Evander Kane Sampling Atlanta's Music Scene

(updated below)

If, like your TBC editor, you just returned from a grueling session of electro-shock therapy and were trying to unwind with a glance at the Twitter, you probably saw this tweet from Evander Kane:


This cryptic alien message is actually a lyric from a young person's rap music single. In fact, it comes from Atlanta rapper Gorilla Zoe's tune "I Got It." We're glad that young Evander is reprehzentin and listening to Atlanta hip-hop, but we're a bit disappointed that he chose to quote from that particular song and not Gorilla Zoe's classic "Shit on 'Em," with its rousing chorus of "I doo-doo/ I poo-poo/ I shit on 'em."



UPDATE: Speaking of music, do check out Rawhide's post from Sunday, and scroll through the comments section. Everyone lists favorite albums and such, and your TBC editor was delighted to see that many of them have mighty fine taste! U2, R.E.M., Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Smiths, the Who, A Tribe Called Quest, those Beatles and Stones and Dylan folks...More than one even claims to be familiar with XTC's Oranges and Lemons. How is that even possible? XTC?!

Chris Thorburn Will Score Your Goals

(updated below)

Did you enjoy your weekend, Thrashingwhores? Did you go out for fish tacos and Corona? Did you follow the wild up-and-down antics of our Actually Good local sports team, the Braves? Did you enjoy staring at Christina Hendricks on the Emmy's thingy? Was your Honor Restored?

One of the strange things that happened to your editor over the weekend was Big Shooter sending him this, from vital hockey mind Rick Dudley:

We think [Chris] Thorburn is capable of scoring. He did in junior. I know the player really, really well way back from [OHL] Sudbury. I think he’s capable of being more than a fourth-line guy. If that happened we are in pretty good shape because he’s a big, fast guy that plays with an edge. Those guys, if you can play them a lot, in a top-three line situation, that’s invaluable. We also have [Patrick] Rissmiller. There are things that are questions, but they are all positive questions.

There you have it folks. Patrick Rissmiller and Chris Thorburn will morph into 20-goal quasi-snipers. Dudley also counts on Alexander Burmistrov making the team immediately, despite the fact that the new Russian is "very slight" at the moment. He also counts on Evander Kane having a breakout year, Bryan Little bouncing back, and Andrew Ladd scoring anywhere between 15 and 25 goals. Meanwhile Dustin Byfuglien will play defense and Nic Bergfors will...um...what IS going on with that Bergfors signing?

UPDATE: Scanning through the comments to this wacky report, I see that several people---including our friend Mr. Speaker/Smoothie/The Smoother of Wakefield---are making the case that Dudley's talk is some kind of theatrical media massage. What's REALLY going on, many say, is that there's going to be a trade in the near future. Something along the lines of Valabik, Bergfors, and a 1st for Jeff Carter or Jarome goddamn Iginla. Maybe. I remain skeptical. "Skeptical" as in "there is no way such a thing will happen."

Let's Play Twister, Let's Play Risk

Rick Dudley has things to SAY, bitches. LISTEN. He's the Lao-Tzu of our time, what with his "There’s been talk of going back from time to time" and "One thing it would do is you’d have to be disciplined" aphorisms. Why do you not listen? Fucking hell, peeps.



Now, the problem with that music video is that it's too good.

Rickard Dudley baffles us. We have no idea what to say about the man, other than "Perhaps he has no idea what he's doing. Perhaps, we dare say, we've traded one reign of error for another and nothing will substantially change until we've got a new and engaged ownership."

That might be premature, though.

In times of confusion, it's natural to seek out things that remind you what truly matters.

What truly matters?

Count us off, drummer.



SAY, do any of you like dancing in empty dining halls or beside a pool? If so, you might impact the Atlanta Thrashers in subtle but profound ways.

Hockey Blogging and Its Discontents

Already bored with the "are bloggers human?" debate? So are we! Want to be friends?

If the NHL Kingdom and its various team provinces decide to issue press credentials to some of the more solid blogs out there, that'd be nifty. I'd be interested to see what bloggers could do with original reporting. Perhaps it'd be wildly different from newspaper journalism, perhaps it would be the same thing in a different format. Probably both, depending on the blog.

As for your TBC editor, well...I have no desire to become the next Darren Dreger or whoever. What Dreger and his ilk do is valuable and necessary, of course. We'd all be lost without TSN, the CBC, Craig Custance, and skilled beat reporters like Michael Russo, David Pollack, and George Richards. I can think of a few (but only a few) bloggers who have the potential to do something on that level, something equally valuable in terms of reporting and sense-making.

