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Thrashers interview Craig Ramsay (and others) for head coach

While the Atlanta Thrashers ponder what their future will hold, one part they’ll have to take care of first is their vacant head coaching position. Chris Vivlamore at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tells us that general manager Rick Dudley has spoken to one man on his hit list who could be of major interest.

The Thrashers interviewed Craig Ramsay for their vacant head coaching position over the weekend. Ramsay, currently an assistant with the Boston Bruins, is the third candidate to be interviewed by new Thrashers general manager Rick Dudley.

Last month Dudley interviewed AHL head coaches Scott Arniel, of the Manitoba Moose, and Don Lever, of the Thrashers’ minor-league affiliate Chicago Wolves. Dudley met with Arniel at the Memorial Cup and with Lever following the junior hockey tournament.

You can scratch one name off that short list already as Scott Arniel is set to become the head coach of the Blue Jackets. Don Lever is an interesting choice given his familiarity with the players in the organization. Of course, that didn’t really help out former head coach John Anderson at all as he was let go at the end of this past season.

As for Ramsay, he’s spent most of his coaching career as an assistant coach, save for one year as the Flyers head coach in 2000-2001 that ended with a first round loss in the playoffs to the Buffalo Sabres in six games, the clincher being an 8-0 blowout. Apparently, Craig Ramsay is still suffering from that humiliation because he hasn’t landed a head coaching job since then. Luckily for Ramsay, his former teammate Rick Dudley is willing to look beyond such matters at this point in life.

As for who else Dudley might be looking at, Vivlamore adds a couple more names in Blackhawks assistant John Torchetti who is a bit tied up right now with the Stanley Cup finals and Rockford Ice Hogs coach Bill Peters. What’s Dudley looking for in a head coach? Warning: Nonsensical cliché ahead.

“I was trying to throw questions that were not normal questions that they would get ... and they didn’t even flinch,” Dudley said of the interviews. “If I asked them about the neutral zone and playing against a passive fore check, what would you do? They just answered like it was water off a duck’s back.”

So the Thrashers want to be like ducks or like the Anaheim Ducks or not like ducks/Ducks at all? I’m lost now.