AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2008 > November > 26
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thanksgiving Memories
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Do you remember Thanksgiving just one year ago? As we sat down to gorge ourselves on turkey, ham, stuffing, yams, cranberries, mashed potatoes, green beans, dinner rolls and a multitude of pies and/or cake…we were fresh off a 5-1 victory over a hapless Washington Capitals team.
At the time, Atlanta was riding an 11 wins in 15 games wave after dropping the first six of the season…heading in the right direction, eh? The Caps on the other had dropped to 6-14-1 for 13 points and listen to chants of “Fire Hanlon” rain down from the announced crowd of 11,669. And on Thanksgiving day…fire him they did.
They were two teams seemingly moving in opposite directions at the time. Of course as we now know…at season’s end, Washington had won the Southeast Division championship and the Thrashers had won the right to pick third in the NHL entry draft.
Fast-forward one year.
Here we are at another Thanksgiving holiday… preparing to sit down and make nice-nice with those relatives…you know which ones I’m talkin’ about…and once again we watched the Thrashers and Capitals play the Wednesday night prior.
They again seem like two teams on differing paths.
Fresh off one of their better performances of the season in Toronto just the night before, the Thrashers dropped a 5-3 decision to the division-leading Caps. Making the sting a little worse is the fact that if there was a time to jump all over this Caps team, this was the time. Washington entered into the game having lost three straight and their lineup was depleted to the point that they had to reach down onto the farm and bring up some of the kids.
Karl Alzner, Chris Bourque, Sami Lepisto, Graham Mink and Tyler Sloan…they all helped coach Bruce Boudreau ice 20 players. To their credit, Sloan and Lepisto got on the score sheet with an assist apiece and they helped their club beat a Thrashers team that was pretty much at full-strength.
But this night was the Ovechkin show as the Russian winger turned the hat trick on six shots and added a helper for good measure. His third goal game 54 seconds into the second period. I heard a rumor this Ovechkin guy was pretty good.
Atlanta was outshot 33-18 by the Caps.
For the Thrashers…Slava Kozlov netted goal number twelve of the year and Bryan Little…a.k.a. Byron Young, as E.J. Hradek calls him…scored his tenth. Nathan Oystrick not only got off Schneid Island with his first of the year, the tallied was his first ever career NHL goal.
As reported by Mike Knobler, Coach John Anderson cited the big save by Jose Theodore on Eric Perrin at the start of the game as the turning point. “I thought Theodore really turned the game around with that great stop on the breakaway on Perrin early on,” Anderson said. “It gave them a lift, picked them up. We caught them off guard right away and didn’t score, and they come right back down and get a power play and score. After that, for a period and a half, we couldn’t recuperate. They were on us like rats on cheese.”
Actually, I was gonna say Washington was on us like my cousin Thelma on the Thanksgiving dessert tray…but I think the way coach put it is OK too.
Anyway, Nashville in town Friday night…until then, I hope you all have a wonderful and joyous Thanksgiving.