But hockey journalism on both the Internet and the newspaper-print versions of the Internet suffers from an excess of banality and mediocrity. You know the sort of thing: lifeless headlines, "updated" stories with no actual new developments, colorless and sanitized prose, articles that open with boring-beyond-belief ledes like "Two weeks ago I sat down with David Poile to ask him about the Patric Hornqvist negotiations" and bury the ACTUAL news item ("he wants some fucking money") two paragraphs down.

Actually, that really only happens in the "traditional" media. The average blog lede is something like "Today I sat down and wondered, 'Is Duncan Keith as good with teeth as he is without teeth? Is there any variation in quality that corresponds to his tooth fluctuations?' I have studied it, and here are my findings. Here they are. Here are my findings." And the headline will be something like "Studying Duncan Keith's Teeth."

These sad problems aren't unique to hockey journalism. They plague most sports journalism. They plague most journalism period, from sports to politics to culture to lifestyle columns to "Science has published a new study today. According to this new Science, jogging is actually bad for you if you do it on a major metropolitan freeway."

But it seems to me that hockey journalism suffers more than other areas of journalism---much more than journalism covering other sports---from a lack of edge, verve, flair, and sharp writing. There is no equivalent to Hunter S. Thompson's classic report "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" in hockey journalism. This is our loss, our poverty.

Your editor confesses that there are really only two or three hockey blogs on the entire Internet that he reads for delight as well as instruction. But sometimes instruction is all you need, and there are quite a few hockey blogs that supply useful information and penetrating analyses. Some of them (some) could learn to write more actively and snappily, though. Some of them could also use a copy editor, which is as good an argument as any for the NHL issuing press passes to more bloggers. Perhaps the NHL and some sort of Hockey Bloggers' Guild could come to an agreement: You Give Us Press Passes, We'll Give Ourselves a Copy Editor.

In fact, the Chronicle badly needs a copy editor, and we're too low on funds to purchase a stylebook. INTERESTED? We'll pay you in Mardi Gras doubloons.

UPDATE: HahahahahaHAHAHA HA HA HAH. HA. HA. This special report from the Onion is trying to get across similar ideas.

TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

Rick Dudley Continues His Benevolent Dictatorship

(updated below!)

Now this is amusing:


As is this:


Revolutionizing the Thrashers, one important decision at a time.

UPDATE: Vivlamore has typed up the whole bizarre exchange with Dudley.

Q. Do you know if he has a preference, forward or defenseman?

A. He likes to play defense.

Q. How would moving him to defense affect your forwards?

A. If we don’t do anything else [signing-wise], than it depends on what some of the people do who come in at forward, whether or not they grab us. If we did something else up front, it would make it more likely that we would play him, at least for the time being, on defense. … [Alexander] Burmistrov, [Patrice] Cormier, [Spencer] Machacek, [Anthony] Stewart, [Angelo] Esposito. If one, or all of these guys, steps up to the plate it makes it easier to move Buff to defense or give him that opportunity.

THIS.

Greggers Wyshynski:

In essence, these teams wish to see bloggers become a second-class citizenry in the press box: Given a 'B-grade' credential that allows them on press row and in the home-team dressing room, but prohibits them from interacting with players from the visiting team if that team has a policy against alt-media access.

The Thrashers, of course, don't even allow locker room access, which is the main reason we've never been wildly impressed with their occasional "Take Your Blogger to the Press Box" days. A stage-managed trip to the press box does not an Act of Journalism make. If you're not allowed to gather quotes from the locker room and the press conference, what's the point?

Wait, Kyle McLaren?

What in God's name? Your TBC editor neglects the hockey wires for the better part of a day then checks the nocturnal Twitters to find that Kyle McLaren is coming to the Thrashers' training camp?

Dudley likes the potential of what McLaren could bring to the table.

“Kyle is a big, strong guy who, if he can stay away from injuries, is certainly capable of playing in this league.”

Right, yes, sure. We're so totally going to climb aboard the "sign Kyle McLaren" train.

Your editor is a big K-Mac fan, but Christ-on-a-bike is he ever done, hockey-wise. The human body can only stand so many pulverizing hip checks.

We shouldn't get the big guy's hopes up.

