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Monday, March 24, 2008
Kozlov: Everybody at fault for struggles
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So, what to do with Slava Kozlov? He’s the focus of my feature story for Tuesday’s paper, which looks at his disappointing season. His numbers are down, nearly in half. But, as he points out, his playing time is down considerably. He’s getting half as much time on the power play as he did last year and almost no time on the penalty kill.
But is his lack of playing time a result of poor play or is his poor play a result of a lack of playing time? Anyone want to take a stab at that one? I didn’t use it in the story, but here’s was Kozlov’s explanation as to why his playing time was reduced under Don Waddell: “I think there’s a lot of pressure on Don. He was nervous, sometimes. It’s a quick decision. It’s like when you’re on the ice in front of the net, it’s a quick decision - pass or shoot. It’s the same on the bench, it’s not easy. My dad was a coach and coaches a junior team now. It looks like it’s easy from upstairs - ‘Oh, what a job,’ but it’s not. A head coach has to handle 23 players, everybody wants to play the power play, the penalty kill. It’s a lot of decisions. He was the GM and coach - it’s not easy.”
It’s a pretty diplomatic answer, I’d say. Unfortunately, Waddell wasn’t around to talk about Kozlov’s playing time. But I know in the past he’s said he hasn’t given up on him, which is good considering he’s still got two years left after this one. But Kozlov has bounced back from rough seasons before. If you look at a couple seasons in Detroit (36 points in 99-00, 38 points in 00-01) you see similarities to this season - including ice time.
But Kozlov has heard the criticism of the veteran players on the Thrashers this season, and I asked him to respond to people who say the underachieving veterans are the reason why the Thrashers have struggled this year: “When the team is going well, the whole team deserves the accomplishment. When things don’t go well, I think the whole team is in the basement, the whole team deserves punishment. I don’t agree it’s the veterans or it’s the rookies. In this team, we have lots of depth but we need to improve defense, offense and even goalie. Last year, the reason we were in the playoffs was the goalies played unbelievable the whole season. This year, it was good games, bad games, like everybody else on the team. You can blame the veterans, but it’s a package.”
Kozlov said he has no regrets about signing with the Thrashers again, and that all they really need is a superstar defenseman to contend. No problem, right?
“This team needs a foundation, defensively - like a [Zdeno] Chara or [Nicklas] Lidstrom. Good teams, they have one or two very good defensemen who can play 30-35 [minutes per game]. Like [Chris] Pronger on Anaheim - one of those guys. They’re hard to find, but that’s what we need. With our goalie, he can win a game by himself, but we have to help them. We can’t let the other team shoot 40-45 times.”
Kamloops update: Since the blog adopted the Mark Recchi-owned Kamloops Blazers, they’ve dropped their first two playoff games to the Olie Kolzig-owned Tri-City Americans. Recchi’s not giving up hope. “They were both on the road,” he pointed out today after practice. He said the goalie has been playing well - Kamloops goalie Justin Leclerc had 71 saves in two games. Sounds like the Blazers play the same defense as the Thrashers. Games three and four of the seven game series are on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Roy’s son apologizes: Bob Hartley’s favorite goalie, Patrick Roy, also has a team in the playoffs. His Quebec Remparts are playing in the QMJHL playoffs and evidently Roy’s son went bonkers and fought the other goalie, flipped off the crowd and said some inappropriate things on TV. He apologized for it all today. Naturally, it’s all on YouTube.
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