AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > September > 17
Monday, September 17, 2007
Nice start for Thrashers, Pavelec
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
St. Louis en route to North Bay — Ah, I’m blogging from an airport, it must be hockey season. Everyone was in good spirits last night after a 3-1 win over St. Louis. The team flew out of St. Louis last night, and is already in North Bay. It was a nice win in that the Blues played a lot of regulars, the Thrashers not so much. Paul Kariya scored the first goal of the preseason for the Blues and Keith Tkachuk got the assist. Meanwhile, Marian Hossa was in Atlanta and Ilya Kovalchuk in streetclothes.
But you have to give credit to the guys who did play. Bob Hartley liked the effort. We got a look at what Eric Perrin can do. When I saw him in training camp, I was surprised how small he was. But he definitely doesn’t play small. He’s quick, and his second goal (I believe) came on a great move to shake a Blues defender. I didn’t mention it in the game story, but I thought Pascal Dupuis looked good too. The third member of that line, Brad Larsen is banged up. He has a bad back. Hartley had a great line about it the other day, saying he saw a trainer working on Larsen’s back, cracking it and twisting it and he thought they were Ultimate Fighting. Glad to see Bob in midseason form.
Ondrej Pavelec looked great in goal. He kept the Thrashers in that game after St. Louis took an early 1-0 lead. Then he preserved it with a couple nice saves in the third period. Johan Hedberg said he was really impressed with Pavelec’s confidence in what was only his second game of NHL action. Don Waddell said he’s getting tons of calls from GMs looking to trade for the young goalie because they think he’s NHL-ready now. Last night, didn’t do anything to change that opinion.
Tonight, we’ll get our first look at the White, Kovalchuk and Sterling line. It should be fun. Evidently the arena in North Bay seats like 2,000 people and the whole town tried to get tickets. Should make for a better atmosphere for hockey than we saw last night, where there was an announced crowd of 8,000 and change. It didn’t help, I’m sure, that the Rams hosted the 49ers in a big divisional showdown that afternoon.
It was good to see Tkachuk. After post-game interviews, he was hanging outside the Blues locker room and Kovalchuk was chatting with him. Later Hartley stopped by to say hello to the big fella. How would Tkachuk look on the wing with Kovy and White? Now that would be a line.
Alright, we’re boarding. I’ll get to your comments when I land in Toronto.
