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Thursday, April 12, 2007
Lehtonen must focus in goal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It took the franchise 574 regular-season games to get here. Maybe you can’t expect everybody to get it right the first night.
Not the defense, which fumbled too many pucks early. Not the offensive stars, who went pointless.
Certainly not the goalie.
Kari Lehtonen made 34 saves Thursday night. Statistically, that would seem like a good first playoff game. But he gave up one goal that was at least as ugly as his recently dyed-and-bleached-then-buzzed hair.
One bad goal in 38 shots hardly makes for a bad night. But it was one bad goal more than the New Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist allowed, and that was the difference in a 4-3 Thrashers loss.
Maybe Lehtonen can start over today. Clear his mind. Shave his head.
“Kari was just like all of those [playoff] first-timers who I feel like probably was not as comfortable as he would have liked,” Thrashers coach Bob Hartley said, “That’s experience. But you need to go through this at some point in your career.”
Yeah, except this is a seven-game series. The learning curve needs to be really short.
The Thrashers were not sharp early. They trailed 2-0 and spent the rest of the night trying to dog-paddle out of the deep-end. But when a goal by Shane Hnidy cut the Rangers’ lead to 3-2 at 12:19 in the second period, they seemed to be taking the game over. They started controlling the puck better. They had the Rangers backing up. In some cases, they had the Rangers on the ice — as when Garnet Exelby flattened Jaromir Jagr against the boards.
But less than five minutes after Hnidy’s goal, Lehtonen made a critical mistake. He attempted to glove a shot by the Rangers’ Petr Prucha and dropped it right on the door step, creating a gift-wrapped rebound for Michael Nylander, who banged it home for a 4-2 lead. Lehtonen said he was caught off guard by Prucha’s shot, saying it fluttered.
“I’m not happy with that fourth goal. That knuckle-puck, those are hard to handle,” he said. “I need to put my chest behind the puck, and not just try to stop it with my glove. That’s the only one that bugs me.”
If Lehtonen avoids the same mistake in Game 2 on Saturday, it will be his second correction of the week. On Tuesday, he and defenseman Andy Sutton decided to dye their hair blue. (Lehtonen’s actually was bleached on the side with a blue stripe, like a Finnish skunk.)
The intent might have been team spirit and all that. But it wasn’t quite stolen from the Patrick Roy school of playoff preparation. Some Thrashers veterans were less than thrilled.
When the media quizzed Lehtonen about the hair Wednesday, he apparently started to have second thoughts. “It didn’t look the way I thought, and people were talking about it too much,” he said.
So he had his hair buzzed later in the day, leaving mostly bleached stubs with just hints of blue down the middle.
Hartley can only hope his goal is past the hair issues so he can move on to goaltending.The Thrashers missed the playoffs last season primarily because of Lehtonen’s groin issues. They made the playoffs this season primarily because he improved his conditioning, stayed healthy and became tougher physically and mentally, making up for an occasionally porous defense.
Logical conclusion: If the Thrashers win in these playoffs, it will be because of Lehtonen.
But this is not Hartley’s first Zamboni ride. The man doesn’t care about stepping on egos in the regular season and he cares even less in the playoffs. He doesn’t have the luxury of patience and knows there’s an experienced playoff goalie in Johan Hedberg on the bench.
Hedberg was strong this season and, more importantly, led Pittsburgh to the Eastern Conference finals in 2001. He started 18 playoff games after playing only nine in the regular season following his call-up from the minors.
It’s only one game. It’s only one goal. But it’s already the difference in the series.
“Guys like me who never experienced this before, it’s going to be a lot easier in Game 2,” Lehtonen said. “The most important thing is we have to get wins now.”
And stay out of the salon.
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Steeplechase spiced by keen competition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Georgia’s romance with thoroughbred racing has been more a one-day tryst than a romance. Once a year, in a pasture near Rome, bearing the regal name of Kingston Downs, it takes place Saturday. This is the third home of Atlanta Steeplechase, first on a bend in the Chattahoochee River; then on John Wayt’s farm on Bethel Church Road, and now, finally settled in this rolling spread in a bend of the Etowah River. Home at last.
This has been going on since 1966, cheerily advertising itself as a “lawn party.” And, in truth, it is. Such fun. Terrier races, pig races, outlandish hat contest, rock climbing, petting zoo, all the stuff you’d expect at the county fair. And the racing of some of America’s finest hurdling thoroughbreds.
Now to the nuts and bolts of it all. What doesn’t come clear to most Georgians is that this is not just a one-day gambol in the grass. This is one in a series of national steeplechase races that began in Little Everglades, in Florida, a month ago, then continued through Camden and Aiken in South Carolina, cozy havens for thoroughbred runners since the time Yankees first came south for the waters and the pine fragrance. The races are capital events in the economic status of these resorts, and to give you just one glimpse of that, race day in Camden seven years ago drew 71,000 spectators.
Steeplechase has been the foundation of horse racing as we know it today. It began in Ireland, when one horse owner challenged another to race his steed from one church steeple to another over all the hedgerows and such obstacles in between. Horses aren’t bred for steeplechase. Usually, they happen. Most of them are too slow and too bulky for flat racing, and there are horses that like to jump over things, like kids. On the other hand, some of them have been successful on the flat track, then switched to the jumps as they aged.
One coming out this year named Alumni Hall earned over $750,000 in flat racing, and some have been stakes winners. One of them will be running in the Georgia Cup, the $75,000 feature Saturday at Kingston. His name is Riddle, a 6-year-old gelding — nearly all are geldings — and Jody Petty, who jockeyed McDynamo to the Eclipse Award last year will be in the saddle.
The winner of the Georgia Cup last year will not be back to defend. Quem se Atreve, a Brazilian import, running in the colors of Sarah Lyn Stable, has developed into a major contender, and was leading into the stretch at Aiken last month when he fell and is on the mend. The 7-year-old was a late developer, and surprisingly so. Hence a field of five will go to the post Saturday, Seafaring Man, Bow Strada, Mark the Shark, The Looper and the aforementioned Riddle. There’s little to go on this early in the season, but the two favorites are likely to be Riddle and Mark the Shark, who won two allowances and finished third in a graded stake last year.
Now, that I know passes over the all-time champion trainer of jumpers, and at the Atlanta meet, Jonathan Sheppard, and it is never safe to go against Sheppard here. He’ll have a horse in all six of the races, and in the Georgia Cup he sends out Seafaring Man, 8-year-old gelding with Danielle Hodsdon, leading rider of the spring, in the irons. He’ll be kindly weighted, carrying only 142 pounds, including Ms. Hodsdon, but so will all the others except Bow Strada, a British import carrying 150 pounds.
Sheppard has trained the winners of more than $11 million on the steeplechase circuit, winner of five features in Atlanta. (He has saddled 172 jumpers here.) And has been successful in flat racing as well. But it is the steeplechase that has been his breadwinner. “If it weren’t for the Atlanta Steeplechase,” he once said, “I’d have to get a job.”
He did once have a “job.” He was an accountant back in England, tied to a desk and hating it. “So one day I just got up and walked out and got into horse racing,” he said. A delightfully affable gentleman who will be receiving a special honor before the races, as will Dr. John Griggs, a longtime successful breeder and racer from Kentucky. Let the party begin and the races be run.
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