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Friday, April 14, 2006
Thrashers follow charming script
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Such a charming little story: A team that has never made the playoffs can, with a little help, make the playoffs on the final night of its sixth season. A franchise looking to plant its flag atop the Atlanta skyline is positioned for one of those breathless finishes that, almost 15 years ago, enabled another Atlanta team to captivate a city.
With three games to go, the Thrashers are knocking on the door. Can the hockey gods fail to grant entrance?
“If we get in, I don’t know that you could ever write a better script,” said Don Waddell, the general manager since inception. “A franchise that has gone through the death of a player [Dan Snyder] and an ownership transfer and five goalies [this season], and we’ve still got a chance.”
They do. They have to win their last three games. (The first comes today against Boston at Philips Arena; the final two are on the road Monday and Tuesday.) If the Thrashers claim the maximum six points, they’ll make the playoffs if Tampa Bay — the reigning Stanley Cup holder — loses once in regulation. A week ago, you wouldn’t have thought the Lightening was in danger, but it has lost its last three games.
“I’d put our chances at 50 percent,” said Waddell, speaking Friday afternoon. “If Tampa Bay loses tonight, our chances go up by 10 or 15 percent.” And the Lightning lost in a shootout.
Because the struggle for the East’s last playoff spot hasn’t been just an A or B thing — New Jersey and Montreal were also in the mix until buying themselves clearance — everyone associated with the Thrashers has monitored multiple results these last six weeks.
It got so agonizing that Waddell had to bring himself to stop formulating scenarios. He has since resumed the procedure, and he was watching Sunday when Tampa Bay lost to Florida, a game that changed the face of the chase.
“That gave us a lift,” he said. “I’m not saying the result Tuesday [the Thrashers beat the Lightning 6-2] would have been different, but if Tampa Bay would have won Sunday, they could have clinched against us. That would have made it tougher.”
As happens in every frenzied stretch run in every sport, the Thrashers have had their share of palpitations. Ilya Kovalchuk scored his 50th goal with 4.3 seconds remaining to force overtime in Tampa last week and gain his team a precious point. On March 23, the Thrashers surged from 4-1 down to beat New Jersey in overtime. Of their nine wins last month, three came in OT, three more in shootouts. Yeah, they’ve lived on the edge.
And that’s the point: They live still. An operation that hasn’t grown beyond its niche in a trendy marketplace suddenly has a shot at getting really big really fast. “This [late run] is not only big for the franchise, it’s big for the year,” said Waddell, and here’s what he means: Should the Thrashers make the playoffs, they’ll arrive not as an awed No. 8 seed but as a certifiably Hot Team. Such is the nature of the NHL playoffs that being hot matters way more than being favored: The seventh-seeded Mighty Ducks weren’t eliminated until Game 7 of the 2003 Cup finals.
“If we get in,” Waddell said, “we’d go in on a six-game winning streak, thinking we can beat anybody we play.”
Sure, much has to happen first. But which is the better story: Tampa Bay creeping in to defend its title or the upstart Thrashers storming the gates? Which was the better story back in 1991 — the imperial Dodgers winning the NL West yet again or the Braves going worst-to-first?
“We’re playing our last home game of the year, and we’re still alive,” Waddell said. “Did I think we’d be in the position [when the season began]? No, I thought we’d be in the playoffs by now. But this is where we are, and I think we’ve got a good chance of winning our three games.”
Beyond that, it’s in the lap of the hockey gods. The Thrashers are praying those deities don’t have hearts of ice.
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