Buffalo enjoys brutally good time in Thrasherville

It was simply a coach’s decision not to play Bergfors, pure and simply.

Since Comcast, Dish and DirectTV pay a lot of money to Fox Sports, ESPN, etc. etc. to broadcast the games to which the networks own exclusive rights to broadcast, something must be amiss in terms of the amount Fox Sports wants from the providers.

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EA – Unless Bergfors is becoming a problem because he is unhappy about his contract he needs to be in the line-up IMO. He is one of the more skilled players on the team and from what I have seen this season he hasn’t looked any worse than someone like Little who has had very little production for someone expected to be a top six forward. I think they need to exercise a little more patience than to make someone expected to be a a key player a healthy scratch after just a couple of games. Again, that is unless he has made it clear he is unhappy and doesn’t want to be here. In which case, they need to shop him around and get what they can for him.

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The team had a real work out at practice today. They got their A$$e$ handed to them by the coaches in their team meetings. Jobs were threaten and one was lost…Sorry Dawes…It was real attention getter to some of the players…. Ramsey told them that there is no super stars on this team and no one is untouchable.

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I hate to be the one to say this, but the Thrashers Office REALLY SCREWED UP when they eliminated the Travel Zoo $8 300-level seats promotion this year (along with other POPULAR single game ticket promotions). They don’t seem to “get it” that IT’S THE ECONOMY and regular family-types can no longer drop $150-200/game…..Even if the tix are “On Sale” for “45% Off”. (LOL)

That Arena is going to be EMPTY, except for the Hard-Cores….Especially during the week on school nights. Who can AFFORD to pay $25 or $31 a seat (on sale) + $10-15 parking + $60 concessions to take the family to Philips? I mean, we have the second lowest payroll in the League….So we must be paying for that idiotic Joe Johnson contract! I’m serious…..$150-200 PER GAME and that’s “ON SALE”???

They’ve already lost us for this season. We attended a dozen games last year and sat in the 300s for $8 a seat……But we just won’t be going back to Philips until they bring back that promotion. MAKE IT RIDICULOUSLY AFFORDABLE if you want people to show up. There is no Kovalchuk to sell tickets anymore and overpriced tickets won’t bring people in. It’s as simple as that. Perhaps someone in the ASG will wake up and realize that…..Then again, I’m not holding my breath.

We’re going to high school and GT football games instead of Thrashers and Hawks games this season. Soon it will be high school and GT basketball games…..Etowah football games are FUN and $7 a ticket + $2 parking. For college games, you can pick your seats on StubHub. We paid $13 each for 100 level seats to last weekend’s GT/Middle Tenn St game. It DOES make a difference in sucky economic times like this.

We also got a brand new Sammy 50″ Plasma ($499 @ Fry’s last week) and Fox Sports South on HD. When a complete, embarrassing collapse like last night happens, we aren’t trapped in Philips Arena with nowhere to go. It’s a lot easier to just pick up the remote…..{click}

Really, now…Single game seats On Sale for 45% OFF and they’re still $25-31 each? Are you kidding me? ASG: Stop drinking your own Kool-Aid. The Thrashers/Hawks aren’t the only game in town. Perhaps the highest priced game, but not the ONLY one.

See how that works, ASG?

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Flames – indeed! The pleasure was ours! Nice to finally meet you and your hockey-playing son. Enjoyed the conversation and look forward to sitting with you again in the future. And thanks for the report.

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Whoever asked about why no Thrasher dropped the gloves to motivate the team – I think Eager tried but didn’t have a willing partner. Rightfully so, because the Sabres had 100% control of that game. From their perspective, it was “let sleeping dogs lie.”

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Blue Spark you’re correct about Eager, but he was trying with Stafford.

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I did enjoy McCormick and Kaleta bouncing off of Buff numerous times in the first.

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Good evening all. I needed a full day before I could face any articles or blogs on the disaster that was last night.

That said, DWTOO, I would not call that one of the 10 worst games of the Thrashers. Our expecations have been raised to high if we qualify last night as such. pick any 10 games in any season prior to the lockout and they would qualify. Last season, a game last night would have been delivered to us every 5th game or so.

LAC – I don’t know if it’s just the perspective I had, but I thought the arena was surprisingly full for a Wednesday night in October, as opposed to other years. there was a buzz in the building and it did not seem to be supplied exclusively by Buffalo fans – at least not until the game began for the Sabers and the Thrashers decided to give them a 25 minute head start.

While most of the team was putrid, I thought the Eager, Thorburn Burmistrov line was actually pretty good overall. Nor did I think Hainsey stunk. In fact, compared to Meyers and Buff I thought he was good – not great maybe, but good. May be a bias, but if People were bouncing off of Buff last night it was usually because he was in the right place at the right time completely by accident because he blew another assignment somewhere else on the ice.

I was surprisingly disappointed by Slater – I thought he did not play well at all, not his style, nothing. Did not even look like him on the ice. When Mason was called for the penalty, I didn’t expect Kane to serve it, I was thinking Dawes, Slater, Modin or Meyer could have all done with 2 minutes away from it all.

