By John Manasso
FOXSportsSouth.com
December 27, 2010
It's hard to change first impressions - and harder to change lasting ones.
That appears to be the case with Thrashers right wing Niclas Bergfors, who earned a spot on the NHL's All-Rookie team last season, and head coach Craig Ramsay.
Ramsay has been unhappy for virtually the entire season with the play of Bergfors, who was scratched as early as the Thrashers' fourth, sixth and seventh games this season. And while the 23-year-old Swede has seven goals and 11 assists in 27 games (one less goal than Ilya Kovalchuk with whom Bergfors was involved in a trade last season), his name has surfaced in two published reports that say the Thrashers are looking to trade him.
In fact, Thrashers general manager Rick Dudley told The Sporting News on Dec. 22 in reference to Bergfors that "We have assets but we're not inclined to give people away. I'm sure that if [Bergfors] doesn't get back to playing regular that he's going to get frustrated. I have to take that into account, but so far I haven't heard anything like that."
So unless Bergfors makes what would seem to be an unlikely dramatic turnaround in his play, he probably will not be around much longer. On Monday, one day after only Bergfors' second game in 16 days, Ramsay answered a question only indirectly as to whether he thought Bergfors played any better than he had in the games leading up to his recent removal from the lineup.
"I don't know," he said. "We were looking for a spark. We got Freddy Modin stepped up. He got us a point. Everyone who's out of the lineup has to come in and try to make a difference. We need that. We need everyone to be a difference-maker, not just a few guys."
The implication is that Bergfors, who has played on the team's top line, is not a difference maker. On Monday, Anthony Stewart skated in Bergfors' spot with Andrew Ladd and Rich Peverley and Bergfors practiced in a spot on the third line with Modin and Alex Burmistrov.
It's entirely possible that Bergfors has only played as many games as he has because of injuries. Modin missed 12 games with an injury, opening up one forward spot from Nov. 14 to Dec. 10, coinciding exactly with Bergfors' most recent departure from the lineup when Modin returned. Bryan Little missed six games from Oct. 30 to Nov. 11 before that and Nik Antropov sat out Sunday's game against Tampa Bay, which helped to get Bergfors to get back in the lineup, and Antropov did not make the trip to Pittsburgh for Tuesday's game.
The signing of Tim Stapleton in time for Nov. 30's game in Colorado also has made Bergfors' security in the lineup ever more precarious and Ramsay has said, in general, he wants it to be difficult for players to crack the lineup.
So as of Dec. 10
