AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > February > 01
Friday, February 1, 2008
With Or Without You
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Apparently there is a great deal of emotion and opinion out there regarding the hit on Ilya Kovalchuk Wednesday night by Jarkko Ruutu of the Pittsburgh Penguins. My thoughts, of course, have been made known and others had their say. Needless to say there were many comments posted by those who disagreed…some more cerebrally based than others.
I did notice a few saying something about karma catching up with Kovalchuk given his antics after scoring goals. OK…if you’re going to say that Kovy got what was coming to him because of “karma”…do you also say that Sidney Crosby’s injury was “karma” given his propensity to dive like Greg Louganis looking for penalties and displays to refs more whining than a Democratic National Convention when the calls don’t go his way?
Regardless, the play will be reviewed and a decision will be made about the incident. We’ll see what happens.
Moving along…
Kovalchuk, of course, will be out for the two games against the Sabres and Washington this weekend. Stating that these are four big, fat, hairy, important points hanging out there for the Thrashers would be quite the overstatement. So, the team is going to have to show the testicular fortitude needed to fill the void left by the team’s leading scorer and just go out and win those points.
If you think about it, the team is in the midst of playing five consecutive games in which Ilya has missed all or a great deal of those games. Starting with his ejection in the Rangers game last Tuesday, then his serving of a one game suspension the next, followed by missing half the game Wednesday after the hit on his knee and now losing two games due to the subsequent injury. Currently the team is 1-1-1 in that stretch.
Does it suck having him out of the line up? Sure, no one is going say differently. But that’s the hand that’s been dealt and the team needs to just cope with it.
The above-mentioned Crosby has been out due to an ankle injury incurred while playing Tampa Bay on the 18th and the Pens have had to deal with the loss, (going 2-3-1 without Sid the Kid including the Lightning game). So it isn’t like the Thrashers are trudging through with something foreign to other teams.
With or without Kovy, tonight’s game would be a gut-check. As Blueland will become infested with flying banana peel jerseys, Atlanta will take on a team that dropped ten on them two weeks ago. Putting aside the fact that Buffalo is tied with us in points, (but have played 3 less games), that last game alone should be incentive enough to come out strong. There is no excuse for a player to not be up for this. Otherwise, they don’t need to be picking up a paycheck.
The same is true for tomorrow night as the Thrashers fly off to Washington for a meeting with the hottest team in the Southeast Division in the past couple of weeks.
So, even if Kovy were in the line up, the next couple of games would not be easy. Without him…even more so. But that’s where others need to fill the gap and play up to, even above, the situation.
( .\/. ) Yes, I’m looking at you, Hossa, Holik, Recchi, Kozlov, White and Perrin.
