Thrashers: Iceman

Would starting weeknight Thrashers games 30 minutes later really make a difference?

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:06:27 +0000

Would starting games at 7:30 rather than 7:00 mean more Thrashers fans at the games?

Thrashers Loss To CBJs Is Like Déjà vu All Over Again

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:54:49 +0000

Thrashers loss to Columbus painfully similar to their three previous home games.

Which Thrasher will be last off of Schnide Island?

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:30:43 +0000

Each year ‘round about this time we show up here and find a handful of skaters who are still residing Schnide Island…that tiny spec of land that sits smack-dab in the middle of the vast expanse of the Ocean of Zilch. A place no player wants to inhabit and longs to escape if they find themselves on it.

Rookie Evander Kane obvioulsy had heard of the place and wanted nothing of it, scoring his first NHL goal in St. Louis during his second ever game.

Nik Antropov has been helping others get off of Schide Island as he has 12 assists (AP Photo/Gregory Smith)

To have their tickets punched to leave The Schnide, all they need do is deposit the biscuit into the basket and remove the big goose egg from the goals column of their stat sheet. One by one they’ll do so, depart and the population dwindles down until there is but one remaining on the Isle of Schnide.

After last Tuesday, when Bryan Little joined Pavel Kubina on the boat ferrying them away from the island, we are now down …

With Kovalchuk out, Thrashers leave it to Peever for goals

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:17:11 +0000

Ya know…it’s too bad that this season is an Olympic year, causing the NHL to skip having an All-Star Game as to allow players to participate in the festivities in Vancouver. Because if this were not the case, I would right now…today…be opining, calling for…demanding… that fans in Thrasherville prepare to go forth and stuff the All-Star ballot box with votes for Rich Peverley.

Stuff the box like a Thanksgiving turkey for Peverley…fill the box with ballots faster than they can print ‘em.

Unfortunately…not this year.

Regardless…the Peever continued his stellar work last night in Montreal, scoring his seventh goal of the season and added two assists. For the season he has 16 points and is a +4. Since the Thrashers snatched him off the waiver wire last January, he has 20 goals, 31 assists and is a +20 in 50 games played.

All for the low, low price of $487,500…but wait, there’s more.

Rich Peverley has been in on 16 goal celebrations so far this season. Here, he enjoys …

Thrashers ‘The good, the un-good and the ugly’

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:52:00 +0000

The good, the ungood and the ugly of the Atlanta Thrashers ten games in October.

Tricky Pavelec provides treat For Thrasherville

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:19:53 +0000

Last Thursday the Thrashers outshot the Washington Capitals 41-32 and lost.

Last Saturday they outshot San Jose 27-24…and they lost.

Pavelec makes one of his 50 saves in Ottawa Saturday afternoon (AP/The Canadian Press,Fred Chartrand)

Failing to win by the more traditional route of holding the opponents to low shot counts and taking more than they give up…the Thrashers returned to their tried and true method of being grossly outshout to procure a victory.

And it worked, by golly!

They depart Canada’s capital with a much needed 3-1 victory regardless of the fact that the Senators got away 51 shots on Ondrej Pavelec. 25 came in the third period alone…which was four more than the 21 shot Atlanta was able to get off on Ottawa’s Pascal Leclaire for the entire game.

Obviously, the story on this winning Halloween afternoon was Pavelec who all but single handedly stole the two points for his teammates. His positioning was outstanding…his rebound control was excellent…and …

Thrashers again fall short in comeback attempt

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:43:42 +0000

A week ago the Atlanta Thrashers were coming off a very successful road trip in which they went 3-1-1, earning 7 of a possible 10 points. Waiting for them… the Washington Capitals whose 10 points led the division, just one better than the Thrashers’ nine.

One week, three games, 13 goals against and one Ilya Kovalchuk broken foot bone later, Atlanta is still stuck at nine…the Caps now have 18. Oh, and the Thrashers also have the Lightning’s backsides to look at as Tampa Bays win over Ottawa puts them at 11 points.

That, my friends, is the definition of an un-good week.

Mike Knuble squeezes Todd White against the boards (AP/Gregory Smith)

Thursday night eerily resembled the previous two games in that the Thrashers fell behind early…then began to play well in a failed attempt to come from behind. Alex Ovechkin’s pair of goals in the first period put his Caps up 2-0…a lead that became 3-0 at the 4:10 mark of the second.

Two of those goals came on the power …

Thrashers by the numbers

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:00:50 +0000

With the Thrashers yet again in the middle of several days off before their next game, here is a quick look at some of their stats and numbers so far after eight games played.

Kovalchuk out 4 weeks with foot fracture

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:21:30 +0000

The news that we feared would come today has indeed been made known…Ilya Kovalchuk suffered a broken bone in his right foot during Saturday night’s 4-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks and will miss up to 4weeks of action while it heals.

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4 weeks worth of games would equate to as many as 12 games missed.

After dealing with this piece of reality, the question becomes…what does this do to the shape and form of the forward lines?

After Kovy left the game on Saturday, coach John Anderson looked to move Evander Kane up into his position on left wing with Nik Antropov and Maxim Afinogenov. I would suspect that this is the first line he’ll elect to go with Thursday night when the Caps are in town.

But then, who fills Kane’s slot on the third line?

Well, there is couple of options to go with here. First, Marty Reasoner could be placed back on that line moving Rich Peverley …

60 is the magic number for John Anderson

Bill Tiller (Rawhide) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:11:34 +0000

Shortly after John Anderson was hired as the new bench boss of the Thrashers, I had the opportunity to chat with him regarding the team he had just inherited to coach. One of the questions I put to him was what he thought the number one challenge was that he faced in order to get the team from where it was…at the time it was in shambles following the 2007-08 debacle of a season…to being a team that could compete and win in this league.

“I know exactly what it is”, he almost jumped out of his chair responding. “It’s getting them to believe in themselves again”.

Saturday morning I was able to revisit that question with coach Anderson. Given the way the team played in the second half of last season and how it has started off this fall, he does indeed think that the team has a sense of confidence in themselves and the way they go about playing the game.

Given that, I posed the same question to him Saturday morning after the team’s morning skate…at this time what …