Rawhide Meets the Blue Crew

First in real life, and then in the cyber-pages of the AJC. Do read his in-depth profile. And stick around for the "cheerleaders DO NOT belong in hockey, according to some imaginary cosmic law in my head" and "durrrr it's not that girls are ICKY, it's just that I don't want my children to see their shameful flesh, durrrr family-friendly, etc." comments.

Thrashers Will Accept This Zubarev Person

Vivlamore tweets:
Thrashers will announce signing off Andrei Zubarev today.

So what do we KNOW about this Andrei Zubarev, besides the fact that he's an actual Russian person? How do we know that he won't use his contract with the Atlanta Thrashers and his apartment in Buckhead---granite countertops and stainless steel fridge and all---as an innocuous-looking cover for his REAL career as a Putin-era spy?

Because he probably wrote the Thrashers a nice cover letter, something along the lines of "I will complete your team. I will be the missing link between Too Many Defensemen and a Mega-Army of Awesome Defensemen. The word 'failure' is not in my vocabulary, whereas the word 'proactive' is not only in my vocabulary but is actually my favorite word, because that's what I am, all the time. I'm a team-player who will lead this team to head-severing glory. I'm also proficient in Microsoft Word, HTML, CSS, JAVA script, Adobe Reader, Advanced Power Point, etc."

MORE, including an interview, at the Blueland Blog.

Bryan Little is Your New Bryan Little

The Blueland Blog:

Restricted free agent Bryan Little has officially re-signed with the Thrashers and it’s being reported that he’s locked up for three more years.

The Vivlamore:

The Thrashers re-signed restricted free agent Bryan Little to a three-year contract worth $7.15 million on Monday. The deal will pay Little $1.65 million this season, $2.5 million in 2011-12 and $3 million in 2012-13.

Apologies for the lazy recycling of the B-Litts Blingee.

"Ritual shakes and in good vibes"

Late night edition:







Ready, ready, ready for October.

Bryan Little to Sign Something or Other

Chris Vivlamore, on the Twitter wires: Bryan Little close to new deal: "I’m letting my agent handle that but it’s looking like it hopefully is going to be done with pretty soon."

Hooray! Now, Bryan, could you do that thing where you score 31 goals again?

Bon weekend, bastard hockey children of hell.

Boris Valabik Simply Does Not Care For These Dreams-Within-Dreams Sequences

Ben Wright recently caught up with everyone's favorite pretend boyfriend Slovak defenseman, the Badger of Bratislava himself, and asked him some questions about the Cinema. Boris Valabik, you see, is the James Agee/Pauline Kael of the Atlanta Thrashers, and by gum he has OPINIONS, people!

Like, for instance, that weird Christopher Nolan movie about corporate spies + dreams + Leo DiCaprio, the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun, and that sultry/gamine/hot French chick acting stone cold nuts? NOT A GOOD FILM.

You’re known as one of the bigger movie buffs on the team. Have you seen any this summer?

VALABIK: “I don’t feel like going to the movie theatre when I’m back home, but I go to a lot here. I saw The Other Guys a few days ago. It was hilarious, but back home I hardly go at all. I don’t even watch TV there.”

Everyone has been talking about Inception. Have you seen it yet?

VALABIK: That was the one movie I saw at home. I don’t know if I liked it that much. It was confusing from the beginning so I didn’t think it was as good as people say. Everyone is giving it four or five stars- I thought it was good, but not that good. I hated the end. I need movies with a good ending, and that wasn’t one to me. I’m going to Dinner for Schmucks sometime soon because I know it will be funny, and The Other Guys was funny. I like Will Ferrell a lot. Those are my kind of movies right.

Thank you Boris, THANK YOU.

P.S. Boris has also recovered from that unfortunate injury or whatever it was, so hooray!

"And it all promises so much." Manic Night Music for Malarchuk

Oh, the things that can happen in a day.

Sign some dude, hire one of the most accident-prone (but durable) individuals in human history to consult your goaltenders about the stock market.

An eventful day, for August.

More Dudley-Era Incest

The Thrashers have hired Clint Malarchuk as a goaltending consultant. Read Ben Wright's take here.

Ben points out that Malarchuk is best known as the goalie who narrowly avoided death on the ice when his carotid artery was cut by a skate blade in 1989. WARNING: GRAPHIC!



Ben also goes on to tell you the interesting detail that Big Shooter had previously passed along to us all- Daren Elliot was called up from the Sabres' minor league affiliate to back up Malarchuk's replacement after this incident. Elliot reasoned to himself that if someone almost dying was the only way he'd get called up to the NHL, it was time to retire and try broadcasting. We're all glad now that he did.

