Tuesday’s New and Notes
Posted by talkingthrash on November 6, 2007
Happy Gameday to everyone. Finally, after a long wait, Blueland is back in business tonight. And a whole lot better than last time we were there.
Ilya Kovalchuk’s absolutely incredible play over the last week or so has generated a lot of press:
- Darren Eliot on Kovalchuk’s play and who has influenced him.
- He participated in a press conference call yesterday, the transcript of which can be found here. Lot of great quotes about his play and his relationship with Waddell.
- He won the top star for the NHL for the last week:
Last player to post hat tricks in consecutive team games:
Alex Kovalev, Pittsburgh, 2001-02 (Nov. 13 at New Jersey and Nov. 14 vs. NY Islanders)Last player to post hat tricks in consecutive team games, both on the road:
Mario Lemieux, Pittsburgh, 1995-96 (Oct. 26 at NY Islanders and Oct. 28 at New Jersey)
AJC’s Mark Bradley wrote a great article about the success of Waddell behind the bench:
There’s powerful local precedent: An Atlanta general manager once fired the guy below him and took the job himself and, after relinquishing the GM position, won 14 division titles. Not that Don Waddell is swayed by the example of Bobby Cox and the Braves.“No, no,” Waddell said Monday. “I’m not giving up the seat I sit in.”
He meant the GM’s chair. But the more Waddell talked, the more apparent it became that he doesn’t plan to quit either job any time soon. The Thrashers are 5-3 since he stepped in as coach after canning Bob Hartley, and he doesn’t act like a man who’s overwhelmed by the dual responsibilities. Indeed, Waddell said, “When I was doing this [in the minor leagues more than a decade ago], I always thought my strength was as a bench coach.”
Gameday news – Sterling was sent back to Chicago and Pavelec is in net tonight against Washington. I’m not an expert on the waiver system in the NHL, but I am pretty sure that Sterling was one of the only players on the team that could be sent down without having to clear waivers, and since the team had more healthy scratches than is normal for an NHL team, he was sent down. More playing time definitely won’t hurt, either.
Lastly, Japers’ Rink has a gameday preview for the game tonight. He asked a lot of the Thrashers bloggers reasons why the Thrashers will win tonight, and my response is included. I decided to go the comedic route, so make sure to check it out.
