Discusses some of the decisions he faces during the next few months

During his first day on the job in his new position, Thrashers general manager Rick Dudley shared some of his views on which direction he plans to go with his head coaching search, the upcoming NHL Entry Draft and future personnel decisions. Dudley, played for and worked with a number of coaching greats, and likely candidates for Thrashers head coaching job to replace John Anderson. Here are some excerpts from this afternoon's media teleconference.

Q: Will you look for a coach with NHL experience, or will you consider one from the minor leagues?

Dudley: I will probably spend a lot of time with any prospective candidate and try to figure out exactly what he represents in terms of what we need, his technical abilities, those types of things.

Q: Do you have a preference on one who has NHL experience to one that doesn't.

Dudley: Not really. I think if you look back at the last number of years, there have been success stories, people like Jacques Lemaire in New Jersey has had great success, but there is also times where people hire former minor league coaches who have been very successful head coaches. And, then there's Dave Tippett, an old coach that was hired in Phoenix and has done such a nice job. There's lots of different situations where success stories have been reached in a variety of ways. I think the Islanders coach (Scott Gordon) was a great hire and he came directly from the minor leagues.

Q: Do you expect there will be another front office hire?

Dudley I don't think so. With Larry (Simmons) and I, we function pretty well together. I rely on him already as an associate GM, he's a very bright young guy. To be honest with you, I think he can do anything that is asked of him.

Team promotes Don Waddell to President, Rick Dudley to General Manager and fires head coach John Anderson and assistants

The Atlanta Thrashers have promoted Don Waddell to President and Rick Dudley to General Manager, according to Co-Owner Bruce Levenson.  The team also announced that it will not retain Head Coach John Anderson and Assistant Coaches Randy Cunneyworth, Todd Nelson and Steve Weeks. In his new role, Waddell will focus primarily on all business aspects of the organization, and as General Manager, Dudley will be responsible for hockey operations.

“My role within the company has evolved and grown the last few years, and the owners and I agree that it’s the appropriate time to have Rick assume all hockey-related responsibilities while I shift my primary focus to the business side of the Thrashers,” said Waddell. “I will be less involved with the team on a daily basis, but will continue to make myself available to Rick and to lend my experience in any way that allows him to succeed and for us to build this club into a perennial contender.”

“Don has been an important part of this organization since its inception and will continue to play a vital role for our franchise as we transition primary control of our hockey operations to Rick, who has had an immediate impact during his first season with us,” said Levenson. “Rick has played a key role in building highly successful hockey teams, including most recently the Chicago Blackhawks. He has nearly 40 years of experience and is very well-respected in the hockey community for his expertise in evaluating and developing talent. We are confident that he will do an outstanding job of guiding all hockey-related activities as we move forward and build on the young foundation we have in place. We also thank John, Randy, Todd and Steve for their dedication and contributions to the organization during their tenure.

Unrestricted free agent says he has "unfinished business" in Atlanta.

The Atlanta Thrashers, one of the 14 teams that will miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the ninth time in its 10 seasons in the National Hockey League, are once again searching for answers as to why the team is on the outside of the top 16 teams in the league.

Some will point to losing another star off its roster in the midst of the season. Some, like Slava Kozlov, will suggest that head coach John Anderson didn't have a good feel for the team and the game, while others will point to the team's leadership as a reason the team sputtered down the stretch despite having 12 home games in March and 10 games against foes that also eventually missed the postseason.

None, however, will point the finger at goaltender Johan Hedberg, who had his best NHL season this year with a 21-16-6 record, a .915 save percentage, a 2.62 goals against average and three shutouts.

In four seasons with the Thrashers, Hedberg went 57-47-14. While hardly the numbers of a future Hall of Famer, Hedberg was supposed to be the team's No. 2 goalie, picking up an occasional start behind former No. 1 pick Kari Lehtonen and then Ondrej Pavelec. But, he started 42 games this year and his value to the fortunes of the Thrashers goes well beyond his sprawling saves, his honest appraisals of his team's play or the number of wins he posts.

Hedberg, a former 9th-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1994 NHL Entry Draft, will become a free agent this summer. Although he will turn 37 in May, he has no intention of retiring and has indicated that he would like the opportunity to tend to "unfinished business" in Atlanta.

