Postgame, vs. Panthers, 20 Minutes of Hockey

For the first time since November of 2003, the Thrashers lost to the Florida Panthers at home. If you had told me that Kovy would score two goals, and that we would have 41 shots, I would have immediately bet all my money in my pocket at the time on the Thrashers.

Fortunately, I didn’t do that, as the Thrashers lost for the first time all season when they outshot an opponent.

The Christmas hangover lasted through the game in Columbus, and through the first two periods of tonight’s game. In the first minute of the third, Kovy ended the drought and put in his 31st of the year, followed later in the period with a shorthanded goal for his 32nd.

Why did we lose? Two reasons: absolutely no effort or production in the first two periods, and a off night from Kari.

Lehtonen, in all fairness, did not play horribly. He played well enough to keep the Thrashers in the game. But his timing was off, and he looked lost on the shots that did go in. He had a lot of bad breaks, and the goals he allowed were tipped. From Don Waddell:

“The first two goals were really fluky,” Waddell said. “The first one hit the referee and the guy banged it home, and the second one barely went over the line. … I thought we were playing pretty well and all of a sudden we’re down 2-0.”

Let’s talk about two of the best players in the league: Ilya Kovalchuk and Tobias Enstrom. Kovy is far and away the best goal scorer in the league, if not the world. What is scary is that he is branching out, and not just scoring on the long range slapshots like in the past. Tonight he scored off a rebound, and on a shorthanded situation. Don’t look now, but 19 goals in 12 games gets him the incredibly rare 50 goals in 50 games.

And he’s not in the starting lineup for the all-star game!! Get voting, folks!

Tobias Enstrom. What can we say about this kid? It wasn’t too long ago that we were questioning if he would even make the team out of camp. A few short months later, he is leading the Calder race, leading the Thrashers in time on ice, and is one of the best defensemen the Thrashers have ever had, if not the best. Did he leave the ice in the third period? I sure didn’t see him sit.

I had one issue with Waddell tonight. I usually won’t argue with coaching decisions, other than discussing line combinations. With exactly one minute left in the game, there was a faceoff at center ice. I was under the impression that for any faceoff other than an offensive zone faceoff, a team would put the goalie back in net in case of a clean, quick faceoff win for the opponent. Well, what happens, but the Panthers win the faceoff, and Jay Bouwmeester fires a shot that goes in 4 seconds later.

The bottom line is that the Thrashers missed a huge opportunity tonight. It was one of those four-point games that make a huge difference in the standings. Blueland was rocking, and was as loud as it has been in a while. The boys showed up 40 minutes late, played well for the last 20, but just couldn’t finish the job. The Thrashers play every other day for the next two weeks, with most at home, so there is a great opportunity to move up into playoff positioning.

Look for Moose to be in net on Saturday, as Kari could use a game off and a chance to get his timing back.

Congrats are due to Slava Kozlov, who was recognized before the game for playing in his 1000th career game yesterday in Columbus.

Postgame, vs. Senators: Maturity

All season, the Thrashers have played with absolutely no consistency. Flashes of brilliance would immediately be followed by “what-in-the-*&#(@” moments. Players, coaches, TV commentators, fans, and even the beer vendors wondered just what it might look like if the team could play 60 minutes of hockey that lived up to the team’s potential.

We saw it Tuesday night against Tampa Bay. It was a great win coming off of a bad losing streak. Truthfully, it was a full 60 minute effort. But questions were raised. Was it because Tampa Bay is one of the worst road teams in the league? Was it because they too have been playing badly of late?

Last night, the Thrashers played their second straight 60 minute effort, against the best team in the Eastern Conference. They tied a franchise record with 45 shots, and held the Senators to 30. Martin Gerber played one of the better games a goaltender has played against the Thrashers, and still lost. The following players can all say that they played their best games all season: Slater (he needs to fight every night), Thorburn, Lehtonen, and Holik. And it came against the best team in the East!

Let’s put this into perspective. The Senators had won their previous six games coming into Atlanta, having outscored their opponents 29-12 in that time span. In the three pervious games against the Thrashers, the Sens had won all three and scored 16 goals in those three games.

