AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April > 05
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Kovalchuk’s response and goalie plans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I hate to be short for the second day in a row, but I’ve got a ton to do today, so I’ll get right to the point. Spoke with Ilya Kovalchuk about the benching, and he basically said that it was the coach’s decision and the coach is in charge. He also said he didn’t agree with the decision or that it would lead to him playing any harder because he said he’s already playing hard all the time. Tkachuk said everybody has gone through it, it’s how you respond that defines you as a player. So we’ll be watching Kovalchuk close on Friday against Carolina. I’ll have more on the Kovalchuk situation in a story for Friday.
EDITED (6:28 p.m.): I just finished the story for Friday and was listening to my interview with Ilya on tape. I did find it interesting that this was his initial response to my questions about Hartley benching him:
“That’s his decision. What am I going to do? He’s the coach this year.”
Um, this year? There’s lots of ways to interpret that quote, and for now I’ll go with face value. Whether Kovalchuk was insinuating that Hartley might not be the coach next year is questionable. He could have just been stating a fact. Either way, it caught my attention upon playback. Alright, back to the blog.
With two games left, Johan Hedberg and Kari Lehtonen will each get a start. Hedberg, as we suspected here on the Beat Blog, will start against Carolina on Friday and Lehtonen will start against Tampa Bay in what is starting to look like the game that will decide the division. Jon Sim will return to the lineup for the Carolina game although Hartley said he wasn’t sure who he’d replace in the lineup. That’s quite the quick return for Sim, who will wear a cage to protect his repaired orbital bone. If I had to guess, Eric Boulton might be the odd man out. Eric Belanger didn’t practice and he took a spill in last night’s game that look like it shook him up pretty good. He’s got groin issues, so I’m wondering if he’s still managing that situation. Hartley said Belanger was just resting and he’ll be in for Carolina.
Steve McCarthy is still bothered by a bad back and didn’t practice. I doubt we’ll see him the rest of the regular season. I believe that should catch everybody up to speed. I expect a good performance from the team against Carolina. You can’t say you were THAT surprised last night against Washington - this is a team all year that tends to make things harder than they have to be - why would clinching the division by any different?