What I find interesting is that Dudley played with Malarchuk, coached him in Buffalo, and hired him as a goaltending coach in Florida. So now the Thrashers have Ramsey, Torchetti, and Malarchuk, all of whom worked for Dudley in the past.

In addition to that, we have Darren Elliot, who apparently was also briefly coached by Dudley when he was called up to the Sabres in 1989, though Elliot had been here all along.

Looking at the records of teams Dudley has managed in his career, I'm not sure that populating the Thrashers' organization with Dudley's old pals is such a good idea.

*****
M. Peacock adds: Let's not forget that time Malarchuk shot himself by accident.

New Rules for Hockey, Again

Now seems a time as good as any to re-visit my recent "10 Ways to Fix Hockey" bullet-pointed PowerPoint presentation. I hope the NHL is listening.

Joy! Praise! Puckmore!

Laura and Aaron from Bird Watchers Anonymous have contributed an official Thrashers Mount Puckmore to the Puck Daddy! Do read it.

The Chronicle will be preparing a counter-Puckmore in the near future. What's more, we plan to chisel four actual faces of random Thrashers onto some mountain in the Black Hills of Dakota. Take THAT, SB Nation media empire!

Chris Mason Has Beard, Mask

It would look very nice on a parallel-universe 1970s Thrashers team. We like the RESURGENS seal on the back, with the phoenix flapping its way out of the fire. True story: it's long been a secret dream of your TBC editor's to start an Atlanta alt-weekly called The Phoenix. It would put Creative Loafing to weeping shame.

Also: Mason is asked things, and responds.

P.S. The best goalie mask in Thrashers history was Kari Lehtonen's Kill Bill mask. Carry on.

UPDATE: Razor has reminded me that the ACTUAL best goalie mask in Thrashers history was Johan Hedberg's Indiana Moose extravaganza. We regret the error, etc.

"They try to kill your style." WHAT IS VARIABLE PRICING?

Dum dum dee dum, just checking the email. Um, hello?

DEAR MORTIMER:

^---click for SIZE

We're in favor of this variable pricing. It will be as revolutionary as the variable foot that Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams brought to English-language poetry.



Just got off the teleporter with Big Shooter. He sez to me, he sez, " Why should a Saturday night game against the Penguins cost the same as a Monday night game against the Islanders?" HE'S RIGHT, YOU KNOW.

I was almost convinced by the email's air travel analogy, until I remembered something. Air travel would be a nice analogy, but a Swissair or Austrian Airlines flight where the stewardesses are actually attractive and keep refilling your glass even if you're in coach, and the seat in the middle is purposely unbooked, for Comfort, costs a bit less than being surrounded by screaming kids in a seatbelted dungeon cell in Delta's coach section. But then again, this variation in pricing has to do with demand, not with quality, so it makes sense after all!

What am I saying? I don't know.

HOCKEY VOODOO TO CURSE THRASHERS FOREVER

Forget "Pass or Fail." The question should be "Who do we sacrifice to placate the angry ice gods?" SOMEONE has to take one for the team.

Actual Questions That We Wish Journalists Would Attempt to Answer

Yesterday's revelation that media behemoth News Corp has gotten tired of bidding warfare and WILL NOT be purchasing the Dallas Stars was greeted with relief and huzzahs by Stars fans. Your Chronicle understands the relief, and would certainly feel the same way if we were transplanted to Dallas, but the news made us wonder about our own team's strange ownership situation.

A while back your Chronicle said that EVERYONE (meaning the people at 680 The Fan and at The New York Post) knows that the Atlanta Spirit are trying to sell the Thrashers. At the time, radio person John Kincade said that he expected an announcement within two weeks. Obviously, that didn't happen.

HOWEVER...

We remain convinced that the Spirit are trying to sell the Thrashers. Who knows whether they'll find anyone audacious/insane enough to buy anytime soon, but they are certainly looking. Your Chronicle is hoping for an eccentric billionaire with a passion for hockey, not a committee or a mutant slob-child of corporate synergy. But who knows?

What we do know is that it's curious that the only media outlets to report this impending sale are 680 and the NY Post. WHY might this be?

