AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2009 > January > 15
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Back-To-Back Blueland Blues
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Once again the Thrashers caught a team on the back end of a back-to-back set. However, it didn’t help much as they dropped a 3-2 decision to the Ottawa Senators, who played the night before at home against the Carolina Hurricanes. The Sens capitalized on two power play opportunities Wednesday night…the second coming halfway through the announcement of Mathieu Schneider’s holding penalty.
Catching teams on the tail end of back-to-backers hasn’t been of much help to the Thrashers lately. Last week, Atlanta played in Pittsburgh the night after the Penguins played in New York…and lost 3-1. The Pens used that game to snap a five-game losing skid.
Recently, the Thrashers have dropped Sunday afternoon games to Tampa Bay and Boston after those two teams had played the night prior in Carolina. The Bruins and Bolts both played night games, flew into town, caught a few hours of shut-eye…then awoke, rubbed the sleepy outa their eyes, came into Philips and left with victories…2-1 for Boston, 4-1 for the Lightning.
Sure, there was the 4-3 win against Vancouver on the 2nd…but it took a shootout to procure the two points. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, as points are hard to come by these days for our boys in blue. But even with that win, Atlanta is 1-4-0 in the past five games in which the schedule played in their favor regarding back-to-back games. Their opponents have earned seven of a possible eight points in those games and have outscored the Thrashers 15-8, (15-9 if you count the gimmick shootout point).
The Toronto Maple Leafs will be in town tomorrow night.
Oh BTW… they play in Carolina tonight.
Jason Williams Experiment Over
Wednesday afternoon the Thrasher moved forward Jason Williams to the Columbus Blue Jackets for defenseman Clay Wilson and a 6th-round draft pick. Williams scored seven goals with the Thrashers, but none since Dec. 2 in a 5-4 loss in Montreal. Wilson will report to the Chicago Wolves.
Prior to departing, Williams was on hand for the gave versus Ottawa to shake hands with his former teammates and wish them well, including the man he shared line-time with, team captain Ilya Kovalchuk.
Rich Peverley Experiment Starts
As the Williams experiment ended…the Peverley experiment began. The 6’-0” 185-pound 26-year old had no points on one SOG during his 18:53 TOI. He centered the line between Kovy and Armstrong, which had no points on 6 SOG.
Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot
How does a defender who finished a game with no points, two shots on goal, not the TOI leader in a 3-2 loss end up as the game’s third star? Well, that’s exactly what Nic Havelid did last night.
Drive For Tavares Continues
With the loss to Ottawa, Atlanta is now 14-25-5 on the season for 33 points and currently holds the #2 position in the John Tavares sweepstakes behind the New York Islanders…who have 28 points. Ottawa occupied the position the Thrashers currently hold just 48 hours ago, but their two wins have put them 3 points ahead of …er, behind…the Thrashers in the drive to acquire more ping-pong balls in this spring’s draft lottery.
Atlanta keeps messing up here by playing well against the Islanders, winning all three meetings between the two. However, they have another chance to correct that two weeks from today in the fourth and finial game on the schedule with them.
Blueland’s A Tough Place…For The Thrashers
On November the 14th, the Thrasher beat the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 at Philips Arena. It was Atlanta’s fifth straight win at the time…you remember that streak don’t you? It’s the one that Don Waddell points to as evidence that he’s iced a “good” team… Anyway, it was also the Thrashers’ fifth home win of the season after only eight home dates. Since that time the Thrashers have played fourteen times on home ice in the comfy confines of Blueland.
They have two wins to show for it.
7:00 Vs. 7:30
There has been quite a bit of chatter recently and over the years regarding the Thrashers’ home start times for weekday day games. Normally they begin at 7:00 and some say that putting it back to 7:30 would boost attendance given traffic and whatnot.
Atlanta hockey fans got a chance to show whether it not the scheduled start makes a big hill of beans as the Senators game was set for a 7:30 start. The reason being that it was being aired nationally on Canadian television…so, did draw more to the game?
Well, the “announced” attendance was 14,163. Honestly, there may have been 9,000 in the building. But, let’s compare that to the only other Wednesday night home game at Philips played this season…Dec. 10 against the Rangers…which had an “announced” attendance of 13,704. That’s a difference of 459.
The last weeknight game played at home was Monday Dec. 22 when Toronto defeated the Thrashers 6-2 and the “announced” attendance was 16,416. This came just after a Thursday night game the week prior against Pittsburgh when the “announced” attendance was 15,124.
Going back into November, the Thrashers played the Islanders and Penguins at home during the week and drew “crowds” of 14,122 and 13,391.
In October…three home games during the week against Minnesota, New Jersey and Philadelphia had “announced” crowds of 11,834, 11,293 and 13,207
That averages out to an “announced” attendance figure of 13,636 for 7:00 weeknight starts. That’s 527 less than the last night’s draw.
eh…
And Finally…
Cannot tell you just how much of a pleasure it was to have met glovesave29 last night. With his first-hand knowledge of the goalkeeping position…I now delare him the official blog resident goalie expert!
