Even Luke had to train a little bit.

I've never been anti-Ondrej Pavelec like some people are (not that there's anything wrong with that!)  Watching him over the past two to three seasons when he's either been called up as a temporary fix for a broken Kari or he's been a replacement for the former starter full time, there have been some outstanding flashes of goaltending skills.  He started off last season on a holy tear, and then sometime during late October or early November, it started to break down.

You could chalk that up to just being tired, but that lack of endurance comes from the fact that he's 22.  Goaltenders are notorious for being somewhat unique individuals - you have to be to have galvanized rubber shot at your face 50 times a night - and they're also generally regarded as late bloomers.  There are a few young goaltenders who amaze, but a good many of them don't fully hit their stride until they're in their mid to late 20s.  There are quite a few who are in their 30s or even pushing 40 who are still out in the crease almost every night and performing in peak conditions.  As a goaltender, you have plenty of time to develop, and should be given that time.  Pavelec shined as goaltender for the Chicago Wolves, and was seen as a capable replacement for Kari Lehtonen when he went down during the doomed 2007-2008 season.  He was, with a save & of .911.  The GAA left a bit to be desired at 3.11, but as any Thrashers fan can tell you, that entire season was Futility on Ice.  2008-2009 was significantly worse for Pavs in the 12 games up with the big team, but last season a good many fans expected his development to be complete and for him to be the starter that he'd been hyped to be.  Boy howdy, did he start out hot.  By the middle of the season it was almost like he had a quota of 4GA a night to fill, and then by the end of the year he worked it all out.

Of course, reactionaries in the fanbase called for his head midyear through, with little thought to the kid's development.  To even show that talent at 22 is impressive, even if it isn't constant.  Not every young goaltender is Patrick Roy, and the Thrashers certainly weren't the 1985-1986 Habs.  The young goalie will have two more years to develop with the team, since he accepted his QO today to the tune of 2 years and $2.3 million dollars... a total for both years.  If you were wondering about the state of the goaltending market before, this should confirm it for you - the Thrashers have Ondrej Pavelec and Chris Mason as a tandem for two seasons at a total cost of $5.7 million.  The workhorse Mason should be able to be a good influence on Pavs, and if Pavelec falters the team has someone to go to that doesn't mind playing, oh, 33 games straight to lead a team to the playoffs.

Calm down, non-proponents of Pavs.  Give him some time.

Moment of silence for Clarke MacArthur, please.  The third liner acquired at the trade deadline from Buffalo is now free to roam as a UFA.  The arbitration hearing today went well for him, with the arbitrator offering MacArthur $2.4 million dollars for a season.  The teams in arbitration are more than welcome to walk away from rulings that they disagree with, and they disagreed with this one.  As did I.  MacAwesome scored three goals and nine points in just 21 games.  Ok, not bad, but not irreplaceable - and certainly not worth $2.4 million.  Dudley is presumably more interested in locking in Andrew Ladd and Ben Eager before their meetings, and MacArthur's place can be easily filled by Fredrik Petersson or Karl Klingberg if one of those guys impress at camp.  There's also a large UFA pool out there to choose from for the team.  All is not lost.

Actually, most peoples' radar probably didn't even blip at this news.

David Perron, a 2007 first round draft pick of the Blues (27th overall) will continue to be a part of the youth movement for two more years, which by that time he should be part of the middle aged youth movement.  Perron-ha had 47 points on the season last year (20 goals, 27 assists), which was good for 4th overall on the team.  The two year extension is worth $4.3 million dollars - $1.8 million this season and $2.5 million the next.  Fairly reasonable for someone who, while not a scoring machine, can score goals and is a great set-up guy.  He also has the fastest puck and stick handling skills that I have ever seen up close.

He's baa-aack.

There has been some concern at the lack of speed that the Blues have locked up their RFAs with, but considering that Erik Johnson can't be poached due to his "year off" thanks to his knee, and that Cam Janssen was the only player to elect arbitration (and get signed beforehand), there really was no doubt that Perron was going to return to the Blues.  The question was for how long.  The two year deal gives him a chance to boost his scoring and still remain a RFA at the end of it, which could be a way to leverage more money out of the Blues.  It's also a way for the Blues to add some insurance that Perron'll be around for longer.  Perron apparently was the first NHL player to break the news of his own signing, which if you're a follower of Frenchie really isn't a surprise.  He's probably one of the most infectiously cheerful players that you'll ever see on Twitter - his equipment geek updates during the season are like a play-by-play of a li'l kid opening up Christmas gifts.

Dutchie's reasonably priced and can produce - this is the kind of guy ATL & STL should look at.

After the absurd Ilya Kovalchuk deal today, I decided to take a step back and look at the teams that I follow and how they're handling UFAs.  If the Devils need to buy out Kovalchuk, he'll be on the books until 2044 (thanks to perspective giver Ryan Classic).  I'll be 63.  Kings fans are breathing a sigh of relief that they didn't work a deal like that out, and Thrashers fans are actually happy with Don Waddell (!) for not stooping to circumventing the CBA like that.  The league has five days to void the thing and it starts from scratch - if the Chris Pronger contract and the Marian Hossa contract raised eyebrows, this one should be able to make even Joe Biden's botoxed face move.

