Once again the residents of Thrasherville will be adopting on of the 16 teams in the NHL playoffs to follow of the next several week. This is because the Thrashers have failed to qualify for the hunt for Lord Stanley’s Cup…something that has been the case 9 times in their 10-year history.

Me…I haven’t decided yet between LA, Phoenix, Chicago or Colorado. They each are interesting stories coming into the post-season. But I think I’ll probably go with the Kings, even though I think Chicago is coming out of the west.

Now, in looking back on the Thrashers’ 2009-10 campaign, the one word that probably sums it up the best is “inconsistent”. Coach John Anderson used this word to describe the team last November when he and I chatted. Then he was referring his player’s inexplicable knack of waiting until they were down 2-0 or 3-0 before deciding it was time to play.

But over the course of 82 games, the word “inconsistent” could also be used to illustrate how this squad could start off 14-7-3 in the first two months of the season, then go 10-15-5 over the next two months, (including an 0-6-3 skid)…pull themselves back to within striking distance just after the Olympic break, just to hit an 0-5-1 pot hole…and then four straight wins before finishing the year with 3 points in the last five games.

Inconsistent…that about sums it up.

Now, where does blame fall for this lack of being able to string 60 minutes of quality play together on a regular basis? Well, to hear Slava Kozlov tell it, it falls right at the feet of the head coach that used the word in the first place…John Anderson.

“Every year you guys ask the same question (why did Thrashers miss the playoffs). To me, this was the best team in 11 years of the organization," Kozlov said to the media Monday at the team’s practice facility. "This franchise had the best players. Right now, they cannot blame [Ilya] Kovalchuk or [Slava] Kozlov. They have to take responsibility, because I think ownership did everything right, signed good players, they have a good goalie, good defense, but something we are missing. I think we are missing from the coaching staff. Looks like they have fun, but unfortunately in the NHL you have to work. You have to prepare for every game”.

Continuing he adds, "There are lots of good teams in the NHL. You have to do homework and work hard. I think I can put a big question mark if they weren’t preparing.”

Dang…talk about dropping a bomb on the way out the door.

Slava didn’t stop there…he went on to describe how the system Anderson employs in Atlanta makes it tough to win…that’s it’s very predictable.

"I watched the New Jersey game from Kovy's box upstairs with his mom. You can see on TV, or when you're playing, I can tell this system, for two years they tell us it’s going to work but unfortunately everybody knows what we are going to do. Our breakouts, we make two, three passes in our zone and we don’t beat anybody. I saw that in the New Jersey game. New Jersey just waited in the neutral zone and we make three passes and make one mistake in neutral zone and boom, they counterattack us”.

Wrapping up the tenth season of Thrashers hockey, they finished with a record of 35-34-13 for 83 points. While it’s true that is 7 points more than last season…and the season before that…the fact is that all those extra seven points came via seven more overtime loss points. They had 35 wins last season as well…34 the year prior.

This season will also be remembered as when we said good-bye to Ilya Kovalchuk, traded to New Jersey just prior to the Olympic break. He turned down as much as $100 million for 12 years to re-sign and joined Marian Hossa as a superstar who Don Waddell, “Thanks but no thanks”.

Highlights of the year include the play of Johan Hedberg…21-16-6 with a 2.62 SV% and .915 SV and 4 shutouts. If last Saturday was indeed his last game as a Thrasher, he certainly went out in style.

Then there is Nik Antropov and his 24 goals, 43 assist, +13 performance as well as Maxim Afinogenov’s 24 goals, 37 assists season that cost the Thrashers all of $800,000.

Pavel Kubina was well worth the trade that send Garnet Exelby to Toronto…I’m hoping the Thrashers can convince him to ink a new deal to stay her another couple of years.

Evander Kane not only showed he was ready for NHL action…but he showed Matt Cooke last weekend he has one hellacious right hook.

And with that… I would also like take this opportunity to say thank you for reading my ramblings here at HockeyBuzz over the course of the last year. I began writing here shortly after the end of last season…primarily because I thought the Thrashers needed some sort of representation here.

Eklund was kind enough to allow be to run this on-line community and he and the entire staff at HB have been nothing short of supportive and welcoming since starting my blog here. But it’s time for me to move on, chase some other possible endeavors…and as such, I will say good-bye to you all at this time.

Again…thank you all who have read as well as those who have participated in the comments section and thank you Eklund and HB for providing me this stage for the past year. I have had a blast!

GO THRASHERS!!

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