Filed under: Thrashers, NHL Draft, NHL Coaching, Junior Hockey
Atlanta's Alex Burmistrov is one of the young players NHL teams had a decision to make regarding whether or not they would keep him with the big club or return him to his junior team. Doing the latter would save a year on his entry level contract.By all accounts, Burmistrov has played well enough to stick with the Thrashers for the entire season even though he's recorded just one point -- an assist -- in his first nine games. A lot of times with young players the offense tends to come before the defense. In the case of Burmistrov, it's working the other way around.
Prior to June's draft, when Burmistrov was selected eighth overall by the Thrashers, he compared his game to the two-way prowess of Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk, and that he is "a guy you can count on to be strong defensively."
Playing mostly on a line with veterans Chris Thorburn and Ben Eager, the 19-year-old Burmistrov has proven to be just that, and appears to be spending more time on the attack than chasing the puck in his own zone (and that's a good thing). He's not only logging a respectable amount of ice-time in even-strength situations, he's also been used on Atlanta's second penalty killing unit, averaging close to two minutes of shorthanded time per game, good enough for fifth among all rookie forwards.
His usage through the first nine games is very comparable to the way Atlanta used last year's top pick, Evander Kane, through his initial nine games.
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Source: http://nhl.fanhouse.com/2010/10/29/alexander-burmistrov-how-the-thrashers-are-using-him/
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