avoid a sophomore slump, and the Thrashers have to get better performances from Garnet Exelby and Ken Klee.

With just five defensemen on the roster, the battles to fill out the blueline spots will occupy plenty of the spotlight during training camp next month. It has to be, because if the Thrashers don’t have better production from their defense this season, a new head coach and the brilliance of Ilya Kovalchuk and everything else won’t mean squat.

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