by A.J. PerezFiled under: Thrashers
ARLINGTON, Va. --- Craig Ramsay needs only to recount the last handful of games at his previous stint behind the bench to grasp the attention of the Atlanta Thrashers. "You can't start looking ahead," Ramsay said after the team's skate Friday. "Sometimes when you're up 3-0, you start thinking (about) what's coming next. You're watching the other series and start saying, 'Look at this. Things are falling into place.' Whatever happened yesterday is over. You need to maintain the focus of this team on a day-to-day basis."
Ramsay, 59, was an assistant the previous three seasons with the Boston Bruins, which included last season's 3-0 collapse -- both in the second-round series and in Game 7 -- to the Philadelphia Flyers. He was soon hired as the head coach of the Thrashers, a team that arguably has seen more change over the last 10 months than any other franchise in the NHL, including:
o. The face of the franchise (Ilya Kovalchuk) and Atlanta's top goalie (Kari Lehtonen) getting dealt last February;
o. The firing of John Anderson as coach days after the 2009-10 regular season ended;
o. Don Waddell, the only general manager the team has ever had, was promoted to president in April and Rick Dudley was tapped for the GM job;
o. The blockbuster trades with the Chicago Blackhawks, who sent over Dustin Byfuglien, Brent Sopel, Ben Eager Andrew Ladd in separate deals with the 2010 Stanley Cup champs who needed to shed salary under the cap.
Suddenly, the team that has only made the playoffs once since its debut in the 1999-2000 season looked like it could contend. The argument was further buttressed by the Thrasher's franchise-tying six-game winning streak that came to an end thanks to Sidney Crosby's hat trick in a 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday.
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