Archive for November, 2009

The Thrashers prepare for a good old-fashioned cat fight tonight as the Florida Panthers make their first of three scheduled appearances in Philips Arena. Florida comes in with a record of 10-11-4 for 24 points and fresh off Saturday’s 4-1 loss in Nashville. Atlanta is 13-7-3 with 29 points and will hopefully be riding a rush from Saturday’s thrilling 1-0 victory of the Flyers. We trail division-leading Washington by seven points with three games in hand. 

Atlanta also claims the seventh overall spot in the Eastern Conference…one point behind Ottawa and Buffalo. The Senators have played one more game than the Thrashers and Sabres.

And speaking of cat fights…we here at the AJC Thrashers Cyber-Office had to break up a…well…er, ah…a very heated discussion between Trixie and Vivlamore’s cyber-secretary Scarlett just this morning. I mean, not even a couple hours into the workweek following a long Thanksgiving weekend and already those two were into it!

Seems the subject of their …

Continue reading Does the Thrashers shot gap deficit really matter? »

On November 18, 2005, Johan Hedberg was sitting on the Dallas Stars bench as his counterpart Marty Turco was in the process of helping their team beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-3. Half a continent away, the Atlanta Thrashers were in the midst of a stunning come-from-behind win against the Philadelphia Flyers in which they scored twice in the final 1:50 to tie the score at 5-5…Peter Bondra and Patrik Stefan doing the honors. Greg DeVries then won the game in overtime for Atlanta.

Four years and ten days later, Hedberg helped the Thrashers end their 14-game losing streak to the Flyers by hanging a big, fat hairy ZERO on the scoreboard…Atlanta winning 1-0. A goose egg, as it were…or in this case, a “Moose egg”.

Yes folks…you see that correctly. The Thrashers have indeed beaten the Philadelphia Flyers! The mountain has been climbed! The orange and black dragon has been slain! Ding-dong…the witch is dead!

Moose drew a crowd all night long but he stopped all 34 shots he faced to …

Continue reading Riding Moose, Thrashers finally slay the orange and black dragon »

The Thrashers were up to their old tricks Friday night…playing themselves into deficits of 2-0 and 4-1 before mounting a ferocious comeback. Only this time, they weren’t doing so in the friendly confines of Philips Arena…they were in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Ya know, as I have opined before…I love Carolina Hurricane fans. I guess the Thrashers just feel at home with them as well.

After playing arguably their best game of the season… laying a goose egg on the Red Wings in Detroit… Atlanta was in the process of simply laying egg in the ice of RBC Center…trailing by three with less than 14 minutes left to play. They were being out-scored, out-shot, out-hustles, out-hit, out-chanced…just plain out-ed all night long.

Untillllllllllllllll…

The Thrashers started playing just a Little bit better…as in Bryan Little.

Ilya Kovalchuk beats Manny Legace to make the score 4-2 Canes (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

With just over six minutes left in the game, Little fought his way to win the puck off …

Continue reading Thrashers get by with a Little help from their friends »

When Ondrej Pavelec’s guests sit down to the Thanksgiving table, they’ll notice two obvious omissions from each side of the turkey that sits atop of the table. That’s because Wednesday night, he and his Thrashers teammates had already devoured the Wings!

Atlanta traveled to Motown on Thanksgiving Eve and shutout the Big Red Borg 2-0, Pavelec stopping all 40 shots he faced from Detroit, 19 in the first period alone. It was the second shutout of his career…coming just 12 days after his first, a 7-0 blanking of the Kings in which he stopped 38 shots.

The win moves Pavelec’s record to 7-5-3 and he now has a 2.76 GAA and a .923 SV%. Now…at the beginning of the season, how many of us thought Opie would be sporting those kinda of numbers at this point in time?

Uh-huh…me neither.

Christoph Schubert congratulates Ondrej Pavelec after shutting out the Red Wings (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Pavelec was “feelin’ it” all night…and it looked like he was having a good time out there. “It’s …

Continue reading Pavelec, Thrashers gobble up Wings »

As we close in on Thanksgiving, our thoughts naturally turn to the blessings that we are thankful for in our lives. For so many of us, these include family, friends, our health… as well the health of those who are close to us… and for so many of us, we give thanks for the jobs we currently have.

Rich Peverley can certainly be counted as one who can be thankful for his current employment and the position he finds himself in…and last Saturday he shared with us how he is indeed grateful for the opportunity afforded him by the Thrashers last January.

