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No slow start for Kovalchuk

5:09 pm October 12, 2009, by Chris Vivlamore

I made another rookie mistake this morning at practice folks. No battery life on the laptop so I couldn’t blog from the rink.

I might have caused a stir as defenseman Christoph Schubert was not at practice. Turns out he was back in Ottawa bringing back some of his belongings for the Atlanta accommodations.

I wanted to take a closer look at Ilya Kovalchuk’s five goals. I wondered – outloud to several people – if his fast start had anything to do with his off-season comments about wanting to see improvement in the team. I figured if he was going to talk the talk, perhaps this was his way to walk the walk – five goals in three games. It turns out Kovalchuk didn’t score his fifth goal until Game 12 last season.

All involved assured me that was not an accurate assumption. Kovy said his job is to score goals. Period. Coach John Anderson did say he spoke to Kovalchuk about his slow start last season at the end of the year. Anderson said “if he can score 80 goals that would be great!”

A few other tidbits from the well-attended practice (Columbus Day – and Thanksgiving in Canada, you know):

No injuries, except Colby Armstrong is sporting a black eye. Got hit by a stick or a puck in Ottawa.

Johan Hedberg will start on the game next two games – back-to-backs in New Jersey and Buffalo on Friday and Saturday.

Still no timetable for Kari Lehtonen’s return. He is “day-to-day,” according to Anderson. He offered no timetable for his return.

Manny Legace signed the long-rumored professional tryout contract with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves. They will carry three goalies. It won’t affect Drew MacIntyre and Peter Mannino. Also Chris Chelios practiced with the Wolves Tuesday, according to the Chicago Tribune. His tryout contract is a verbal committment, hasn’t been signed yet.

No on-ice practice Tuesday. I’m dropping by to interview a yet-to-be-determined player for a feature story.

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13 comments Add your comment

Dwayne

October 12th, 2009
5:13 pm

first

JLH

October 12th, 2009
5:48 pm

Chris – I would be interested to hear Anderson’s comments about the Ottawa game. Any chance of that?

Nes: No News And Don’t Expect Any Soon « KARILA, The Epic of Kari Lehtonen

October 12th, 2009
6:49 pm

[...] source BenThrashers: If we to do another “Ask A Thrasher” feature on atlantathrashers.com who would you want us to feature? amdunn11: Kari Lehtonen! It won’t be an injured player. BenThrashers: It won’t be an injured player. [...]

Smoothie

October 12th, 2009
6:59 pm

Uhh, what happened at practice? Anything interesting, shuffling of lines?

We would certainly like to hear JA’s thoughts on the OTT game and whether there were as many good things as bad to draw on in practice this week.

IllegalCurve.com » Blog Archive » Nightly Hockey Hits: Some thoughts from Dany Heatley’s father, Avalanche are rolling, situation adjusted save percentage, long road back or end of journey as Chelios joins AHL’s Wolves.

October 12th, 2009
7:11 pm

[...] Thrashers:  No slow start for Kovalchuk.  As he goes, so do the Thrashers. [...]

Darkhorse

October 12th, 2009
8:20 pm

Chris-The Falcons made some nice adjustments in their bye week before embarassing the 49er’s yesterday. They were clear to see when watching the team that looked flat against the Pats two weeks ago vs the one that put up 45pts against a very good team.

I want to know what specific adjustments is Anderson going to make while he has all this practice time between games? There is a lot of time right now to work out the kinks until Friday, when 5 games in seven nights happens. If this is a playoff team, I expect to see visible improvements all around starting Friday.

Nice Boulton story the other day by the way…..

Brendan

October 12th, 2009
8:52 pm

I echo Darkhorse’s post above. I liked that Boulton story. He is one of the longer tenured Thrashers. He’s not Pat Quinn’s favorite player, however. Pat Quinn’s comment was, “Nobody wants to see him play.”

Kovalchuk … well … no one can accuse him of doggin’ it this season. He’s playing like a Captain possessed. And it is good to see. And not a surprise. Ilya Kovalchuk is not Marian Hossa.

KLS1

October 12th, 2009
10:40 pm

Its hard to see the patterns and tendencies with this years team because of the goofy schedule. I don’t think we’ll know if the Thrash are pretenders or contenders until Thanksgiving. Wonder if its wearing on the players, all revved up and no place to go?

Tom

October 12th, 2009
11:18 pm

JHL – The Senator’s game does not exist according to the AJC. CV has ignored it. The weekend editors have ignored it.

I would love to work at a paper when I did not have to work weekends when my team was out of town.

(can you tell I am still pissed that the paper could not even post the AP story? Talk about not giving a …)

ChippersLoveChild

October 13th, 2009
9:25 am

No story, no TV, little mention on 680 besides Kamal actually calling it. Sigh… Cut Chris some slack though Tom, he has given us more blog updates and feature stories than we have had in the past. You can tell the dude is trying.

kracker

October 13th, 2009
10:26 am

Someone said we have 5 games in 7 days coming up. My schedule says it’s a routine 5 games in 9 days. Big difference.

However, with the Olympic break this season, there will probably be an extra game every 2 or 3 weeks. After playing a rather light schedule in October, the Thrash will have 3 days off only 3 times the rest of the season: Twice in November (9-11, 16-18) and February 7-9. Counting the Olympic break, the Thrash are off from February 14 to Mar 1.

FormerIslesFan

October 13th, 2009
10:59 am

Viv,

Great seeing you at practice yesterday. Here is the link to the youtube clip of the 4 year old doing the Herb Brooks “Miracle” speech I mentioned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CdJTfGiRCI

And, if you have not yet heard, the Nashville Predators invited “Rizzo” in to do the speech to the Pred’s mascots for an in-arena TV timeout. That video is linked at: http://predators.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=739&id=48328

Keep up the good work (and remember to charge your battery before practice next time).

Smoothie

October 13th, 2009
12:50 pm

I stand corrected but 5 games in 8 days (I mistakenly typed 7 days) days is hardly routine by NHL standards. The avg is usually around three games in a week. Nothing like playing against “live bullets” to make a team better. Practices and drills only take you so far

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