Sound like a game that the Thrashers would tie a franchise record in shots? Nope.

This was playoff hockey: opportunistic offense, tight defense, physical play, outstanding goaltending, and electric atmosphere. And the Thrashers played to their talent level, and won.

Kari played like the goaltender that we all know he is. He was smart, controlled the rebounds, and showed confidence again. Last year when he was playing well he would make a glove save, and add some flourish on the end of it. He was doing the same tonight. He only faced 30 shots, most of which came late in the third, but he dominated the game.

After most games you can usually think of a few players that did not play well. Try and name one tonight. It’s impossible. Every single player that stepped foot on the ice played well. The entire team was physical, but not stupid; fast, but not out of position; and emotional, but not negatively.

It was a mature win. Every player did their role with passion, and perfection. Have you ever seen Ilya Kovalchuk score on a backhand, let alone a backhand while diving for a rebound? Didn’t think so. The players showed up to play, and wanted the game badly. Now all they have to do is do the same thing every night.

I think the night can be summed up best by something Darren Eliot said after the game. The players withstood a 6 on 4 for the final minute, played their best game all season, and beat the best team in the conference in front a loud home crowd. Did the players celebrate? Nope. They did the normal high fives on the ice, but that was it. It was a mature celebration, and it spoke volumes about the fact that they know there is still a long uphill battle back to the playoffs.

If they continue to play like tonight, it will be a fun ride.

Postgame, vs. Boston: Recchi!

This is going to be short, but there are a few things that I think it is necessary to point out.

The Thrashers played about 7 minutes of good hockey tonight (and they were all on either a man advantage or with two extra men), between Mark Recchi’s first goal and Kovalchuk’s. The rest of the game was pretty bad.

Before getting to the negatives, I must say that Mark Recchi was amazing. Having never played a game with this team, he comes in, score two goals, and showed incredible vision on the ice. He almost scored another goal in the third, and ran the offense like a Thrasher veteran.

And now to the negatives. Bobby Holik is horrible (more on this later). The top two lines played decently well, but the bottom two played terribly. It got to the point where anytime I saw Holik, Slater, Dupuis, Thorburn, Boulton, or Larsen on the ice I got scared. And that is just the offensive players. Exelby, Klee, Havelid to an extent, Zhitnik, and McCarthy played way below an acceptable level for an NHL defensemen.

The shot total was laughable. Ready for this? The Thrashers had three shots in the first period. At 10:28 of the second when Recchi scored the first goal, the total had risen to a whopping 5. And when he scored 1:01 later, it was the 6th shot. I like that shooting percentage, but you aren’t going to win many games shooting like that.

Now to Bobby Holik. This guy is a seasoned veteran, someone who has experience, and as our Captain, should be the leader of the team. Tonight, he lost the puck to a guy with no stick, had countless turnovers, did not make one positive play the entire night, and committed the penalty that led to the game winning goal.

Oh, did I mention he was a -4?

And the final thought of the night is who the Bruins first star should have been:

In all fairness, it wasn’t just Holik’s fault. Craig Custance said it best:

But really, Boston’s success was a team effort by the Thrashers.

Postgame, @ Washington: Forgot to Show Up

What is there to say about that game? The Thrashers bodies were in Washington, but their brains and hockey skills were left in Blueland.

This game set up perfectly to be a poor performance. The Thrashers won last night at home in front of a huge crowd and against a rival. The Capitals also played last night, losing a tough one. The Thrashers hadn’t lost in regulation in December, and were going into Washington to play the worst team in the league who had some key players hurt. Definite win right?

To win this game, all the Thrashers needed to do was to come out early and put pressure on the Caps, and put one or two in. They would lose any confidence they had, and the game would be over.

Easier said than done. Caps came out focused and fired up, and took a two goal lead in the first.

