AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > April > 17
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Broadway beatdown
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For those of you who thought Game 2 was an embarrassment, I give you …. Game 3.
Now, THAT’S an embarrassment.
Of course, you guys simply saw the writing on the wall. You saw the potential for embarrassment, and Bob Hartley’s boys delivered. About midway through the first period, I started chanting “Hnlicka! Hnlicka!” because for all intents and purposes, this could have been the 2000-01 Thrashers out there. Zero defense, shaky goaltending and a guessing game of an offense.
Let’s see … Our 100-point scorer hits a guy from behind (for the second time in the series) and remains stuck on, let me re-count them so I don’t get it wrong, zero points. Our former Rocket Richard Trophy winner, with one goal in the series, skates clear across the ice to fight a guy who proudly boasted in the papers that that was exactly what he wants to happen.
Our goalie? Well, I’m not saying Johan Hedberg would have stopped any of those seven goals. Maybe he wouldn’t have. But at least it would have given our coach the option of pulling him. But by screwing around with the starter the way he did, he took that option off the board. And our “franchise goalie” had to be embarrassed in the World’s Most Famous Arena.
And the coach? What more can we say? He brags in the paper about how he likes to be unpredictable, how it keeps the team sharp. Well, my friends, he crossed the line from “unpredictable” to “erratic,” and the team folded like pressed linen. And let’s see, we took three penalties while on the power play, including a too-many-men. Too many men?
Of course this is all in the past, by about 10 minutes now. Let’s look at the future, courtesy of my friend Dolie, who writes:
“So in the last six weeks we’ve traded away two first-round picks from the past few drafts (Coburn and Bourret); traded away our 2007 first-round pick; our ‘07 third; traded away our 2008 second-round pick (in what’s regarded to be the best draft ever); and totally ruined the confidence of our franchise goaltender. thrashers fever — catch it!
I don’t have neither the time nor stomach to go on. I hand the floor over to you.
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