Southeast Division Free Agency Preview
Most National Hockey League players love the Southeast Division. Unfortunately, most of those players don’t play in it. The Southeast Division has become a perennial under-performer and other players love going there for warm weather and easy victories. Four of the five Southeast teams didn’t make the play-offs last season. Here are their situations for the upcoming free agent market:
Atlanta Thrashers: The Thrashers did not qualify for the play-offs last year, but newly appointed general manager Rick Dudley has started making serious moves in rebuilding the team.
The Thrashers have gotten some serious big players in Dustin Byfuglien, Ben Eager Akim Aliu, and Brent Sopel. In general, the Thrashers defence is well-established and they should easily be able to take the loss of Pavel Kubina to free agency.
What Atlanta needs to really address is their goalkeeping and offence. Both of Atlanta’s keepers, Johan Hedberg and Ondrej Pavelec, are entering free agency. Atlanta could be aggressive and go for one of the top-name free agents available, but Dudley is more likely committed to retaining the duo as it is more affordable.
Atlanta is also losing one of its best scorers in Maxim Afinogenov, so they need to acquire someone to fill that void. To win, the Thrashers also have to exercise the option to maintain their young offensive core with the re-signing of restricted free agent players Niclas Bergfors, Ben Eager, Bryan Little, and Clarke MacArthur.
Carolina Hurricanes: After a disappointing injury-ridden season, the Hurricanes traded away seven players in separate deals, and now have a roster that is fairly solidified for the 2010-11 season.
Their only unrestricted free agent of note will be Ray Whitney, and the Hurricanes would love to keep him in Carolina. Additionally, they are severely thin in defence-men and will have only four signed blue-liners as of July 1. Look for the Hurricanes to mainly offer deals to their restricted agents and hope to avoid injury, rather than playing major roles in the market.
Florida Panthers: Although the Panthers have 12 forwards on contract for 2010-11, they need to address the fact that last season these players simply couldn’t find the back of the net. Luckily for Florida, David Booth is coming back after a concussion-shortened season and should help with offensive production.
With the acquisition scoring defence-man Dennis Wideman, Florida will most likely not add any more players to the blue-line. They have a five restricted and unrestricted free agent forwards, and it looks like Kenndal McArdle is the only one who is likely to return. To deal with their offensive woes, the Panthers will likely try to get quality over quantity. A smart move for them would include Maxim Afinogenov, as his precision shooting will also create opportunities for Florida’s other forwards.
Tampa Bay Lightning: The Lightning are a paradoxical offence. They had great goal scorers in Steven Stamkos, Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Ryan Malone and Steve Downie. Stamkos had 51 goals on his own, and every other play had more than 20. Yet the Lightning as a team produced only 213 goals, which was 23rd best in the NHL.
Out of those scorers only Downie will be not under contract, and even then he is restricted. With or without Downie, something needs to be done to address Tampa Bay’s lack of scoring.
The Lightning have the talent to be immediate winners, and their top concern in free agency will be getting a new goalkeeper. Their own Antero Niittymaki will be a sought-after target, but the Lightning will most likely make an offer to someone like Chris Mason or Dan Ellis.
The rest of the Lightning’s free agents are not that important and have been under-performers so it is interesting to see if the Lightning seek to retain them at all.
Washington Capitals: The Capitals were not just the best team in the Southeast, but in the entire NHL. The Capitals succeeded in the regular season on the ability to seeming score at will, but their defensive shortcomings were exposed in the play-offs as they lost in the first round.
Everything else about the Capitals is more than fine, and their outside moves will likely only be for defensive purposes. Defenders Washington may be interested in would include Willie Mitchell, Anton Volchenkov, and Tomas Kaberle.
Also, the Caps need to re-sign a few of their free agent forwards to guarantee their offensive production. Of their free agent forwards, it is most likely that Washington will retain Eric Belanger, Tomas Fleischmann, and Eric Fehr with new contracts. Most probably Brendan Morrison will be let go to create salary space for defence-men.
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