Anytime you see 6 goals given up, it can be pretty quick to blame the goalie. Don’t. 5 of the 6 goals were not Kari’s fault:

• 1st GA: Havelid made a horrible turnover that led directly to the goal
• 2nd GA: Ken Klee blocked Kari’s view entirely, and he never saw the shot.
• 3rd GA: Jimmy Slater tackled Kari.
• 4th GA: A weird shot that bounced around many players and hopped over Kari’s shoulder.
• 6th GA: Mike Green scored on a great offensive play on a pass from a corner, directly following a lazy attempt by Garnett Exelby.

The Thrashers made mistakes, and the Capitals, well, capitalized. They scored 2 goals within 1 minute in the first, and 2 goals within 1:09 in the second. Ballgame.

The Thrashers didn’t quite give up just yet though, and scored two goals in the third. That is the difference between this years team and last year’s. Last year, there was the huge brawl in a large win between these two teams. This year? They kept pressuring and scored a few.

Who is to blame tonight? Well, hockey is a team game, but one offensive line and one defensive pairing can take the blame. The line of Eric Boulton, Pascal Dupuis, and Jimmy Slater were a combined -9. The defensive pairing of Ken Klee and Garnett Exelby were -7 together. The only plus rating on the night was Slava Kozlov, who played well in his second straight game.

Where do we go from here? Fortunately the next game is not until Wednesday night. With the addition of Mark Recchi, and the eventual loss of a spot to a current player, there are going to be substantial changes with lines. Waddell has two days of practice to play with possible combinations and try to find what will click.

Postgame, vs. Islanders: Special Teams

The Thrashers reached a .500 record again in a very entertaining, back and forth game against the Islanders. Usually when the Thrashers play outside of the Southeast, the play is much slower, but tonight was not the case.

Tonight’s game had three very interesting aspects: special teams, missed chances, and momentum.

Special Teams

The game covered the full spectrum. The Thrashers were 0 for 9 on the powerplay, and 6 for 7 on the penalty kill, but manage to score two shorthanded goals. Think about that for a second. There were 16 penalties, and there were more shorthanded than powerplay goals. That is something that doesn’t happen every night.

The powerplay was horrible, and the penalty kill was dominant. Exelby talked about this in the intermission interview, and it is really obvious: the team is playing much more aggressive than in the past with the man down. And it’s working.

Missed Chances

Because of the back and forth nature of the game, there were a ton of missed chances. I counted four “how-did-we-not-score-there?!?” plays for the Thrashers:

• Bobby Holik wide open on the side of the net on a third period powerplay
• Jimmy Slater (yes, that Slater) on a beautiful tip that hit the post
• Bryan Little crashing a wide open net but could not put in a bouncing puck
• Darren Haydar shooting at a DiPietro-less net early in the game but was blocked by Andy Sutton.

The missed chances went both ways though. The ‘Duhs hit at least three posts, and missed many great chances late in the game.

Momentum

Tonight was a perfect study on momentum and its effect in a game. The ‘Duhs scored first, but the Thrashers absolutely dominated puck possession for the first period and half, scoring three goals. The team went up 3-1, and then let up a bit. Not much, but just enough to crack open the door. The Thrashers let in ANOTHER($#&#*) last minute goal in the second period, and the momentum had swung to the New York.

They came out and controlled the third, tying up the game. The MO did not return to the Thrashers bench until late, when the penalty killers turned away a two man disadvantage.

This was exactly why you hate last minute goals.

Lastly, a few thoughts on Kari and his play as this was his first game in Blueland in a long, long time. He played well enough to win the game, but not great, giving up way too many rebounds. Those will go away with time. Also, I have noticed him stretching a lot more during stoppages, which is very good to see for his glass groin.

Random facts:

• The Thrashers are 28-2-2 when Kovalchuk and Hossa score in the same game. (Yes, Kovy scored. Again.)
• Tonight was the first time since 2003 that the team scored two shorthanded goals in the same period.

On that note, don’t forget about Eric Perrin, who got the first star tonight. Coming in, he was already leading the league in shorthanded assists with three, and then he set up both of the SH goals tonight.

Next up is the Rangers on Friday. Should be very fun. Oh, and don’t forget the easy links at the top right to get to the different recaps.