Your Chronicle can't help but wonder if the New York Post, which is of course owned by News Corp, is purposely trying to generate rumors and create instability in the Thrashers ownership situation. We won't go so far as to say that "News Corp is planning a takeover and using the Post as shock troops." So PLEASE, people of the Internet, do not read this post and unleash Twitter and message board wildfires along the lines of "THRASHERS TO BE BOUGHT BY NEWS CORP." That's not our intention here. It's not even our intention to engage in some weird "what if News Corp is trying to take over the Thrashers?" thought experiment.

The point is this: we know that News Corp has recently shown interest in buying a hockey team. We also know that the New York Post, a News Corp property, reported that the Atlanta Spirit are looking to sell the Thrashers. John Kincade has corroborated this, supposedly from his own sources.

What are we getting at? That we'd like someone, ANYONE, try to get to the bottom of this. If would be nice if Kincade or the NY Post followed up on their initial reports (perhaps Kincade has; I don't listen to his show enough to know for sure). But if they won't, then someone else should. Like local journalists, whether at the AJC, the Atlanta Business Chronicle, or maybe even someone in the Thrashers blogosphere.

But the AJC is cash-strapped and Chris Vivlamore barely has enough time to file normal Thrashers reports amid all his other responsibilities. That's not his fault; it's the nature of this new era of money-losing newspapers and their culled, purged, overworked staffs.

The Atlanta Business Chronicle, which in theory should be all over this story, is a banal cookie-cutter operation that seems to rely on company press releases, not reporting, for its news. Sigh. The things that paper could be if it had a decent editor...

That leaves us with Thrashers bloggers, many of whom want very badly to be Taken Seriously. I'll repeat what I said when the NY Post/Kincade reports came out:

You want to be a journalist, or at least a reporter who offers something more substantive than "The Thrashers were nice enough to invite us to talk to Chris Thorburn today?" Chase this story down. Send the Raine Group an email. Tell them you write for a well-known weblog that covers the Thrashers, and you want to know if there's any truth to the rumors about the Atlanta Spirit---their client---trying to sell the package they own.

Because, again, there is more to being a journalist than sitting in the press box. It would be nifty if someone, anyone, could get some leads on this weird story. But I doubt we'll know anything until the announcement beams through thousands of radios and Twitter feeds and teevee screens tuned to the NHL Network: "The Atlanta Thrashers have been purchased by Hugh Hefner."

Wookie in Crisis

There is absolutely nothing to talk about today, so here's a painting of Chewbacca riding a giant squirrel and fighting Nazis.

"Mrs. Hogwallop Done R-U-N-N-O-F-T."*

In honor of our Goober State's important run-off, here's a Georgian tune from Georgian masters.



*

Vital Questions

Moscow is hella on fire and people are dropping dead from the smoke-plus-heatwave poison fumes at the rate of 700 A DAY.

What does Ilya Kovalchuk know?

UPDATE: Or Maxim Afinogenov, for that matter! This whole "burn Moscow like Alexander I running away from Napoleon" business seems suspiciously similar to a SKA St. Petersburg CONSPIRACY.

Let's hope the flames don't get too close to the local nuclear reactor. That would be bad.

Hockey Players and Winsome South London Singers: WHAT'S THE CONNECTION?

Odd things afoot, my friends.

Both Bobby Ryan and Scottie Upshall have recently been using Twitter technology to promote winsome London ginger-sprite Florence & the Machine (the "machine" being some poor nameless guitarist she drags around everywhere she goes). What gives? Your Chronicle was under the impression that Florence & the Machine was a musical act known only to Goldsmith College students and NME-readers. Is she suddenly popular on these shores?

Glancing at the Internet, I see that she's scheduled to play the upcoming annual MTV Video award thing. TBC gave up on following what the crazy kids on the MTV are doing years ago (playing hott brand new ax like youthful punk urchins Green Day, we assumed), so it figures that we're out of the loop. Unless we're talking about Jersey Shore; THAT'S a different story.

Anyway, we're enjoying Bobby Ryan's Twitter feed. He seems like that rarest among the universe's Ten Thousand Things: a non-boring hockey player. AND WE'D BE GLAD TO HAVE HIM IN ATL.

Kovy Indignation

There seems to be a lot of indignation out there in the hockey related Twitter world over the Kovy contract's rejection by the arbitrator. I don't understand why, other than everyone having their egos bruised because they predicted it would go the other way.

Look, when you set out to structure a contract with the thought in your head "let's see, how can we put this thing together so that we get a great player and pay him what he wants but don't have to suffer the consequences of a large cap hit under the CBA?" then you shouldn't be surprised when the league calls "balk."

