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.

Apparently CamSmash would like a bit more than just above the minimum salary to fling himself about the ice and make life a living hell for the Blackhawks.  Cammer's filed for arbitration (scroll to the bottom), while Halak won't be doing so.  BTW, the Blues extended QOs to both Janssen and King.  Maybe they're just assuming Kinger'll break his hand like he does every season.  Also, Carlo Colaiacovo shall be back on the blueline next season at a two year deal worth $4.25 million.  Glad to see we got Cola and Steen both locked up again. Cola snagged 32 points in 67 games played last season, and also finished +8 on the year.

In sad news, former Red Wings pugilist Bob Probert passed away today at the age of 45.  As much as I (and the rest of the Blues fanbase, I'm sure) poke and prod at the Red Wings, this is truly unfortunate news.  He was one of the top fighters in the league during the 1980s all the way through the 2001-2002 season, and was a great asset to both the Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks organizations.  His 3300 penalty minutes in 935 career games is an amazing feat.  No cause of passing yet, but my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends right now.

The Blues were fairly quiet today.  They re-signed Alexander Steen to a four year deal worth $12 million total.  The 24 year old winger was tied for the team lead in goals with 24.  Steen wanted to stay put in St. Louis, and frankly, St. Louis is glad to have him hang around, even though $3 million a season might be a little bit of an overpayment.

On the flip side, goaltenders are getting underpaid (unless you're Michael Leighton).  Chris Mason is now the Thrashers' new 1-A goaltender, a position that he's more than used to.  He basically served that role in both Nashville and St. Louis, though here in Atlanta he'll have to compete with a kid who has talent.  Masonry signed a two year deal with the Thrashers ($1.6 million and $2.1 million) for less than he was negotiating with the Blues for.  Look for Mason to be our starting goalie next year to light a fire under Pavelec's ass.  Mason does have a habit of letting in one wonky goal a game, and the team might need to battle to maintain 3rd period leads (though not all of that was Mason by a long shot - Andy Murray's coaching didn't help).  But, once you get past that, Mason's a solid goaltender who put up great stats last year on a non-playoff Blues team, and was an absolute beast of a workhorse both last season and the year before that - especially after Manny Legace was waived.  He wasn't pulled once last season, which is more than can be said for either of our goalies last year.

Can YOU score on Masonry?

Of course, this means the end of Hedberg in Atlanta - Moose is now Martin Brodeur's backup in New Jersey for a $1.5 million contract.  Considering it's backing up Brodeur, that boils down to $500,000 a game.  Congrats though on getting a NTC, Hedberg, and best of luck when you come to ATL, play against us, and probably shut us out.

The Thrashers also sent a 4th round pick in the 2011 draft and Ivan Vishnevskiy to Chicago for Andrew Ladd.  Ladd averaged just under a half point a game last season and was nearly a 40 point player.  He spent a lot of time on the Hawks' 3rd line, but still averaged significant numbers a night.  We've now acquired Ladd, Byfuglien, Sopel, and Eager.  Say hello to your Atlanta Thrash-Hawks (copywright Chris Gift).

Please don't start playing "Chelsea Dagger" in Philips.