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Friday, September 7, 2007
Live game blog: Thrashers vs. Red Wings
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
TRAVERSE CITY — They’re about to drop the puck here in TC, and there’s actually a standing room only crowd for tonight’s game between the Thrashers and Red Wings. The games are played in a great setup here about ten minutes from the Bay in an arena called Center I.C.E.
For those keeping track, this is also the home of the Traverse City North Stars, of which league they’re affiliated with, I’m not sure. Here are your Thrashers lines:
Holzapfel - Little - Pospisil
Painchaud - Hamilton - Machacek
Dubuc - Fox - Alphonso
Anderson - Duchesndeau - Stoesz
Denny - Kelly
Kulda - Lewis
Lehman - Enstrom
Ondrej Pavelec is starting in goal.
EDIT: 8:08 P.M. — After one period of play, the Red Wings are leading the Thrashers 1-0 on a fluky goal that was eerily reminiscent of Sean Avery’s goal on Johan Hedberg in Game 2 of the first round of the playoffs. I don’t have to remind you what happened on that goal, but on this one, one of the Red Wings sent a puck around the boards and Pavelec went behind the goal to play it. Once again it took a funny hop off the boards and this time barely crossed the line. If you take away that goal it was a evenly played first period. Pavelec looked solid in goal, making a great kick save on a Red Wings short-handed rush early on. The Wings took advantage of a Grant Lewis turnover at the blueline for that rush during a pretty ugly Thrashers power play.
As far as scoring chances go, it was pretty quiet for the Thrashers in the first period. Bryan Little snapped a wrister that sailed just wide, and it took a nice save from Detroit’s Vicari to prevent a Painchaud goal midway through the period. Stoesz was the most physical player on the ice. His gloves went flying at the 14:10 mark and nearly got in another fight in the waning seconds for the period. More to come during the next intermission…
EDIT 8:56 p.m. — Red Wings 2, Thrashers 1 — This afternoon Don Waddell talked about Riley Holzapfel’s hockey sense and his feel for the game. He showed a little bit of Waddell was talking about, setting up the Thrashers only goal of the game so far. Somehow he spotted Spencer Machacek camping out just to the right of Vicari and snapped a pass across the ice right on his tape for an easy goal. Later in the period the Red Wings answered to retake the lead on what looked like a soft goal on Pavelec. I’m on the other side of the ice and don’t know if he was screened on the slapshot, but regardless, he didn’t make the save. It’s been pretty even - Bryan Little picked up his play in that period, showing his playmaking skills. Right now, the Thrashers are outshooting the Wings 18-17.
At the 9:10 mark there was a fight, and not surprisingly it was Stoesz dropping the gloves against Detroit’s David Jarram. Both got their licks in pretty good, Stoesz landing a bunch of rights, then he finally wrestled Jarram to the ice. More to come after the game…
EDIT 10:15 p.m. — Thrashers 3, Red Wings 2 (final) — A great finish for the Thrashers who got two third-period goals from Bryan Little to start the tournament off with a win. They had to kill a 6-on-3 for the final 1:12 to hold on to the win. The Thrashers picked up the pace offensively in the final period with Little, Holzapfel and Chad Painchaud all getting quality looks.
“We were down a goal, our motivation was to come back and win it,” said Little who said nerves played a big part in the choppy play in the first period.
In the wild final minute, as six Red Wings tried to tie it up, Pavelec made two nice saves to preserve the lead.
“Pavelec was awesome,” Little said. “Those last 30 seconds felt like five minutes. We were just srambling around.”
The Thrashers are back at it on Saturday afternoon with a 3:30 p.m. game against the Rangers. I’ll be back online then with updates.
