AJC > Sports Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2009 > February > 11
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Blackhawk Letdown - NEW AJC BLOG LINK!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THE AJC BLOGS HAVE SWITCH PUBLISHING WEB SERVERS. RAWHIDE’S “ICEMAN BLOGGETH” CAN NOW BE FOUND HERE!
You guys know that I don’t do “moral victories” very well. Ls are Ls and they all count the same. However, Wednesday night the Thrashers took on a very good Chicago Blackhawk team and played them well from the first drop of the puck to the final horn.
Just came up short…dern-it!
Kari Lehtonen made a second straight strong start…following up Tuesday night’s 40 save on 41 shot performance with 25 saves on 27 SOGs. In that past two games he’s let up only three goals total and has posted a .956 SV%. Can’t ask much more outa your keeper than that!
Kaptain Kovy played like his jock was on fire against the Blackhawks. His power play blast was the Thrashers’ lone score of the night…and it tied the score at one each with a minute fifty-five left in the second.
Unfortunately, nine seconds later Kozzy wound up in the box for a tripping infraction…12 seconds after that, Chicago’s Jonathan Toews took advantage of the miscue with the Hawks’ second goal on the man-advantage.
But the excitement was quite over with just yet…in the closing seconds of the middle period, Kovy broke through the Blackhawks’ defense and was one on one with Nikolai Khabibulin…Kovalchuk’s initial shot was turn away, but he buried the rebound.
Unfortunately, it crossed the goal line a fraction of a second after the horn sounded.
Atlanta also had the misfortune of running up against a hot goalie in Khabibulin. He stopped 36 of the Thrashers’ 37 shots including robbing Bryan Little at about the halfway point of the third when the entire right side of the net was agape for the Atlanta forward.
The Thrashers did have their chance late in the game when the Blackhawk’s Patrick Sharp was sent to the sin-bin for hooking with a buck-seventeen remaining. Combined with Kari being pulled, it made for a 6 on 4 situation. However, Dave Bolland’s empty-net gimme iced it for the visitors.
Bummer….because the Thrashers played well enough to win on this night.
Ranallo10 (in USA)
Our good friend ranallo10 has made his way back across the pond…visiting back home from Austrialand. It was nice to have seen ya again, buddy!
I’d also like to say thanks to Carrie and Xi for introducing themselves last night…it was nice chatting with ya both!
The Times They Are A-Changing
Well…maybe not so much the “times” as much as the look and feel of this blog thingy. I’ve been informed that a new and improved format is on the way. Don’t really know what that means except that I’m going to have to learn how to operate a new publishing platform to keep this crazy thing rolling.
That plus I’ve been led to believe that there will be some new features at my disposal with this new format…so that’s exciting.