The league should have taken a stand on Hossa. Should have taken a stand on Luongo. Maybe even should have taken a stand on Briere.

This kind of situation happens all the time in law. People try creative things to get around the law. A lot of times the authorities let it go for a while until they are so offended by someone's brash flaunting of it, that they feel they have to drop the hammer on them.

That's exactly what was done here. It's no secret (to anyone but Alan Walsh, who doesn't seem to understand much) that the CBA is in place to protect the owners from themselves and their GM's. They don't police themselves, so they get together and have the league do it for them.

The teams from large markets with deeper pockets will always try to use that to their advantage by finding ways to throw more money than other teams at players to lure them away from small markets. It is a fact of life, and if any league in any sport wants parity, they have to find a way to prevent it.

Circumventing the CBA circumvents parity, plain and simple. Columbus, Atlanta, and Edmonton can't sign players to deals like the Kovy, Hossa, and Luongo deal despite the lowered cap hit because they don't have the cash to pay out 9 million per year, whether it "counts" as that much on the cap or not. So teams like New Jersey, Vancouver, and Chicago circumventing the cap to allow them to use their greater revenue to bring in more expensive talent than small market teams violates the spirit of the law.

Circumvention Music

Contracts rejected;
negotiations expected;
goofy sports agents are thoroughly respected.

BASS! FREEZE! ROCK!

Kovalchuk, Grossman, Lamoriello Publicly Shamed

By now, you've all seen the news-breaking Tweet (early evening/commute home edition) from Sports Business Journal reporter Liz Mullen:

Breaking--Arbitrator rules in League's favor in Kovalchuk case, source says.

Ilya Kovalchuk, Jay Grossman, and Lou Lamoriello will now be publicly shamed for their sly mendacity.

UPDATE: Craig Custance confirms and seconds. THIS IS OFFICIALLY HAPPENING, FOLKS.

10 Ways to Fix Hockey

Until we glanced at this morning's edition of the Yahoo! typing monsters, we had no idea the NHL Research, Development and Orientation camp will be meeting soon to discuss possible rule changes and generally tweak the game to make it more enticing.

What rules will be established or thrown out? We have no idea, but we do have some suggestions.

1. When a player ices the puck, he must quickly put on goalie pads and play the goaltender position until the next stoppage of play. The regular goaltender will play the skater's normal position, also in goalie pads. The icing party will thus be shamed for his criminality, and the foul practice will significantly decrease.

2. You can score a goal for your team by shooting the puck into EITHER net, provided you begin your rush at the opposite end of the ice.

3. The new shootout: shooter vs. goalie vs. polar bear.

4. If the game isn't decided in the first three rounds of a shootout? Zamboni race. With polar bear.

5. If you shoot the puck into the netting behind the glass, your team is deducted 1 point.

6. If you shoot the puck into a spectator, you're awarded 1 point. Hey, the kids like such things, today, in America.

7. The area surrounding the goal should be made to look more like a putt-putt golf course. Windmills, dragons, pirate ships, etc. The sight of skaters navigating such obstacles should be Pleasing and Delightful.

8. The goaltender gets to move the goal around as he sees fit. Facing a breakaway? Move the goal! Besieged on all sides and can't see through traffic? Drag the goal to center ice and wait for the melee to clear up.

9. Obviously, a goal can be scored wherever the net may lie. A goal scored into a net positioned at center ice, or along the wall, is still a goal.

10. Players are allowed to slash the back of the net with their skates and score a goal via the backdoor. A goal through ripped netting is still a goal.

Apologies and bows to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

A perfectly nice, if humid, Saturday evening. Enjoy it, kids.

How about those Thrashers and the offseason they're having?


"Some things are too hot to touch;
The human mind can only stand so much;
You can't win with a losing hand."

Afinogenov Flees to Russia

Andrew Ladd Is In Yr Radio

If you live in Calgary or use the Internet, that is. Ladd discusses many things with these Albertan radio roughnecks: getting traded to the Thrashers, another Stanley Cup ring, the legacy of Vaclav Havel, etc.

True story: your TBC editor once got into a verbal real life blog-war (I think people called them "confrontations" in the pre-Web era) with a resident of Calgary as the Chronicle staff was walking out of the Saddledome and down the Red Mile one crisp autumn night. It was amusing to all.

Oh yeah, before I forget, here's a little night music. If we were in Germany or some German-speaking place right now---let's say the Zurich airport late at night, staring into a frothy Heineken draught and pondering the best way to engage the tall, black-haired, multi-lingual barmaid in conversation---it might be called "eine klein nachtmusik."

