AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > March > 04
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Back in first
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nice win for the Thrashers this afternoon, who continue to look much more confident since picking up Tkachuk and Zhitnik. I know this game wasn’t on TV, so I wanted to point out a couple observations in a special post-game edition of the beat blog.
The power play, which struggled to get things set up early, has the potential to be really good with Tkachuk wreaking havoc down low and Kovalchuk waiting nearby. The days of the passing until Kovalchuk gets a slapper from the point are gone. Maybe we’ll see less broken sticks now.
Kari Lehtonen was sharp. His rebound control, which had gotten so bad that one Ottawa writer said he looked like a pinball machine a few weeks ago, was outstanding - or in the words of Hartley: flawless.
Hossa crashed into the boards late, a result of an all-out backchecking effort. He was down for a minute, and left the game. He said that his hand hit the boards in a bad angle, but it was only a bruise. He returned, and nearly scored his third goal, so he’s probably fine. But we’ll be monitoring the hand closely.
A better effort from the penalty kill — Dupuis, as advertised adds speed there, but it’s Belanger who has made the biggest impact on the PK.
And Bobby Holik registered his 700th career point on a nice pass to Hossa who scored his second goal of the game. Naturally, Holik said after the game that he had no idea he was close to 700 career points until just recently. “600? 700? It doesn’t matter,” he said. All he cares about is winning, and right now the Thrashers are.
