A look at the Thrashers' after half a season

By Chris Vivlamore

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The second half of the Thrashers’ season begins tonight in Pittsburgh. The Thrashers (18-17-6) remain in the hunt for a playoff spot despite being mired in an eight-game losing streak (0-5-3).

“I’m not jumping up and down,” coach John Anderson said of his team’s position at the midway point. “The way we were last year, we were almost out of the playoffs at this point. Obviously it’s not where we want to be, considering we were five or six games over .500 at one point. If we can go on a five- or six-game winning streak, we’ll be right back in the mix. Because we played so well early on, we are in this position.”

Here’s a look at where the Thrashers stand 41 games into the season.

Goals For/Goal Against

The Thrashers can score goals, no question. They are third in the NHL with a 3.15 goals per game average. The trouble is they are 28th in the league with 3.22 goals allowed.

Top line scoring

The top line of Ilya Kovalchuk, Max Afinogenov and Nik Antropov are 1-2-3 on the team in scoring. Kovalchuk, despite missing six games with a broken foot, is fourth in the league in goals (25) and eighth in points (47). After Rich Peverley (35), no other Thrashers forward has more than 19 points.

Too many shots allowed

The Thrashers continue to see far more shots on their net than they deliver. They have been out-shot in 30 of 41 games. Add the two games where the shots-on-goal totals were even and the Thrashers have held a shooting advantage just nine times. The Thrashers are 26th in the league in shots per game (28.6) and 29th in shots allowed per game (33.9). Despite being out-shot so often, the Thrashers have managed a 14-12-4 record when they are out-shot. The Thrashers also don’t block shots very effectively. They are 25th in the league with 498 blocks.

Goaltending

Johan Hedberg and Ondrej Pavelec were clearly the biggest reason the Thrashers got off to a 14-7-3 start. Hedberg was among the league leaders in both goals-against average and save percentage. Those stats have dropped off for both netminders. Hedberg is 18th in both goals against (2.62) and save percentage (.914). Pavelec is 45th in goals against (3.52) and 34th in save percentage (.903). Pavelec has been pulled in three of his past nine starts, including two of the past three.

“Of course I don’t like it,” Pavelec said. “It is what it is. But we’ve got more games that we have to fight for wins.”

Falling behind early

The Thrashers, especially early in the season, made a poor habit of falling behind early. They are first in the NHL in goals allowed in the first (42) and second (57) periods. They do have an inclination for battling back. They are first in the league in goals scored in the third period (55). The Thrashers have played 24 one-goal games but have won just nine of them.

Special teams

What was a team strength in the early season is one no longer. The Thrashers once led the NHL in the penalty kill. They have fallen to 17th (80.6 percent). The unit is even worse at home at 27th (75.0). The power play was a top-two unit in the league at one time. It now stands at eighth (20.8).

“That’s a big part of the game,” Hedberg said. “We stopped doing the little things that made us successful. We kind of cheated the game a little bit and that hurt us.”

Hits

The Thrashers don’t deliver a lot of hits, especially at home. The team is 29th in the league with 719 hits. Just 258 of those have come at home, last in the league.

Bad December

The Thrashers were 14-7-3 after the months of October (5-4-1) and November (9-3-2). However, December (4-10-1) was not so kind. You have to go back to Dec. 17 for the team’s last regulation win. The team completes a month-long stretch from Dec. 5 to Jan. 5, where it played 13 of 17 games on the road, with tonight’s game in Pittsburgh. They are 4-9-3 in the stretch.

They are 0-0-2 in January.

“The last couple of games, we’ve played much better,” Slava Kozlov said. “We didn’t win, but we deserved a little more than we got. When you struggle, it’s very hard to climb up. Right now we have to do the little things better. No turnovers. Put the puck deep. That’s how other teams come back strong.”

If they can get through the Olympic break in February, they will play 12 of 17 games at home.

“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, no one else will,” Anderson said. “It’s a bunch of little things that we’ve got to fix and we are in the process of doing that. We’re trying to stop the bleeding.”

Compiled by Chris Vivlamore