Thrashers Reportedly Sign Prospect Zubarev

According to Dmitry Chesnokov's Twitter feed, "Zubarev's agent told SovSport the player received an offer of a two-way contract from the Thrashers. Zubarev is expected to sign by weekend."

Andrei Zubarev, you may recall, was drafted by the Thrashers in 2005. That was the infamous Crosby draft in which Atlanta traded down from 8th (Devin Setoguchi) to 12th (Marc Staal) and traded down again to pick 16th and took perennial NHL All Star Alex Bourret.

Central Scouting ranked Zubarev the 10th among European skaters that year, but he was taken 187th over all. He has played in Russia and the KHL ever since. According to HockeysFuture.com, in this latest KHL campaign with Atlant, Zubarev "established his role as a full-time defenseman - appearing in 55 regular season games for Atlant and scoring 7 goals wih 9 assists and was +11 with 58 PIM. He also played in four playoff games with no points and 2 PIM and an even plus/minus."

It is a good thing that this is a two way deal, as I am guessing a +11 and 16 points in 55 KHL games won't translate very well to the NHL.

Eklund Has Something to Share With You

Secret Chronicle operative "William T." just e-mailed us this Internet horror:


Good to know that Eklund is the mood for blogging today. Like, REALLY in the mood.

And yes, we're puerile. It must be all the Deadspin we read.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, plus Brett Favre's Cock and BLOGGER ETHICS

1) Shark Week + Craig Feruson = a fine concoction, as fine as any hybrid cocktail you can name.

2) What's more hilarious: a Gawker-owned website claiming that the chick from The Daily Line has pictures of Brett Favre's cock or the vapors this claim is inspiring in pious hockey bloggers?

Also: Brett Favre's cock hahahahahaha.

Hockey Legends Like Baseball, Especially With Vedder and Cusack

Former Thrasher Chris Chelios (doesn't that sound weird?) joined beloved comedic-embodier-of-male-angst John Cusack and often-splendid rock n' roll person Eddie Vedder for a Chicago Cubs meltdown the other day.

Just thought you should know. As you were, comrades.

Via Deadspin.

Speaking of baseball, Chipper Jones and Brian McCann just hit back-to-back home runs. Makes hockey seem banal.

I'm sure I'll feel differently this fall.

Why Not Let Him Play ALL Positions?

Rick Dudley, in an interview with NHL Fanhouse:

"If you play Buff up front, you have one of the best power forwards in the league..."

"But in my view -- and I understand maybe not everyone shares it -- if we play him on one of our top 'D' pairs, he can also be one of the most dominating defensemen around. You saw how he played when the Blackhawks needed him on defense last season. Dustin's only 25 years old. Coming off that performance in the playoffs, he's only scratching the surface of what he is capable of."

This video game GM/mad scientist aspect of Dudley's personality does not inspire confidence. At least not at Blueland Chronicle World Headquarters.

But if we're going to go down this road, I suggest we make Byfuglien dress up as Thrash as well. Because right now he's probably only scratching the surface of his bird mascot capabilities.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

The White is out, the roster is stout, time for a nostalgic shout.

Are We There Yet?

Ah, August. How I hate it.

No hockey.

No football.

It's hot as hell.

Nothing on TV.

Oh well, let's make the best of it and talk some hockey to keep our selves from going insane. After shipping Todd White off to the Rangers for a cheaper buy-out, the Thrashers have made room for some young talent in the lineup. Let's take a look at the Thrashers' depth chart as it stands right now. Keep in mind this is my own semi-arbitrary guess at where guys fit.

LW --- C --- RW
Kane -- Antro -- Buff

Bergy -- Pevs -- Lits

Ladd -- Slater -- Eager

Boults -- Cormier -- Thorbs


-- D --
Bogo -- Toby

Oduya -- Hainsey

Sopel -- Boris/Kulda

-- G --
Opie

Chris Mason

With Eric O'Dell injured and Angelo Esposito still recovering from his latest ACL tear, Cormier looks like the only centerman ready to step up and take a spot on the roster. There's also the chance that Bryan Little could move back to his natural center position, allowing someone like Carl Klinberg, Spencer Machacek, or Alex Burmistrov to come in and play wing. The most likely scenario though is that Jimmy Slater and Cormier will compete for playing time in the third and forth line center roles.

The top six forward positions represent a whole lot of question marks.