Postgame, @ New Jersey: Boredom

For the first time this season, the Atlanta Thrashers failed to win a game that went to overtime or the shootout. The game can be summed up by a quote from Ilya Kovalchuk:

“I hate to play against them,” said Ilya Kovalchuk, who said facing the Devils’ defensive brand of hockey is like facing six goalies. “It’s boring hockey, but it’s all about the win.”

The Devils play a game of hockey that is like the Minnesota Wild in that they focus almost entirely on defense and shutting down the other team, and capitalize on the other team’s mistakes. Last week when the Devils were in Atlanta, they performed their game plan to perfection. The got a lead, and then shut down the neutral zone and the Thrashers offense, preventing any real chances.

Back to tonight. The Thrashers came in to New Jersey coming off of a 4-0 shutout win in Long Island last night. The Devils had won 6 in a row. Midway through the second period, the home team took a 2-1 lead. The shutdown began. There was very little offense, and it looked like the Thrashers would lose to the same team twice in a week in similar manners.

But then Ilya Kovalchuk stepped in and put a rocket past Brodeur. Even though the game ended in a shootout loss, getting a point against a very hot team, in their house, on the second day of a back-to-back, and after losing the lead is quite an accomplishment.

A few notes on the game:

The powerplay continued to play well, going 1 for 2 with the man advantage. The penalty kill was perfect, going 5 for 5.

If you are able to watch the highlights of the game, make sure to check out the Devils’ first goal. A player drove in on the right wing, and took a hard shot. The rebound popped to the middle, and Sergei Brylin drove the rebound past Hedberg. This is exactly what the Thrashers need to do more. How often recently have you seen a shot hit off the opposing goalie, rebound to the middle, but no one was there to put it in? Way too many times.

Tonight’s game showed the transformation of Ilya Kovalchuk in a nutshell. He got frustrated early in the game, got hit a lot, and started headhunting. His immaturity was showing again, and it was taking him out of the game. Something clicked towards the end of the second period, and the new Ilya showed up. He played with maturity, on defense and offense, and ended up tying the game.

Not a bad weekend. Kovalchuk held on to his goal scoring lead, scoring two. The penalty kill went a perfect 9 for 9. Any time a team gets 3 out of 4 points, and especially in two straight games, it is a good road trip.

Next up is against the New York Islanders on Wednesday. There was a fight last night, and the game got physical. Hopefully Wednesday will be similar, with the same result.

Postgame, vs. Toronto: Minor League Hockey

At 16:20 of the second period in tonight’s game, Ilya Kovalchuk scored. At the time the goal went in, it had been an incredible 168 minutes and 32 seconds since the last goal the Thrashers scored, three games earlier against the Capitals.

Finally putting one in the net did not spark a huge rally for the Thrashers, however. Tonight’s game was pathetic. I feel like I could copy and paste a game recap from one of the first six games of the season and it would apply perfectly to tonight.

There are a lot of excuses that could be used: the first goal was insanely unlucky, the second goal hit the post before going in, the Kozlov-Dupuis-Holik line had two or three chances on a wide open net that just missed (see picture to right), and the fact that the Maple Leafs came in as a team playing desperately for a win.

All are true, but should not be given any credence. The Thrashers probably would have lost to many AHL teams tonight. With the exception of maybe 5 total shifts the entire game, there was no hustle, no effort. I would blame this on the four days without a game, but then again it is exactly how they played against the Devils and Pens.

Before I continue ranting, there were a few positives. The hustle play of the day goes to Chris Thorburn, a guy not usually known for speed. Part way through the game, the puck was shot into the offensive zone, and would have been an icing. Thorburn outskated the Toronto defensemen, showing speed that was quite impressive.

Tonight was Darren Haydar’s first game since November 1^st. He logged 16:35 time on ice, scored an assist on Tobias Enstrom’s goal, and even got time on the power play. It seemed that most of the scoring chances for the team had Haydar involved. The guy definitely deserves to be in the lineup for a while.