Not like it will - Gary Bettman's seen enough episodes of The Sopranos and Jersey Shore to know that you don't mess with people from there, neither about the Kovy deal nor the fact that all of Jay Grossman's clients are now 10 feet from their agent.

This is as close as you're going to get to a camp photo - the lighting in the IceForum sucks.

I know it's taken me, oh, a day and a half after camp ended to get this up here.  I'm sure that all 12 of my readers were having an absolute fit waiting for this.  With summer vacation winding down and work looming in the future, my motivation's actually decreased.  Sad, eh?

I braved the drive out to Duluth, where the Atlanta IceForum is located, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons.  Friday I got a chance to catch some drill, and Saturday and Sunday I was able to watch the 4-on-4 scrimmages from up in the Breakaway Grill.  The view is so much better up there than on the ice - you can actually see plays develop and tell what player does what.  It's fun on the ice, but so much better from above.  Above also comes with food.

Anywho, just a few observations of some (not all, obviously) players.  After the jump.

I realize I'm a few hours delayed on this hiring, but I wanted to make sure the server switch was complete before I posted something and it got eaten.  Again.

Stothers continues the trend of hirings of people familiar with either Craig Ramsay or Rick Dudley.  Sothers was assistant coach under Ramsay in Philadelphia.  Lots more details can be found on the official Thrashers' press release, though as a quick summary he has head coaching experience in the OHL, AHL assistant coaching experience with the Hershey Bears, and he also has NHL and AHL playing experience.

The newest assistant coach is a defenseman, which would be beneficial to a club who has had one of the league's highest shot and GA averages in the league for a few years running.

Yesterday some of the members of the Thrashers' blogging community were invited to participate in a Q&A session with Associate Head Coach John Torchetti.  I shan't re-post the whole summary here, but an article is written at SBNation Atlanta for your entertainment.  Birdwatchers will be posting three parts of the Torchetti interview as the summer months go on - part one is up now.  I'll try to get the audio from the interview cleaned up and I'll post that here when I do - also, stay tuned for a prospect camp synopsis tomorrow - I won't be attending the last day, so you'll get my thoughts on everything a little earlier.

EDIT: As promised, the full audio (about 22 minutes & in 3GP file format).

Face it, rumors can be fun - and Ilya Kovalchuk's had more rumors attached to him than Paris Hilton has.  He might be re-signing with the Devils!  Oh, wait, no.  LA's back into the mix? Huh.  He could be signing a 4 year deal worth $40 million for 4 years with SKA? Oh, I'm sure Grossman's working overtime to keep that from happening.

Here's something that's been hinted at kind of passively here and there  - Kovy returning to ATL.  I know, I know, people'd be pissed.  But, there was a report on Fox 5 News last night (still trying to find video link) regarding it, and we all know that no one here reports on hockey unless it has some basis in something.  There was also an interesting tweet from Dan Kamal:

Anywho, to catch my take on it, as well as my good buds' Anthony and Ally's take, pelase to be seeing ThrasherTalk.com - allow me to stress that this is JUST A RUMOR and speculation, but hell, with everything else going on, this is as likely as the next rumor.

God, buddy, just sign somewhere.

The Thrashers have re-signed the all-time team leader in penalty minutes to a new contract, keeping Eric Boulton around.  I've questioned Ben Eager's fighting style (or ability...) and have sung the praises of having some sort of consistancy among the team's personel.  Slater and Boulton are the two longest tenured Thrashers now, and have been since the loss of Garnet Exelby at the start of last season.

Honestly, I could wax poetic on Boulton and how much I appreciate his willingness to fight anyone who slights him or his team, or how much he enjoys and wants to be a Thrasher - or even how he stands up in the locker room and demands the best from the team.  Instead, I'll just let Ben Wright do it, because he hits the nail on the head here.

I'm looking forward to seeing some more of this this season:

It wasn't surprising to hear that the Blues signed Jaroslav Halak.  Honestly, though, allow Blues fans to bask in the fact that we have a starting goaltender for the next four seasons - and for the reasonable hit of $15 million dollars ($3.75 a year).  No, it's not super cheap, but it's reasonable for a guy who had the 9th lowest GAA and the 4th highest SV% in the league, not to mention someone who led the playoffs in SV% even though he didn't make it to the Cup finals.  I adored Chris Mason (and I'm very happy to have him here in ATL), but Halak's an upgrade and a half, and with Ty Conklin, we might have the most reliable goalie tandem in the Central.  Aw, who am I kidding - when Chicago and Nashville aren't 110% sure who their backups are, Columbus has Steve Mason trying to rebound, and Detroit's back-up is Chris Osgood, we *do* have the most reliable goalie tendem in the central.

Capgeek.com has the Blues as having about $21.4 million in cap space remaining for this season.  Of course, if you look at the chart we also have about 11 UFAs and FAs to re-sign next season, though BrewerBot should be going the way of the dodo.  It gives the team plenty of room to sign a few more people this off-season if needed, as well as a way to continue to reward the kids that we have with the squad now.

Speaking of signing people, the Blues have also re-signed Cam Janssen to a one year deal, bypassing arbitration.  Very nice to see CamSmash back with the team for another season, so we can see some more moments like this:

And, of course, more outstanding interviews like this one.

No clue where this leaves DJ King, unless the front office is assuming he's just going to break his hand again after 23 seconds of ice time.