Last year, “soft as butter” Giroux managed to net 60G in 69GP during the regular season. He added an additional 15 more in the playoffs. But since Rochester didn’t make the playoffs last season, we won’t use those figures. Duco notched 14G in 68GP. In +/-, Duco ended his regular season at a -19. Mr. Giroux ended with a +23. Shall I even give the point totals each player ended with, or are you catching on to this trend?

What’s that you say? I’m comparing a seasoned veteran to Duco’s rookie season. Your initial post opened up the comparison, so if you want to put Duco in a category with Giroux.. expect the facts.

If Alex Giroux is, as you say, “soft as butter,” I doubt he’d have the professional numbers he has. The D-men out there on the blue lines don’t typically lie down and allow forwards to casually stroll in and score. There is at least some physical contact involved — Give the guy some credit.

Maybe you’re referring to the way in which Alex didn’t retaliate to Duco’s “attack” while his back was turned? Hmmm — What good what it have done his team to take a roughing or fighting penalty? None. He played it smart. He drew the penalty, and his team capitalized on it. I’ll take that any day!

Furthermore, asking Ovechkin to tone down the physical nature of his play is ridiculous. Its what makes him special. If Gordie Howe had toned his play down in his 5th year in the NHL, he would not have made the Hall of Fame.

Both the NHL and NFL are consummed with reducing violence and physical play to the detriment of their games. If this continues, we might as well play virtual hockey on computer games. When is the game no longer the game?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not for unmitigated violence and out of hand physical play but I am for retaining the foundation of the game without trying to cater to the politically correct interests of our society who don’t even know the game and furthermore don’t buy tickets or watch it on TV.

C’mon Gary Bettman, have some nads… George McPhee has it right, even good hits can go bad. Don’t water down this game to the point where the players are saying “excuse me” and “pardon me please”.

Let the players play and don’t water down a game that has so much potential.

I never noticed much correlation between quality of opponent and crowd size in DC. I did notice bigger crowds for teams that “travel well” – Toronto, New York, Philly, etc. Washington doesn’t generally “travel well”, especially in Atlanta.

But, again, the situations are similar but aren’t apples to apples. The Capitals had been in DC for thirty years at that point and had done well for most of the last twenty-plus. The Thrashers have been around ten and have generally been awful, even beyond their expansion growing pains. With the Caps you had the history, a competent management group, and an owner with the team’s best interests at heart. In Atlanta the team has been awful, the management stinks and everyone knows, and the ownership has been a disaster. Simply put, there’s no reason to show your support (especially financially) to the team. The only comparable situation I can think of would be Chicago and Wirtz. It’s that bad.

Heck, you could compare it to Washington in their early years. A market unfamiliar with hockey, an awful team that seemed to be going nowhere, constant threats of relocation, low attendance, people from traditional markets looking down their noses…

Going back to the Caps in Atlanta, I don’t think that’s too damning. The Thrashers play the Capitals multiple times every year and Ovechkin’s been to Atlanta many times. Factor in that, and the sorry state of the franchise over the last…well, the vast majority of it’s existence, to me that’s a blip compared to the pattern of teams being supported when they’re winning and ignored when they’re not.

Like I said, I only think it’s a problem if the team can’t get support when they’re good, and the Thrashers were well supported in the very brief period of time they were good, which is something that it’s easy to underestimate if you weren’t there at the time. Atlanta’s never going to be Detroit, or the Twin Cities, or Boston, or Philly, but I think it’ll be more than enough to make an NHL franchise viable long term.

I agree with a lot of your points, but two other considerations might be (1) the remarkable macro-economic conditions in which Atlanta’s emptiness now occurs, which I suspect is fueling a lot of the speculation that the Thrash rank as one of the league’s Dirty Six franchises *quite* apt for relocation (they are *always* included in such discussions); and (2) empty is a somewhat relative term. When the Caps were skating what was tatamount to an AHL squad in the spring of 2004, VC was still about half full, and when quality clubs visited I often saw 14- or 15,000 fannies in the seats. When Ovechkin and the no. 1-in-the-league Caps visited Atlanta earler this season, on a Friday night, with Kovy skating on the ice as well, and tumbleweeds could be seen billowing about the aisles, I thought ‘That’s big-time trouble.’

Outside of the freak Ballard/Vokoun incident (which was accidental) and Duco last night, what warrants the sarcastic “This is obviously one classy organization” comment? They have two enforcers on their team (McCardle & McIntyre) who give plenty of notice when they want to scrap. Other than that they have very few physical players.

Besides, I’m the only Panthers fan in DC. I’ve already suffered enough pain this season, don’t need to read it on here, too. SOME SYMPATHY PLEASE.

But the issue goes way beyond this year. They’ve made bad trades, drafted poorly, interacted poorly with the fan base, and mortgaged a significant portion of their future to get to their one playoff berth (with no wins) in the ten years they’ve been around. People are skeptical enough that they’re not going to start coming out after a couples months of good play, the same way you wouldn’t expect the Pirates to start filling the stands if they had a solid record come next Memorial Day. You can’t undo years of poor management and poor teams that quickly.

Coming out of the lockout the Thrashers enjoyed a decent amount of popularity in Atlanta, especially when they made the playoffs. They didn’t have any problem filling that building late in the 05-07 season and it was loud.

I think it’s easy to dismiss Atlanta because they’ve drawn so poorly, but places that fill the arena most nights like St. Louis, Chicago, Boston, Pittsburgh, and even Washington had horrible attendance when they had bad teams and, Chicago aside, none of those were run nearly as poorly as the Thrashers. Still, it took the fans a little while to catch on and come back.

Ultimately I just think the fact is teams get supported when they win and don’t when they lose. Atlanta, save for a few months, has been a losing team. I think it’s hard to say there’s an issue there until we see what happens when the team wins, and based on my experience the team will be supported when they win.

Otherwise, we are within our right to no longer approve them.

There’s empty rinks and then there’s Atlanta’s. Apparently even players’ family members can’t be spotted in the stands. And are they a lousy team in your view? A week or so ago they were the highest scoring team in the league. Not exactly an unmarketable product, no? Gonna be interesting to see if Kovy re-ups. The vast emptiness there can’t be aiding those negotiations.