From the Edmonton Journal:
The Los Angeles Kings say their goalie search is on hold. With the emergence of Jonathan Quick, they dumped Jason LaBarbera, dealing him to Vancouver. Atlanta's Kari Lehtonen, who's fallen out of favour with the Thrashers, could possibly be traded for a forward like Patrick O'Sullivan.So, first question is, when did Kari fall out of favour? I could be wrong, but isn't he the only goalie to get any wins in like.... 10 games? Also, didn't he come back from injury, and significantly lower the GAA per game? And let's be honest. Is there another goalie in this league that can consistently face around 40 shots per game, come to play every night, and win when he's actually backed up by his team? Maybe he's wrong to call out the team for not showing up to play in this period or that, but someone should. With no captain, who's serving as the caller-outer? I totally made that word up, thanks for asking. But no seriously. If Lehtonen goes for a skater, who's going to play in goal? I think Moose's performance in Toronto shows that not even he can get the team to play well enough to win. So the team is down their star goalie, and now there is yet another awkwardly-fitting cog in this supposed machine. You do realise that if Kari goes to any city that has anything resembling "a team" in front of him, facing, say, 23 shots per game, he'll carry them quite deep?
In summation, trading Kari will further his career, and further mire Atlanta in the quicksand they're already buried waist-deep in. That said, let the rumour-mongering begin.
7 comments:
The point isn't that Kari is a bad goalie, at least from the perspective of most people who want the trade. The "out of favor" thing is lazy and stupid journalism, but it's precisely because Kari is one of the only good and valuable players on the team that some want to trade him.
Because (presumably) we'd get something in return for a goalie of Kari's calibre. LA, Colorado, Ottawa all need goal-tending. We need all kinds of things. It makes sense.
Sure. So let's say, all things considered, Sully comes to ATL for Kari.
Suddenly, LA, who kind of has a glut of centres, is down one centre, and up one amazing goalie.
Atlanta is down one amazing goalie, and up one pretty okay centre who hasn't lived up to expectations.
So..... now what?
Heehee! I found your blog again. :)
Its interesting to see this from the perspective of Atlanta/LA. From up here LaBarbera is to fill in the hole left by Curtis Sanford's injury, leaving Vancouver with an awesome yet young Schneider (who I want to see play goddamnit I never get to see the Moose's starting goalie!).
I agree with Peacoc, its lazy journaling. And its always easier to blame the goalie, for whatever reason. (Even though he faces up to 20+ shots more than most goalies in the league on a regular basis.)
Personally, If the Thrashers did trade Lehtonen, I would like to see him packaged with a few others to Ottawa for Spezza. If you're gonna do it, do it big.
Amazing goalie???
Exactly/specifically what has he done to prove that???
This trade would be a bendover in ATL's favor.
If you seriously have to ask how Lehts is an amazing goalie, with what I'm presuming is a straight face, then I think you should just go ahead and fold on this whole hockey thing. Maybe lacrosse would be more up your alley! Still fast, still violent, but on grass!
I ,too, thought the line about Kari being "out of favor" was poor journalism.
The speculation about Kari being traded has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the sorry state of the Thrashers. When you have two really good goalies, and the rest of the team SUCKS, everyone knows something must give one way or the other to try and fill the holes that the team has.
Kari has more trade value than Pavs (more established) and we could get a nice return. Then you are rolling the dice that Pavs will eventually get the job done.
If he is traded, Kari will succeed no matter where he goes.
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