AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2005 > December > 19
Monday, December 19, 2005
Reasons to smile
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Throughout this hockey season — we’re only about two weeks away from the halfway point — much of the talk has been about how down everyone is about the Thrashers, how hard it will be to come back and make the playoffs.
The question now is, how much confidence do you have that they’re on the right track — one that will take them to the playoffs?
Certainly, the team’s 4-0-1 mark in its last five games is encouraging. In the last two, they’ve played about as well as they can defensively, which is truly the key to this team. Again, in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Florida, they received only two penalties. When they do that, wins are almost automatic.
In addition, Kari Lehtonen is going through his first full practice with the team. How optimistic are you about Lehtonen and his return?
I haven’t seen him this positive — his body language; he’s smiling a lot again — probably since the first few days of camp. I think he genuinely believes they’ve found the problem with his ailing groin and that it will be fixed correctly so he won’t have to worry about a recurrence of injury.
He talked about how an athlete has to trust his body. He seems to have regained that trust, which had obviously abandoned him over the last two and a half months.