"I don't know what's going to happen in the summertime right now. I had four great years here and I really enjoyed it. Even though we came up short, I think we took a lot of good strides in the right direction this year," Hedberg said. "It has been fun to be a part of it and we haven't reached the big goal yet. It would be fun to be a part of that and if that's not going to be the case, then we'll see what the summer is going to bring."

Unrestricted free agent would like to remain with Thrashers, and hopes others will too

With Slava Kozlov's impending departure from the Atlanta Thrashers as the 2009-10 season comes to a close Saturday, the player next in line in terms of seniority is one of 10 unrestricted and four restricted free agents general manager Don Waddell has to deal with before or after July 1.

Jim Slater, a former first-round selection out of Michigan State in 2002, will complete this season with 335 regular season games played for the Thrashers during his five-year NHL career.

Slater is a role player, a speedy combination of agitator and checker, who scores an occasional goal and plays some on the penalty-kill unit for head coach John Anderson. He isn't overly gifted with offensive skills, yet he is a notable hard worker and a guy his teammates can depend upon for effort, a solid check and being a pain in the butt to play against for opposing forwards.

Slater is popular with both teammates and fans, and is the type of player all NHL teams want and need. He flourished centering Evander Kane and Colby Armstrong for a few months this season and scored a career-high 11 goals in just 59 games thus far. In four of his five seasons in Atlanta, his plus/minus rating has been even or better, no small feat for a team that typically winds up near the bottom of the NHL in goals allowed.

Often, beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to signing unrestricted free agents. Last summer, 30 general managers tried to find key components for their rosters, and here's my list of 13 that should be considered as one of the top free agent signings of 2009-10.

G   Craig Anderson  Colorado
Career back-up has made 69 starts for the Avs and was fabulous until the Olympic break. Like his team, Anderson has cooled off (6-9-3) since, but his 37 wins and seven shutouts are the primary reasons Colorado is still alive for a playoff spot with four games left.

D   Kurtis Foster   Tampa Bay
Cast-off from Minnesota has flourished under head coach Rick Tocchet with eight goals and a career-high 30 assists in 67 games for the Bolts. His minus-6 rating trails only Victor Hedman of those Tampa defenders who have played 50 games or more this season.

D   Dennis Seidenberg    Florida (traded to Boston)
Too expensive for Carolina's Jim Rutherford, this German Olympic team defenseman was signed by Florida and then traded to the Bruins at the deadline. He has four goals, 28 assists and a plus-6 rating in 79 total games, building upon the solid season he had in Carolina last year.

F   Nik Antropov    Atlanta
Versatile forward can play center or on the wing. He has 24 goals and 43 assists (a career high) in 75 games and has a +16 rating. Atlanta's most productive and consistent player this season.

F   Maxim Afinogenov    Atlanta
A tryout offer was extended by Thrashers GM Don Waddell in mid-September and Afinogenov signed a one-year deal worth $800,000 Sept. 29. The veteran responded with 24 goals and 37 assists, and hasn't missed a game all season.

You can always judge how your team is doing in a particular season by looking at the standings. However, when you consider the National Hockey League is a business and the salary cap has seemingly fostered mediocrity with the "have nots" outnumbering the "haves" by a significant margin, knowing exactly where your team stands in terms of points earned, amount of money spent on players' salaries and attendance generated seems like a logical way to determine a teams Performance Value Index (P.V.I.). Sounds like a bit of a reach, doesn't it? Well, not really.

The most important person in today's NHL is a team's general manager followed closely by the assistant general manager who often is charged with managing the salary cap numbers. In order to complete a post-lockout roster, a general manager, and his professional and amateur scouts must evaluate players that represent a good value (on-ice production versus salary) or that terribly overused acronym R.O.I. Often, the youngest, least experienced players are those that tip the R.O.I indices off the chart, and such is the case this season with Tampa Bay's Steven Stamkos, Nashville's Patric Hornqvist and Buffalo's Tyler Myers. But, filling out a 22-man roster these days with players that offer good value is extremely dicey. There is little question that based upon sheer numbers, Tampa Bay's Vinny Lecavalier, the Rangers' Wade Redden and Edmonton's Shawn Horcoff are perhaps the least valuable players in the entire league this season. Of course, they only signed the contract, they weren't the knuckleheads who offered them!