Certainly he, nor anyone else, could not have predicted what was about to transpire as he prepared to leave the Nashville Predators for their AHL affiliate in Milwaukee during the middle of last season…a destination he never had to make. Instead, he was plucked off of the waiver wire and headed for Georgia. A few short days later, he was starting his first game as a Thrasher. On top of that, he was to center the first line that Ilya …

Continue reading Peverley thankful for opportunity Thrashers gave him »

David Perron…St. Louis Blues…with a power play goal.

No, that’s not a final solution to a Clue game. What it is, however, is the answer to the question, “who was the last player to score a goal on the Thrashers at Philips Arena during the third period”?

In fact, that goal is the only one scored against the Thrashers at home in the third period during the Month of November so far… and only twice in October was a visiting team able to beat a Thrashers goalie between minutes 40 and 60. In all, Atlanta has outscored their opponents 20-3 at home during period number three this season.

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Under normal circumstances, that type of prowess during the third period…when the game is …

Continue reading Thrashers still seeking a clue how to get Niitty-Monkey off their backs »

As they have so many times already this season, the Thrashers found themselves in a two-goal hole at home before mounting a comeback charge. This was the case in a pair of losses to Washington as well as in their home defeats to San Jose and Columbus. A couple of Sunday’s ago they were able to finally climb all the way out to beat the St. Louis Blues 3-2 in a shootout after netting a pair of third period goals.

Thursday night the same script was followed as Boston took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission thanks to a pair of close-in redirection goals that got by Ondrej Pavelec. Then and only then, just as the script is written, the Thrashers began their attempt to hunt down the Bruins.

Just before the halfway point in the second period, the Thrashers cut the deficit in half. At first, it looked like Nik Antropov had earned his seventeenth assist of the year…a secondary helper on Toby Enstrom’s blast from the left point. However, upon further review, it was determined that …

Continue reading Bruins survive Russian Front assault – Beat Thrashers in shootout »

Given that the Thrashers are 10-6-1 and currently riding a four-game win streak, there have been quite a few pleasant surprises seen so far. As such, I’ve compiled a list of what I feel are the eleven most pleasant surprises to date in this still-young Thrashers season and have bundled them up to present to you now for two reasons.

1. I would like for you to vote on which one you feel is the #1 most pleasant surprise 17 games into the season, and…

2. To give people like Jack Bryan IV at Inronstone Bank something to read and think about while killing off another four days between games.

So, why “eleven” and not the customary “ten” that normally accompanies such a list? Well, as I was putting this piece together I found myself struggling to limit the list to just ten…which is odd seeing that in years past, come mid-November, I would have been hard-pressed to come up with just a half dozen or so. I guess in a way that alone is a pleasant surprise.

Anyway…so this one goes to …

Continue reading Eleven most pleasant surprises so far this Thrashers season »

Sunday afternoon, Slava Kozlov packed his bags, bade farewell to Jim Slater, Marty Reasoner and Nik Antropov…then exited Schnide Island. Slava took a pass from Todd White and beat Nikolai Khabibulin at the 11:59 mark of the third period to score what turned out to be the game-winner as the Thrashers bested the visiting Edmonton Oilers 3-2…extending their win streak to a season-high four straight.

Slava Kozlov is welcomed off the island by Ilya Kovalchuk and Maxim Afinogenov (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Later, Reasoner almost left Slates and Antropov alone to battle it out for “Last Off Schnide Island” honors, but his blast rang off the post with just under two minutes remaining in the game.

Kozlov finished the day with that goal as well as a secondary assist on Zach Bogosian’s tally that opened the scoring early in the first period. He now has seven helpers on the season and his +1 for the game brings him to a -3 for the season.

Kaptain Kovy got the primary assist on Zach’s power …

Continue reading Kozlov gets off Schnide Island as Thrashers drill Oilers »

Friday the 13th in Thrasherville. But tonight, in this horror movie, the killer behind the goalie mask wasn’t named Jason… it was Opie. And his victim on this evening was the Los Angeles Kings.

Ondrej Pavalec makes on of his 38 saves (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Stopping all 38 shots L.A. took on him, Opie dropped his first goose egg ever as an NHL starter as the Thrashers whacked the Kings 7-0 in front of a raucous gathering in Philips Arena. The hockey team from Los Angeles may have been the ones with crowns on their jerseys, but on this night it was Ondrej Pavelec who truly was king.

In front of Pavs, Atlanta’s skaters where having their way with the visitors as what was a 0-0 game halfway through the second period quickly turned into a laugher. Evander Kane finally broke the scoreless deadlock at the 10:22 mark of that middle frame when his wrap-around got through Kings’ starting goalie Jonathan Quick.

Ya know…that Evander kid…I think he’s gonna do OK in this league, don’t cha …

Continue reading Pavelec, Thrashers turn Friday the 13th into a nightmare for Kings »