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Former Atlanta coach on facing Winnipeg: “There is emotion there”

Craig Ramsay

Atlanta Thrashers coach Craig Ramsay sets up a play during a timeout in the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010. The Penguins won 3-2. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

AP

The BankAtlantic Center will host a rather strange reunion tonight as the Panthers take on the Winnipeg Jets.

Florida assistant Craig Ramsay -- who coached the Thrashers in their final season of existence -- will face his former organization for the first time since being relieved of his duties.

“In all honesty, now, since I’ve bounced around from one team to another, I have a whole bunch of those teams where you have special meaning for the game and you have to try to set that aside,” Ramsay told NHL.com. “I’d like to say there’s no extra emotion, but there is… There is emotion there, but I really try not to let it affect the way I do my job and what I have to accomplish.”

Relieving Ramsay of his duties was a low point in Winnipeg’s otherwise blissful summer -- lost amidst the good vibes and excitement was the fact that Ramsay had been blindsided by the move. In his lone year with Atlanta, he’d taken the team to its four-highest ever point total and had the Thrashers atop the Southeast Division halfway through the year. “I have to admit it was quite a bit of a shock when it started to transpire when I first heard that maybe we were going to be the team to go to Winnipeg,” he said. “My wife and daughter got on the Internet to check out rentals, assuming we’d be part of the package, and we’d be heading north.”

Instead, the Jets cleaned house and replaced both Ramsay and Thrashers GM Rick Dudley with Claude Noel and Kevin Cheveldayoff. By all accounts, it wasn’t the cleanest of executions -- the South Florida Sun-Sentinel said Winnipeg left Ramsay “dangling for several weeks” before informing him he wouldn’t be retained.

Things have worked out for Ramsay to a certain degree. While he’s now an assistant rather than a head coach (serving under Kevin Dineen with the Panthers), Florida’s gotten off to a far better start than the Jets have under Ramsay’s replacement, Claude Noel. The Panthers are 6-4-0 heading into tonight’s action, just two points back of Southeast Division leaders Washington.

And perhaps of equal importance, five points up on last-place Winnipeg.