Welcome to everyone that's finding their way here via Eric McErlain's Eastern conference preview over at Deadspin. In the interest of full disclosure you might want to know that I helped Eric out a few summers ago and filled in for him at Off Wing Opinion. Don't hold the fact that's a Caps fan against him.

Here in Atlanta we're pretty optimistic about the Thrashers. I'll be posting my own season preview sometime this week before things kick off for the Thrashers on Oct. 5, but I want to point out a few of the the reasons for optimism.

Off To A Good Start. For the most part, preseason success is a good indicator of regular season success. Although it happens, it's not very often that a team posts a good record in the preseason and then tanks when games matter. The Thrashers went 5-2-0 in the warm-up session and that counts for something.

Kari Lehtonen. He was held out of about a week's worth of practice and delayed his first exhibition game appearance because he had some soreness in his groin. Everyone proclaimed the sky was falling and nobody outside of Atlanta bothered to check back in to see how he was doing. I'll tell you how he's doing- he allowed one goal in two preseason games. One goal on 57 shots. There's no goaltending controversy and fans here don't need the coaches to send out a proclamation for them to know that Kari Lehtonen is this team's starting goaltender. Johan Hedberg will get more starts than last season but mark my words- Lehtonen will get the bulk of the work.

Rookies. Nobody outside of Atlanta, save for fans of the teams these guys previously played for, is giving the Thrashers any credit for putting Bryan Little, Brett Sterling and Tobias Enstrom into the lineup. throw in Mark Popovic and you have four young players that are going to make an impact. It's occasionally claimed that Bob Hartley doesn't know how to manage rookies. The Calder Trophy sitting in Chris Drury's trophy room says otherwise. These aren't rookies that were brought in to plug holes. They're rookies that beat out veterans with more experience and stole jobs.

This roster is better than the one that got off to a red-hot start last season and actually held on to the top spot in the Eastern Conference for a time. I'm with Ted Leonsis- predictions are entertaining but meaningless. Last year Eklund picked the Thrashers to finish 15th in the East. We were the third seed. This year he's predicting us to finish 15th. I realize every major site and analyst has to make predictions because everyone wants to read them, but few people outside of the Atlanta market pay enough attention to the Thrashers for anything they say to be taken seriously. Adam Proteau at The Hockey News for example lists Andre Deveaux as a departing Thrasher. That would mean more if he'd played a single game for Atlanta. Then he says the organization doesn't have depth. Apparently he wasn't paying attention to the competition for jobs at the Thrashers' training camp. It's easy to take shots when you don't know anything about Bryan Little, Brett Sterling, Tobias Enstrom, Mark Popovic and Eric Perrin.

This will be the best team the Thrashers have ever iced to start a season. Check back later this week and I'll tell you exactly why, position by position.