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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Behind the personnel moves
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
There’s more than one way to figure out what a coach is thinking. Asking him is the most direct, but it’s not guaranteed to give you complete information. There are bound to be things a coach doesn’t want to say. With John Anderson, one thing already is quite clear; he’s not into ripping players in the press. The closest he ever gets is referring to something a player did without referring to the player by name.
So it’s worth considering personnel moves.
For example, as disappointed as Anderson sounded Tuesday night after the overtime loss at Tampa Bay, he hasn’t made any line changes for today’s practice. To me, that suggests he looked at the tape and saw more to like than he did in the midst of another frustrating game.
I thought there’d be a chance Brett Sterling would be out there in an attempt to add some scoring power to one of the lines other than the top line, which seems to be the only one generating much offense. Instead, Mike Hoffman and Sterling are working in at the wings with the Eric Boulton-Jim Slater-Chris Thorburn line. It’s good to see Hoffman on the ice as he recovers from the broken hand.
The fact Oystrick has gotten just one game and Sterling none suggests to me Anderson hasn’t seen lapses involving lack of effort. Benching a player sends a message; not benching a player sends one, too. Anderson doesn’t want any of these guys thinking he has lost confidence in them.
Another thing to notice is that Anderson has stuck with Kari Lehtonen through the first six games. That’s got to be a sign that he really likes what he’s seeing. There have been stretches in just about every game where Lehtonen has carried the team.
That said, the Thrashers face one of their toughest back-to-backs of the season Friday and Saturday at Detroit and at Boston. Anderson used identical lineups in the team’s first back-to-back, a home-road vs. Washington and at Florida, but this one could be an opportune time to give Johan Hedberg a game in net and get Sterling and/or Oystrick a chance.