How will Evander Kane and Nic Bergfors perform in their sophomore campaigns? They have a new coach and a new system to learn. Second seasons in the NHL are notoriously tough. How those who step up to the challenge will have a huge impact on the Thrashers season.

Can Nik Antropov continue to lead the way offensively the way he did after the departure of Ilya Kovalchuk last season?

Was the Dustin Byfuglien we saw in the Stanley Cup playoffs the real Big Buff, or will he revert to his sub-20 goal regular season performances he exhibited in Chicago prior to April 2010?

Where did Bryan Little go in 2009-2010 and will be be back this year?

Is Rich Peverley really a #2 center? This is a crucial question because I don't think anyone is willing to say that Jimmy Slater (as much as we all love the guy) is equipped to step up into that role if Pevs falls short.

Can anyone put the biscuit in the basket now that Kovy, Afinogenov, and Kozlov are gone?

Will the locker room be torn between the Ex-Blackhawk faction and the Swedish Mafia comprised of Toby Enstrom, Johnny Oduya, Nic Bergfors, and Karl Klinberg?

With Kane, Byfuglien, Aliu, Jordan-Samuels, and the soon to be bought out Donald Brashear, is Atlanta officially the blackest NHL team ever?

Will Rick Dudley order a redesign of the Blue Crew uniforms to match the sexiness of the Chicago Blackhawk ice girls? (the hockey sock leg warmers are hot!)

SOMEONE GET ME SOME ANSWERS!!!!

A Children's Treasury of Todd White Memories

So I had to dash off to the wilds of southwest Georgia for about 24 hours this weekend, and during my time there all cellphone signals were non-existent. So I didn't hear the news about Todd White being exchanged for the ghost of Donald Brashear and that Patrick Rissmiller guy (whose name I vaguely recalled from...where? From those times he filled in on the Sharks and the Rangers, maybe?) until my car reached the Piedmont area of our Goober State. My instant analysis: sound financial move.

It's only fitting that we memorialize Toddford White with an elegy made of YouTube videos.

Remember this?


Must say I don't remember this one, but it seems impressive nonetheless:


And finally, a White triumph:


Probably his finest hour.

Goodbye forever, Mr. Todd White! Long may you flourish as a center to Great Stars.

Todd White to the Rangers

That's right, Todd White is now officially on the rag.

C-Viv: "@ajcthrashers Thrashers have traded Todd White to New York Rangers. More details to come."

Stay tuned to see what we get in return, other than an extended middle finger from everyone besides Glen Sather who realizes what the Rags have just acquired.

EDIT***

It's Donald Brashear and Patrick Rissmiller. Rissmiller is a 31 year old American who has played a whopping 6 NHL games. [RE-EDIT this was a mistake. I overlooked 2005-2008 in which he played a combined 176 regular season games for San Jose posting 45 points and 60PIM] I remember the name, so at least one of those games was probably against Atlanta. He has no goals, assists, or penalty minutes in his NHL experience. He'll spend the duration of his tenure with the organization playing for the Wolves.

So this is really White for Brashear. Brashear hasn't really been himself since his last concussion. He split last season between the Rangers and their AHL affiliate in Hartford, racking up a total of 98 penalty minutes and 7 points. He is best known for his dirty hit in the 09 playoffs on Blair Betts and for being on the receiving end of a much worse incident involving Marty McSorley that ended that great goon's career.

The Thrashers just dumped Todd White for some more dead weight. Oh well, at least we don't have to look up and see White moping in the press box at every home game this year.

EDIT-EDIT

According to Ben Wright, "@BenThrashers Brashear goes straight to waivers and will be bought out if he clears. #Thrashers"

So why make the trade and not just buy out Todd White? Well White was set to make $2.6 million this season. Brashear, 1.3 mil. Both just have one year on their contracts. This lets Atlanta buy out dead weight for less money. And for some reason we got Patrick Rissmiller, too.

YET ANOTHER EDIT-

Speaking with a Ranger fan has shed some light as to why Rissmiller was involved in this trade. The AHL has a $10 million salary cap. Russmiller is making 1 mil in the AHL and Todd White also has a one way contract, so if (when) the Rags send White down to Hartford, his AHL cap hit will remain 2.6 million. In order to keep enough bodies on their AHL roster, the Rangers had to shed some minor league salary, which is why Rissmiller had to come back our way.

This whole trade has been nothing but stock brokers trading around assets to hedge their losses on a company that went kaput.