Eric Boulton again used his fists to try and spark a rally. At first, he got his butt kicked. I felt bad for him. He hung in there, and in a marathon fight, ended it with a draw or maybe even winning the fight. It did spark the team for a minute or two, but then the ‘slumberplay’ started again.

The other three players that played well tonight have played well for a while and don’t need elaboration. Pascal Dupuis, Ilya Kovalchuk, and Tobias Enstrom have consistently been our best players for the last couple of weeks.

Back to the negatives. Tonight was ugly, boring, minor league hockey. There were four times that two Thrashers players collided with other, passes missed, and missed badly, and there appeared to be no organization with the puck. Recently a lot of the guys have taken practices off for various reasons. Waddell and the veteran players need to step up and make practices required for a week or two to get any chemistry back.

Lastly, Kari Lehtonen won again tonight in Chicago (Sterling had a hat trick, but that is off-topic), making 30 saves on 33 shots. The bottom line is that Pavelec played well in his first NHL stint, but is still very young and needs development time. Hedberg also played well in goal during Kari’s injury, but he is not able to carry a starting goaltender load. Make sure the Fin is completely healthy, but get him back to Blueland as soon as possible. We need our goaltender to steal a game or two.

Saturday night’s game is in Long Island against the Islanders. Who should be in net? Will Ondrej get a shot? Or will Waddell put Moose back in net to try and get some rhythm?

Picture: (AP Photo/Gregory Smith)

Postgame, vs. NJ Devils: The Brodeur Show

You can’t win them all. Cliché, but true. A lot of people will look at this game, see the 3-0 score, and overreact. Don’t.

This game came down to three key things: we just could not get a break, we played a very good defensive team, and we were facing arguably the best goaltender in history.

About the “breaks:” the last few games it is seemed that every bounce, rebound, etc. went our way. Passes were crisp, and found the streaking player right on the tape. Tonight was the exact opposite: nothing went our way, and then to not help things, it seemed that everyone’s timing was off.

Once the Devils went up by a goal, and especially up by two, they went into complete lockdown mode so well that it was hard to even enter the zone. They played the “we have the lead, now hold it” game to perfection. Kudos to them.

We got chances on Brodeur, but he played like one of the best of all time. Can’t do much about that.

Don’t blame Moose, he kept us in the game. Don’t blame the defense, they too kept us in the game. And don’t blame the offense, there were plenty of chances.

Bottom line is that there are losses that are unacceptable, and then there are games you lose and don’t really feel that bad about it. This game was the latter.

Best player for the Thrashers by far was Pascal Dupuis. He usually brings a lot of energy to the ice, but tonight he played at a major higher level that normal. He had a ton of great chances and amazing plays, and almost scored on two or three occasions.

I only have one comment about the refs. They missed a ton of calls, even to the point where I was commenting on should-have-been penalties on the Thrashers. Granted, they missed calls both ways. That wasn’t the problem. The problem I had with the game was how the refs reverted to pre-lockout rules and game-play. The hooks and the holds that aren’t allowable after 2005 did not get called tonight. Refs: call it fairly, but also call it by the rules. That’s what they are there for.

Hey look! The sellout streak continued.

In non-game news, Kari will report to Chicago tomorrow for rehab.

Tomorrow night the team is in Pittsburgh. Ondrej Pavelec is in goal, and hopefully the Thrashers will be able to start a new winning streak.

(AP Photo/Tami Chappell)

Postgame, vs. Florida Panthers: Return of the Cardiac Kids

A win is a win. Take two points no matter how ugly they are. The good teams are the teams that find ways to win even on the bad nights.

There are a lot of ways to say it, and they are all true. The Thrashers stole two points last night, and turned a loss into a win. I didn’t take as good of mental notes as a usually do, but here are a few random thoughts from the game:

Marian Hossa and Ilya Kovalchuk. Ilya continues to dominate, scoring the game winner only 25 seconds into overtime. Marian Hossa, after being absolutely stone cold to begin the season with people yelling to trade him, has turned it a full 180 degrees in the other direction and is producing like old. Is anyone else excited to watch Hossa and Kovalchuk on the same line for an entire season?

