First Blog: Late-night Updates

Hello all and welcome to Thrash Compactor, an unofficial blog about the Atlanta Thrashers. Just a quick disclaimer before we get going on things: I don't claim to have any awesome inside knowledge; simply insight. I hope to get this thing up and running relatively quickly, but as some of you know this can be a time-consuming process. I hope to actively participate in the blogosphere throughout the rest of the summer, through hockey season, and hopefully through many more seasons to come.

So, in this late hour of the night (it's currently 2:35 on the East Coast) reports have started coming in from all over the place that ex-Thrasher Ilya Kovalchuk's bank-breaking 17-year, $102 million deal has been rejected. I still find this humorous because Kovalchuk's best offer still came back in February when world-renowned GM Don Waddell dropped $101 million on his plate over twelve years. The term of the contract would have been the same for each season, not an absurdly long contract that was clearly lengthened to screw the CBA. I mean, anyone who thinks Kovalchuk would actually be playing when he's 44 is on some pretty cool drugs.

Anyways, the Kovalchuk saga may be captivating but is finally, at least it appears, not Thrashers news. The real news is that Clarke MacArthur is going to arbitration and, as reported by Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday morning, is going to recieve $2 million. If the Thrashers don't like the ruling in the arbitration case, they can simply walk away and make MacArthur a free agent.

In today's salary cap system spending $2 million on a player who at this point can essentially be pegged as an extra forward on a team already bursting at the seams with bottom-six talent is useless. Letting MacArthur walk will also be a waste of the 3rd and 4th round picks in the 2010 Entry Draft. It was a gamble that failed, but MacArthur, whose two-way game is flawed, simply does not have a place within the roster. Losing the picks does hurt, but likely those guys have about a 10% chance of making the NHL anyways.

In addition to MacArthur departing, this opens another roster spot a prospect who the Thrashers want to get into their line-up; be it Patrice Cormier (acquired in the Kovalchuk deal), Spencher Macachek, or, if they can finagle it, Alex Burmistrov. So while the two picks--assets--were essentially wasted, the team has backed themselves into a corner with the situation and is much better suited to walk away from Clarke MacArthur. I don't think MacArthur would command nearly $2 million on the open market despite potting 16 goals last season (3 in 21 games with Atlanta).

I feel like that was way to much time talking about Clarke MacArthur.

In a side note, vuvuzelas have been banned from Philips arena, as well.

I feel like that was way too much time talking about vuvuzelas.

And so, this concludes the first post on Thrash Compactor. Kudos to Kevin Brooks for the clever title and snazzy banner atop the page. MacArthur's arbitration hearing is in a matter of hours, so I'll have more coverage of that tomorrow.