Atlanta Thrashers Salary Cap situation

Atlanta Thrashers

We now head to our division rivals (not really) the Atlanta Thrashers who as of now have 19 players signed and ready with about $16.98M in salary cap space to fill though holes. They made a few moves bringing in Antropov, signing him to a 4yr/$16.25M, a little high for enigma wrapped around a puzzle encased in a conundrum. Slater and Thorburn were re-signed to low impact contracts. They did make a significant trade with the Leafs and acquired Kubina, who only had 1 more year on his contract, and Tim Stapleton, who was a RFA who is yet to be re-signed. You have to believe they aren't going to go into the season with Hedberg or Pavelec as their netminders, Lehtonen is a RFA and I'm sure he is their first choice. Colby Armstrong will also be resigned. That will be 21 players in total with raises due to Lehtonen ($5.0M my guess) and Armstrong ($3.0M) which will leave ATL with roughly $9.0M to fill 2 holes for a team who aren't ready to compete for a playoff spot. In 2010/11 they'll have 10 players signed (not including Lehtonen, Armstrong) with $37.0M to use to re-sign Kovalchuk and either re-sign or replace Slava Kozlov (I wish my first name was Slava). The Thrashers seem to be in a good situation cap wise, but will they get Kovi into the playoffs? I give them a 9.