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Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Lineup changes - and Dupuis in movies?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just wrapped up interviews after today’s optional practice at the IceForum in Duluth. Naturally there is a lot of talk about Vancouver’s Jeff Cowan, who now has consecutive two-goal games. The former Thrasher, who was picked up off waivers by the Canucks in December, helped out his old teammates in a big way last night. Tampa is finding out what the Thrashers already knew — that western Canada swing is miserable. They do have the advantage of playing a Ryan Smyth-less Edmonton team tonight. When the Thrashers played in Edmonton, the Oilers were still fighting for a playoff berth, although the way the Thrashers were playing then, it might not have mattered.
We’ll probably be seeing some lineup changes for Thursday’s game against the Canadiens. Nothing is finalized, but Bob Hartley said a couple guys are a little beat up right now. From what I could tell, the following players exercised their option to skip the morning practice: Garnet Exelby, Greg de Vries, Keith Tkachuk, Pascal Dupuis and Brad Larsen.
I saw all but de Vries hanging around the dressing room after — including Dupuis who was hauling away some equipment in his giant Minnesota Wild bag — which he said he’s finally taking home. ‘I’m cutting the cord’ he said laughing. Also found out that Dupuis had a part in the movie “The Rocket” the story about Maurice Richard. He played Milt Schmidt. Roy Dupuis played Maurice Richard. How’s that for some useless info for you?
Now for some useful information, Kari Lehtonen will get the start on Thursday, as he continues to play well. I thought maybe we’d see Johan Hedberg sometime on this homestand before heading to Florida, but I guess not. Then again, Kari’s parents didn’t fly all the way from Finland to watch Moose.
Watching minutes: Some interesting trends as far as ice time goes — On the high end, Alexei Zhitnik logged 27:17, the most of anybody on the team. Andy Sutton, who on the night the Thrashers traded for Zhitnik was on the ice for 22:14, saw that number drop to 7:18. Also thought it was interesting to see Pascal Dupuis play 1:29 on the power play after not playing a second of PP on Sunday. Then again, when the opposition has 10 penalties, I guess everybody gets to pitch in. Dupuis assisted on Tkachuk’s power play goal.
