Thrashers GM Rick Dudley is turning things around in Atlanta despite all the obstacles.
Less than three minutes after being informed by the Atlanta Thrashers that the team's general manager, Rick Dudley, is on the road and may not be available for a quick chat, the phone rings and, you guessed it, it's Dudley.
"Just making my way to Toronto to watch the Leafs and Lightning play," Dudley informs.
Yep, that's Dudley alright. Always on the road. Always scouting. A hockey lifer, to be sure, having been an NHL player and coach, this is Dudley's third assignment as a big-league GM and unquestionably his biggest challenge. Quite frankly, most people don't really like hockey in Atlanta and there's little reason to believe this franchise will survive in this location. Tune into a Thrashers game almost any night on TV and it is shocking to see how few people are in the stands. The Thrashers rank 28th in NHL attendance averaging just 11,915 per game which is down nearly two grand from a year ago.
And yet, with Dudley driving the bus, the Thrashers are starting to make a bit of a charge. They say there's nothing like winning to gain the attention of the locals and Dudley's Thrashers are certainly going to put that theory to the test. So on a night when his team is winning its sixth straight game, 3-2 in overtime against the Colorado Avalanche, Dudley continues to assess the rest of the league looking for the next piece of the puzzle that will give his Thrashers legitimacy.
Make no mistake about it, they are getting close. Atlanta, which has made the playoffs just once in its 10 years in the league, sits sixth in the Eastern Conference with a 13-9-3 record.
The first thing the Thrashers needed was an identity and when Dudley poached four players from the salary cap-challenged defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks last summer, a team he helped build, it was a step in the right direction. The Thrashers added defencemen Dustin Byfuglien and Brent Sopel as well as forwards Andrew Ladd and Ben Eager from Chicago.
"If you want me to give a cliché-ish answer I can, but the reality is we wanted to be a hard-forechecking and up-tempo team and we felt we had the players to be that kind of a team," Dudley says. "We felt if we performed at or close to our optimal level, then we'd be fine…we'd be competitive.
"It's incredibly important when you are trying to develop a wining culture that you add players who have won. The Chicago Blackhawks have a winning culture. So do the Detroit Red Wings. That is what we are trying to develop here. To have four guys come into your room who just won the Cup is an excellent opportunity for the other players to see how they act in the room; how they prepare themselves for games."
The rebuild actually started last year when the club was backed into a corner and forced to trade the face of the organization, one-dimensional scorer Ilya Kovalchuk. It was actually former GM Don Waddell who made the deal, sending Kovalchuk to New Jersey for Johnny Oduya, Niclas Bergfors, prospect Patrice Cormier and first- and second-round draft choices.
Perhaps the most important addition to the organization, after Dudley, of course, was new coach Craig Ramsay who comes to town with a reputation of being a great teacher and friend of the players. Schooled in the Roger Neilson academy of defence-first hockey, Ramsay has his club playing a responsible, low-risk game.
This is now a team without a superstar, but that is not an issue because it has depth.
"People wondered at the start of the year where we'd get offence from without Kovalchuk," Dudley says. "The thing is, we feel we have four lines that can contribute as well as a defence that I believe compares with the best in the NHL."
Ladd, who was a role player with the Blackhawks, is emerging as a significant contributor with the Thrashers and has eight goals and 25 points in 25 games. Evander Kane, who is just 19, is finding his offensive legs with nine goals and 16 points while Bergfors, a sophomore, also has 16 points as does Rich Peverly.
Nik Antropov and Bryan Little have yet to kick it into gear, but both are capable of putting up big numbers.
The really good news for the Thrashers is two of the team's defencemen -- Byfuglien and Tobias Enstrom -- have emerged as two of the top-scoring blueliners in the NHL. Byfuglien, who played mostly forward with the Blackhawks last season and had 11 goals in 22 playoff games, leads all NHL defencemen with 10 goals and 27 points while Enstrom ranks fourth with three goals and 21 points.
The funny thing is, the Thrashers took a lot of heat when they announced Byfuglien would play defence this year instead of on the wing.
"It's amazing now how many people ripped us for putting him back on defence who are now saying they knew all along he'd be a good defenceman," Dudley says. "At least Jeremy Roenick had the (guts) to admit he was wrong, but others who are saying he's a natural defenceman had some pretty nasty things to say about us when we decided to move him back.
“The thing people didn't seem to see is he made really good plays back there. When you put that together with the fact he is big, makes great passes coming out of the zone, can join the rush and has an amazing shot, what's not to like about having him play defence?"
The deck appears stacked against Dudley and the Thrashers making it work long-term in Atlanta. That said, nobody will work harder than Dudley to make his team a success. You can already see the fruits of his labours.
"Our players are having fun at the rink; and not just because we are winning," Dudley says. "The biggest thing is they believe they are beginning something that could be very special."
Maybe, just maybe, hockey will survive in Atlanta after all.
