The Atlanta Thrashers will welcome back to the cozy confines of Blueland the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs are 6 points better then Atlanta but 2 positions below us in the conference standing, (there’s some funky Thrashers Math for ya). Atlanta has won the two previous meetings 3-2 in shootouts.

Montreal is 6-2-2 in their last ten and has won 3 of their last 4. Amazingly, they fair much better away from their home. To date, they are 8-7-5 at the Bell Centre and 15-7-3 away from it.

It’s Like Deja vu All Over Again

Once again the Thrasher find themselves one game over the .500 mark. Each of the prior times they were not able to advance further. It’s kind of interesting that the first place team of a division, preparing to play game 48 of the season, has not yet been as much as two games better then break even.

Rattled Sabres

After tonight’s game with Montreal, the Thrashers will shuffle off to Buffalo to see if they can’t rattle some Sabres again. You’ll remember the last time they met up; it was in Blueland on the 6th of the month as our Thrashers came away with a 5-2 win.

The last time into the HSBC Arena the Thrashers got spanked 6-0 in the fourth game of the schedule. But these days Buffalo has hit a patch of black ice in the season, going 0-5-5 in their past 10 and have not won a game since the Saturday prior to Christmas.

Oh, if your interested in such things, the Thrashers are considered a “Silver” game in Buffalo.

Powering Up

“The Un-Good: Their power play continues to sputter at 15th best in the NHL at 18.2%. While that’s up from 16.0%, 19th in the league, that number needs to get to about 20%”.

I wrote that for the second quarter report card earlier in the month. The good news here is that it is continuing to improve…up to 19.0%, which is 10th best in the league.

Not surprisingly, with the increase in that stat has also come the improvement of goals per game. Last November, Atlanta’s offense produced 2.56 G/G, early in this month it had improved to 2.73. Now Atlanta pumps out goals at a 2.77 clip.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go

Much has been speculated regarding the comings and/or goings of Marian Hossa. If you believe some in the know, he’ll be in another jersey before the end of the month. Hossa says that his agent Ritch Winter is still discussing a deal with Don Waddell and that he “would like to stay here”.

However he also indicated that he is preparing for both staying and going.

I have gone on record saying that, all things being equal, I would like for him to stay. True he’s had a sub par 3 months by his standards, but we all know what his talents are and what they can do for this team. Plus, I don’t want the front office to simply ship him off to help a team like Detroit or, (god forbid), Pittsburgh or any other team in the east simply for the sake of not losing him to free agency and getting little in return in the deal.

But there is a lot of chatter from credible sources and sometimes where there is smoke there is fire. If he is to be dealt, I want a solid, top-flight defenseman in return…someone who can help reduce the shots our keepers are facing to more like 28-30 per game. I have used the name Adam Foote, though his age of 36 concerns me. Maybe a true #1 center…something that has been on my wish list since day one of this season.

So, given that, let me toss this out to the Blogland masses:

Come up with a deal for Marian. Who you gonna get for him, where are they going to fit in to the line-up and who fills the vacant wing position on the second line?

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