AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > February > 22
Friday, February 22, 2008
No Excuses For This Loss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Um…Hey Thrashers, come here a sec. ‘Splain sumphin’ to me here. Saturday night you took to the ice in the Nassau Coliseum to play the New York Islanders. You had left the ice in New Jersey just 21 hours prior after a hard fought, exhilarating 4-3 shootout win against the Devils. You came out flat in the first period of that game allowing 20 shots on goal before the first intermission on your way to losing 4-1 and giving up a total of 49 SOG.
Tail end of a road back-to-backer…third game in four nights…tired. Yeah, yeah, yeah…I hear ya. There were even some in the blog-o-sphere that voiced the belief that the scorekeeper was dishing up some home cooking by adding shots to the total of the Islanders and not crediting the Thrashers with shots that they did indeed take. Even TV analyst Darrin Eliot indicated that he thought that might be the case. Was it? I dunno…but sometimes %$#& happens.
OK…fine. I can dig it. I’m hip to your jive there. NHL hockey players are human beings and I understand legs can get heavy and traveling can sometimes be tiresome. I understand that sometimes the breaks go against you. I’m not heartless….not totally, at least.
But help me make some sense of this…
Thursday night you took the ice in Raleigh, North Carolina after having ONE HUNDRED AN SEVENTEEN HOURS OFF between games!!! Between this and the last game YOU played your opponents played TWO GAMES! And you guys STILL let up FORTY-SIX shots on the FREAKIN’ GOAL!!! Did you give up 20 in the first again? NO…YOU GAVE UP TWENTY-ONE!! The man who faced, and turned away, all 21 shots called it, “…a big joke”. Only…no one is laughing!
You gave up THREE %$#@! Shots LESS on Kari then you allowed the Islanders given NINETY-SIX more hours of rest!!! Hey…maybe if we give you a %$#@& MONTH off you can get it back down to, oh I dunno…THIRTY-FIVE??
Two games…NINTY-FIVE shots on your goalie. He stopped 86 of them, (a .905 SV%…Not awful). Honestly, one of them he was caught behind the net, (someone put a bungee cord on that boy)…another was as lovely a kick-in goal that you’ll ever see…Pele would have been impressed! But I digress.
Where was I? Oh yeah…NINETY-FIVE shots on goals are more then a net minder should face in THREE GAMES…much less two! Heck, the Detroit Red Wings goalies face, on average, that many shots IN FOUR GAMES! Oh for the good old days when you ONLY gave up 33 shots on goal!
In the past couple of games Kari Lehtonen has been struck by more rubber than an opossum on GA-20…thank you.
Grabbing Don Waddell by the neck-tie…pulling him in close…
Hey, Donny…look. You and your GM buddies were all hanging by the pool in Florida earlier in the week. Please, please…for the love of all things good and holy…PLEASE tell me you were nosing into the possibility of getting some help on defense…a Tomas Kaberle or a Campbell…or just SOME-FRIKIN’-BODY that maybe…JUST MAYBE…won’t act like a toll booth worker at the blue line as opposing forwards scamper by. “Exact change…Thank you…buh-bye…have a nice day”!
Please tell me you ventured into discussing anything along the lines of bringing in a big, powerful center that can lead a top line offense, muscle his way in front of the opponent’s net and assist, as needed, to clear players out from in front of ours…HUH? How ‘bout it?
I mean…how in the world is Keith-FREAKIN’-Aucoin THAT FREAKIN’ WIDE OPEN in front of our net!!!! Come on Donny boy! Say it….smaller, faster…ain’t really working out, IS IT? SAY IT…SAY IT!!!
Looking over at the ASG suits trying to sneak outa the room…
Whoa…just a moment there, Bubbas…where do you think you’re going? Tell me, you guys have, what, six and a half mil in cap room? Uh-huh….well tell this guy here, the one fixing his tie, he can go out shopping sometime between now and, oh…say, 3:00 pm Tuesday. Yeah, that’s right…give him your official okee-dokee to go get what he needs…and in doing so, pseudo-justify jackin’ up the ticket price on your most loyal of customers. Yeah, that’d be nice!
OK, ya’ll go get some rest then…tomorrow night is Toronto.
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