Thrashers won again in a non-televised game. This, like the sellout streak, is just really quirky.

The team is now 4-0 in overtime games. Between this record and the incredible comebacks recently, words such as “clutch” and “Cardiac Kids” are more than appropriate. A goal with 2.6 seconds left to tie the game? The game winner 25 seconds into overtime to win it? Just another nailbiting, heart attack inducing finish to a Thrashers game.

The change from last year. I don’t know what it is, but there is something special about this team. Remember last year the three or four games when the Thrashers were on the powerplay down by a goal to end the game and couldn’t score? And how we never seemed to get the clutch last minute goal, but usually gave it up? Not true this year. With just over a minute left last night, I felt oddly comfortable. Something deep in my shoes knew this game was going to overtime.

Johan Hedberg. He played very well for just about the entire night to get the win. He hadn’t played in a while, and didn’t show any signs of rust. The second goal allowed was pretty weak, coming off of a long shot from the left wing position. He threw himself down on the ice after it went in because he was so upset. Other than that, great game Moose.

I don’t want to waste time harping on the negatives (cough Zhitnik), but just want to bask in the glory of an ugly but thrilling last-second-tying-kovalchuk-overtime-winning game against a division rival.

(Picture (c) Fred Johnson)

Postgame, vs. Washington: Kari Who?

Recap – AJC

To begin with, I was not able to watch the first period so all of my comments are on the last two periods. From what I have read though, it was fairly lackluster.

Tonight was a very good game (reminder: only commenting on what I saw). Instead of doing good, bad, and ugly, I am going to do the great, good, and bad. There wasn’t a whole lot of bad tonight.

The Great

Ondrej Pavelec. This game was only his fourth ever professional start (AHL and NHL), and he registers 31 saves, including many incredible ones, and kept the team in the game by himself at times. This was the first time all season there has only been one goal allowed, and only the third time there has been less than three. Congrats Ondrej. His play is going to lead to some interesting debates in about a month or so when Kari comes back.

Ilya Kovalchuk. The guy continues to score at will. About 6 minutes into the second, he carried the puck into the offensive zone. There were Capitals players everywhere, and I went ahead and figured the play was going nowhere. In a flash, after a few dazzling moves, the puck was in the back of the net. Three minutes later he got hurt, but that is in the bad section.

The Good

Pascal Dupuis. After Ilya got hurt, the offense seemed to leave with him. For the rest of the second and most of the third there was no direction, and not many chances. A few players (including Bryan Little) and Dupuis seemed to decide to single-handedly create chances and use their speed and creativity to generate opportunities. Dupuis did not register a point, but definitely had a lot of scoring chances.

Todd White. He scored the game winner in overtime, and it was his 100th career goal. Congrats Todd.

Penalty Taking. The Thrashers speed that we heard about for so long seems to be paying off – they are earning a lot of penalties. Tonight, there were 6 penalties called on the Caps, and all 6 were the result of speed: hooking and holding. The power play was a different matter.

The Defense. It is still not stellar, but definitely getting a lot better and a lot more consistent. Anytime you can hold Alexander Ovechkin scoreless it is a good night.

Rookies. Little and Enstrom have been playing well all season, but I had a moment at the start of overtime that gave me a lot of hope for the future. Having two rookies on the four on four in a situation like that is very impressive.

The Bad

Power Play. 0 for 6. Granted, a lot of those were without Ilya Kovalchuk, but it was downright pathetic at times.

Kovalchuk getting hurt. 3 minutes after his goal, Kovalchuk was on the left wing. A pass went to him, and he was slightly out of position. In the split second it took him to move a foot or two, the puck got inside his normal shot swing, and he torqued his body to get the shot off. He immediately started skating over to the corner and then left the game. According the postgame show it is only back spasms, so hopefully he will be back against Florida.

6-3 post-Hartley, out of the basement, and only 3 points out of the playoff race. Not bad, huh?

(AP Photo/John Amis)