MLN FAB50 Hockey 2008 Farm of the Year ATLANTA THRASHERS
The three p's of player development are yielding big dividends for Atlanta.
Dan HICKLING for SZ
Three selections out of the top 25. Five choices in the top 50. A thriving farm AHL farm club in the Chicago Wolves. The Atlanta Thrashers award as our MLN FAB50 Hockey 2008 Farm of the Year is a recognition of planning, patience, and progress.
In a hockey skyscape in which player development has never been more important as a factor in National Hockey League success, the Atlanta Thrashers’ vibrant youth movement promises the club a bright future.
The Thrashers topped the NHL clubs with 5 picks between the MLN FAB50 Hockey and the MLN Ones2Watch list that were the highest ranked grouping of players in our surveys. Boston, Edmonton, Vancouver, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, Buffalo, San Jose and the New York Rangers rounded out the top ten clubs in the race for our Farm of the Year nod.
The Chicago Wolves, the Yankees of the American Hockey League (AHL), have multiple championships stretching back to their days in the old International Hockey League.
Their winning ways and devoted fan base serve as the proper petri dish to culture the new top talents of the NHL. The Thrashers have stocked that fertile farm in the shadow of O'Hare airport with a steady stream of top draft picks.
Atlanta has done well for itself in the NHL Entry Draft in recent years.
They hit it big with first round picks Ilya Kovalchuk (1st overall in 2001), and Kari Lehtonen (2nd overall, 2002) (MLN FAB50 Hockey 2005 No. 1). Defenseman Braydon Coburn (8th overall, 2003) became a valuable bargaining chip last year, when the Thrashers, in a desperate push for its first ever NHL playoff spot, dealt for veterans Keith Tkachuk and Alexei Zhitnik.
“We finally felt last year we were in a pretty good position,” said Atlanta General Manager/Coach Don Waddell, “where we had never traded our first-round pick before. That we could trade our first-round pick to try to help our club right now. So we feel really good about our young players and where we're headed with them. Because we're finally seeing the dividends. The draft takes a long time.”
It takes time, but the wait can be worth it, if the Atlanta scouting department has done its job better than anyone else’s.
While the Thrashers have generally had good success with their top picks, most recently with Brian Little (12th overall, 2006) they have hit some home runs with lower round choices.
An MLN FAB50 calibre player like puck moving defenseman Nathan Oystrick was taken in the seventh round in 2002. Sniping winger Brett Sterling was a fifth rounder, two years later.
Both of them, along with FAB50 picks like former first round choice, defenseman Boris Valabik, and goaltender Ondrej Pavelec, a second round pick, have helped the Wolves take a runaway lead in the AHL’s West Division.
“Obviously, Chicago has a pretty strong team,” said Mark Dobson, Atlanta’s chief pro scout. “And our younger kids have played a pretty important role in that. So we’re pretty happy with that part of it.”
Swedish defenseman Tobias Enstrom has been by far the Thrashers best draft day bargain, having come in as an eighth rounder in 2003.
Enstrom by-passed the AHL completely, having stepped out of training camp and into a starting spot with the Thrashers, and seems on his way to stardom.
Waddell was able to add to Atlanta’s youthful chits at this year’s trade deadline, when he acquired the rights to Angelo Esposito, Pittsburgh’s top pick (20th overall) in the 2007 draft, plus the Penguins’ No. 1 choice, this year.
“I can remember,” said Waddell, “when Gary Bettman last year when he presented the Cup to (Anaheim GM) Brian Burke and the (sic) Mighty Ducks and he said, that in only their 15th year they've won a Stanley Cup. To me that was the ultimate statement, because it takes time to build up your assets. You're going to have draft after draft and you might get one, two, three players out of a draft and they get depth in the organization. Takes many, many years of draft. This is our eighth year.”
Each team's count of FAB50 players are added up with one point per pick. Ones2Watch player picks are assigned a half point. In addition, we add up the rankings of each player in the survey. Players on the Ones2Watch list are given rankings from 51-75 for the purposes of our Farm ratings. The team with the highest player count on both surveys, and the LOWEST cumulative ranking score, indicating higher quality player picks, is the winner. Atlanta had five points and a cumulative score of 139 on its player rankings. No. 2 Boston had five points and a cumulative score of 208.