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again, dud and ram hockey experts, i am not, but this is obvious, thrashers weakest link is offence. first, on this team even bad berg. better almost everyone. why he is out? could be conflict with coach(remember kozzy last year) if so trade him. second, plug the hole with buff and bring kulda back. he is as good as anybody on thrashers defense. arguable better than hansey, duff, meyer and bogosian. why they don’t do it. for me only one answer saving money. this team in the bottom on cap room but asg like the bottom to be not 43 mil but 5 – 10 mil. can you imagine what dud. talking about asg when he relax and got few shots with close friends around.

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“The only good thing that came from going to last nights game for me was, it will be a while before I waste any more money to go to a game….”

Indeed. There is more wisdom in this very statement than all of the tripe issued by clowns such as Smoothie in all his years here…The truth is illuminating, isn’t it?

Welcome to reality, folks. I don’t think the old guy (our coach whose name I’m not bothering to remember as he won’t be here three years from now) or the guy with what looks like a rug-toupee (our GM whose name I’m not bothering to remember, either)…

It’s all about ownership. Everything else is peripheral. Yet you continue to subsidize their incompetence?! Wow.

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It ISSS really easy to get down, after a horrible game. When you pay good money for an evening’s entertainment that doesn’t go as well as planned, you feel dissapointed. Angry, maybe. Discouraged from attending future games. You might start to wonder how many times “you’ll get fooled, again.” But what about the good times? You’ve experienced them, too. Who went to Opening Night? Aside from the Pavelec dramatics, that was a pretty good game. The drive home was a good one, filled with inspiration for the coming season. Washington is a really good team. (Took it on the chin, tonight, 4-1 at the hands of the Bruins, however. Moving right along ….)

It’s never good to lose a game in this manner, like we did vs. Buffalo. It’s WORSE to lose it, at home, where your revenue stream is. Perhaps that’s why the team was probably put through the paces, today. I’m sure the GM feels badly about it. The Team President, I cannot say. If he felt remorse about anything, he would have resigned years ago. The Coach … he won’t support efforts like this often. We’ve already seen Dawes waived. Boris was demoted, clearing waivers, to some people’s surprise. Hopefully, we’ll see Kulda called up, and Byfuglien moved to forward, if things don’t improve soon.

Look, I’ll admit it. I have egg on my face. In the budget contest, I actually had the highest guess … at $51.4 million. I thought, “okay, we’re in the fourth (4th) year removed from the NY Rangers playoff sweep (2007, this is the 2011 season). Conceptually, this ought to be a year where we push seriously towards a playoff berth. Even this Octocluster HAS to be within $8 million of the cap limit. Never would I have imagined they’d be BELOW the floor, which is somehow NOT a violation of the CBA, apparently? The floor is $43.4 million. The Thrashers are somewhere in the $42 million range. It’s mind-boggling just HOW LITTLE … they regard the Thrasher fanbase, to set a budget like this. Let’s face it, folks. This team has PAID for a 29th place finish. Perhaps, 28th. And yet, the Thrashers will finish, in my view, somewhere around 22nd to 24th, well OUTSIDE of the lottery draft. And they’ll dance “The Charleston” for having had such success. And they’ll retain Waddell, renewing him, if they haven’t already. I just can’t understand the intent of it all. Surely, this Octocluster could have at least TRIED to give Ramsay and Dudley a mid-level cap, $8 million shy of the limit. But no, they got “the cold shoulder” treatment. As did the fans, if you really think about it.

But, they’re making due. They’re managing. At .500 through six games, that’s MORE than what they paid for, at this point.

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Bergfors needs to play even if it’s just so other clubs can get a look-see before we pull a trade.
Hainsey and Sopel need to be our 3rd D-pair and Byfuglien hopefully had some video “homework” if he wasn’t at practice….too many times this season I’ve seen him drifting back into our zone like a forward-keeping an eye on the puck, looking to break it out (which yes, I understand that’s something you want to do) rather than making sure his man is checked-witness the 2nd goal by Anaheim last week-Buff had his back to his man as they entered the zone, making it easier for the Ducks’ forward to pull up a little bit and create the needed separation to shoot the puck in.

Not that Buff’s alone on this-spacing in general is probably our biggest area of poor execution. Look at the Sabres game and you see pucks being put to areas just out of a guy’s reach, opposition players got plenty of room entering our D-zone, etc. This tells me that guys are still having trouble applying what Coach is telling them-which is why I’m puzzled Buff was given the day off (unless he’s closing on a place to live or some such). They get this area tightened up and I think you see a marked improvement.

But if they come out flat like Wednesday, well a good team from the W would probably win.
I like the Dawes move, but do hope he clears waivers.

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Who the HECK is Taormina, for the Devils? I’m seeing his name a lot, now, in boxscores. Where’d they find this guy? Red Light, what’s the story on this guy?

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