What we've not done

Today is really damned early on 4th day of the free agency period. For shits and giggles, let's review for just a moment:

Defencemen we have NOT signed

Rob Blake

Dmitri Kalinin

Daniel Tjarnqvist

David Hale

Randy Jones
Brooks Orpik
Kurtis Foster
Jim Vandermeer
Joni Pitkanen
Josef Melichar
Janne Niskala

Mark Streit
Wade Redden
Michal Rozsival
Ossi Vaananen
Mike Commodore
Brian Campbell
Jeff Finger
Kurt Sauer
Mark Eaton
Anton Babchuk
Bryce Salvador
Mike Green

Players we lost:
Bobby Holik

Players we signed:
Ron Hainsey


Am I the only one frustrated?

Free Agency: You're doing it wrong

Well... now that all but one of the great top-tier defencemen are gone, uh... Hey how 'bout Good Soupy and his millions upon millions of dollars, huh! HUH! WOW! Did anyone else watch the Free Agency Frenzy on TSN? How ridiculous was that dude? I though Pierre MacGuire was going to pop a blood vessel over Jeff Finger and Mike Commodore's salaries. Not that I blame the guy. But he's one of my favourites, I'd be super bummed if he had an aneurysm on air.

So let's review. Not only did we NOT sign any awesome defencemen yesterday, but we also let our Captain go. So I'm willing to be cold hard (American, so kind of worthless) cash that Kovy will be our Captain next season.

Please note: Jason Smith, still UFA. This is me, squirming in anticipation akin to a 6 year old on Christmas Eve.

Also? It would be really nice if I get an alert today informing me Kari signed a contract. Anyone else eyeing the contracts Huet and Theodore got and thinking, Daaaaaaaaaamn, Kärppä's gonna make out! Oh good, not just me.

Here's TSN's list of available FAs. I'm too bummed out to go through it right now. Someone at least tell me Bogo will be here for 08-09??

FA's by numbers

Happy St Patrick's Day. Here's your WTF moment of the day, from the AJC:

Goalie Kari Lehtonen is set to be a restricted free agent, but don't expect any contracts finalized soon.

"There are no talks going on right now," Waddell said. "On our current team there's only one restricted and that's Lehtonen. We have a couple unrestricted guys but right now no talks have gone on with any of our players. I think the [current] situation, I don't see a big need just yet. We have a couple weeks here to focus on winning hockey games."

Wait... what? For one Brett Sterling is also RFA, and a couple? A couple UFA's? I thought a couple meant 2-3. We're rocking the UFAs come 1 July, see below.

Player	Nationality	Age	Team	Pos	08 FA Status	07-08 Cap #	07-08 Salary
Boulton, Eric		30	ATL	L	UFA	0.525	0.525
Brathwaite, Fred		34	ATL	G	UFA	0.500	0.500
Doell, Kevin		27	ATL	C	UFA	0.475	0.475
Haydar, Darren		27	ATL	R	UFA	0.463	0.475
Hedberg, Johan		34	ATL	G	UFA	1.000	1.150
Holik, Bobby		36	ATL	C	UFA	4.250	4.250
Krog, Jason		31	ATL	C	UFA	0.475	0.500
Kwiatkowski, Joel		30	ATL	D	UFA	0.600	0.600
Lehtonen, Kari		23	ATL	G	RFA	1.850	2.200
McCarthy, Steve		26	ATL	D	UFA	0.725	0.725
Recchi, Mark		37	ATL	R	UFA	1.000	1.750
Rucchin, Steve*		35	ATL	C	UFA	2.125	2.400
Sterling, Brett		23	ATL	L	RFA	0.585	0.585

You know, if we'd won even 25% of the past 14 games, I could see how focusing on winning games would be a priority over the FAs on your roster. However, the team has won 2 in 14, which isn't even 20%, and there's 8 more to go, with no shot whatsoever at the playoffs. Why bother? I mean yeah, it'd be nice to see them win the last few, maybe salvage their pride, work towards a raise for next season, but 07-08 is a wash for the Thrashers. I was going to analyse the numbers vs the cap and the players already signed for next season, but you know what? I kind of don't care anymore. I mean, I care, but I don't care at the same time. There's the numbers, you can do your own analysis.