Sports Page Atlanta

Head Coach John Anderson will now have other coaches with him on the Thrashers bench.  Randy Cunneyworth and Todd Nelson were named assistant coaches for the Thrash. 

Cunneyworth was the head coach of the Rochester Americans of the AHL.  His teams went 306-267-67 in 8 seasons as the top man.

Nelson was an assistant coach under Anderson with the Chicago Wolves for the last 2 seasons.  He also played in the NHL with the Penguins and Capitals.

Atlanta assistant Steve Weeks and video coach Tony Borgford have retained their positions with the team.

The Atlanta Thrashers are at it again. This time they picked up Marty Reasoner. The center has played 9 NHL seasons and 465 career games. The 31-year old has 64 career goals and 112 career assists. He is very strong at both faceoffs and penalty killing.

Last season he played with the Edmonton Oilers and tallied 11 goals and 14 assists.

He has also played for the United States in 3 different World Championships (2002, 2003 and 2006).

The Atlanta Thrashers re-signed goaltender Kari Lehtonen to an undisclosed contract. The former 2nd pick overall of the 2002 NHL draft has played 158 career games with the Thrashers. Last season he was 17-22-5, but had a franchise-record .916 save percentage.

He is the team’s leader is most games goaltended in a career, so it is not fair to say he has the most wins (75) and shutouts (11) in a career, which he does. Those stats generally go to the player with the most games.

A fair way to judge a goaltender is career goals against average and career save percentage. Well he is number one in those, too as you can see.

Thrashers Career Goals Against Average Leaders…

Kari Lehtonen: 2.82

Pasi Nurminen: 2.87

Milan Hnilicka: 3.30

Damian Rhodes: 3.60

Thrashers Career Save Percentage Leaders…

Kari Lehtonen: .913

Pasi Nurminen: .904

Milan Hnilicka: .901

Damian Rhodes: .889

The Atlanta Thrashers have signed free agent Jason Williams to an undisclosed contract. Williams has played in the NHL since the 2000-01 season as a center and as a right wing. He played his first 5 1/2 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings and the last 2 1/2 with the Chicago Blackhawks. He was a member of the 2002 Stanley Cup Champion Red Wing team.

Overall he has 66 goals and 92 assists in 296 career games. Last season, he had 13 goals and 23 assists in 43 games.

The Atlanta Thrashers resigned one of their top enforcers yesterday.  Eric Boulton signed a multi-year contract, but terms were not disclosed.

The left wing led the Thrashers in penalty minutes last year with 127.  He also played in a career-high 74 games and scored 4 goals and handed out 5 assists.   Boulton has played 7 seasons in the NHL including the last 3 with the Thrashers.

The 4th of July holiday is right around the corner, and soon to follow will be the Atlanta Thrashers Prospect Development Camp. This camp will be help between July 8th and July 13th in Duluth, and will be open to the public.

The camp, which will consist of 32 prospects, is designed to assist young players in their development both on and off the ice. All on-ice sessions are free and open to the public.

Among the players scheduled to attend the camp are defenseman Zach Bogosian (above), the Thrashers first-round selection (third overall) in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, and forwards Angelo Esposito (2007 – 1st Round, 20th overall by Pittsburgh), Riley Holzapfel (2006 – 2nd round, 43rd overall), Spencer Machacek (2007 – 3rd Round, 67th Overall) and Vinny Saponari (2008 – 4th Round, 94th Overall), who is the first Georgia born and trained player to be drafted into the NHL.

Columbus Blue Jackets free agent defenseman, Ron Hainsey, has signed a five year, $22.5 million contract with the Thrashers today.

Blueland Blog is reporting that this move could truly help an anemic scoring tradition from the defense in years past.

Hainsey had 8 goals last year and 9 the year before. Our franchise record for goals in a season by a defenseman is 10. With Hainsey going from the defensively tight West to the more free-flowing East he could break that mark if he continues to play as well as he did in Columbus. Hainsey played on Columbus’ top pair and averaged 22:33 of ice-time per game in 2007-08.

Thrashers captain from last season, Bobby Holik signed a one-year contract to go back to one of his former team, the New Jersey Devils.

Holik played 3 seasons for Atlanta and netted 41 goals and added 55 assists.  Last season he had 15 goals and 19 assists as well as captain the team.

He signed with the Thrashers on August 2, 2005.  He was a very solid and tough player, but you can tell his skills wasn’t as good as when he originally with the Devils from 1992 to 2002 where they won to Stanley Cups in that time.

The Thrashers selected five more players on Saturday including someone from our backyard. 

3rd round (64th overall)  RW - Danick Paquette

4th round (94th overall) RW - Vinny Saponari

5th round (124th overall) LW - Nicklas Lasu

6th round (154th overall) G - Christopher Carrozzi

7th round (184th overall) D - Zach Redmond

Saponari is from Powder Springs, Georgia.  Next season he will be playing hockey for the University of Boston and hopefully one day down the road play for his hometown Thrashers.

He has been playing for the United States in the National Team Development Program.  He was rated as high as 135th on the North American Skaters list.

He is the 2nd Georgian to be selected in the NHL draft.  In 1998, the Montreal Canadiens selected Eric Chouinard.

The Thrashers have been making draft picks since 1999.  Some of them have been really good, some of them not as good.

If you forgot who the Thrashers picked with their first pick each year, here they are…

1999: C - Patrik Stefan (1st overall pick) - 64 career goals, played briefly in Switzerland last season

2000: LW - Dany Heatley (2nd overall pick) - has 221 career goals so far, his last 141 have been with the Ottawa Senators

2001: LW - Ilya Kovalchuk (1st overall pick) - 254 career goals, 50+ in 2 of last 3 seasons

2002: G - Kari Lehtonen (2nd overall pick) - 75 career wins, 11 career shutouts

2003: D - Braydon Coburn (8th overall pick) - now plays for Philadelphia Flyers

2004: D - Boris Valabik (10th overall pick) - big defensiveman was late callup last season

2005: RW - Alex Bourret (16th overall pick) - scored 9 goals in 54 games for Hartford last season in the AHL

2006: C - Bryan Little (12th overall pick) - scored 6 goals in 48 games for the Thrashers last season

2007: RW - Spencer Machacek (3rd round - 67th pick overall) 33 goals for Vancouver in the WHL last season