Thrashers drop another at home after early deficit

By Chris Vivlamore

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The trend continues -- and it's not a good one.

The Thrashers again fell behind early, this time by two first-period goals, en route to a 4-3 loss to Columbus on Thursday at Philips Arena. The Thrashers have lost four consecutive at home, each time surrendering first-period goals that put the team in an early hole from which it could never fully recover.

The Thrashers (6-5-1) are just 1-4 at home this season. All four losses have come by one goal.

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“This is the same press conference as the last games at home, and it’s disappointing,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. “It’s not like we are playing horrible. I think we don’t initiate. We wait to see how the game goes, and then we start to play. Unfortunately, it was too late again.

“We have been trying to address it. ... I think what happens is once they score the first goal it’s like ‘Uh-oh.’ We’re a little fragile. We’ve got to get over it really quick because we have a lot of home games coming up.”

The loss snaps a two-game win streak after road victories at Ottawa and Montreal.

Columbus (8-5-2) jumped to a 2-0 lead in the opening period on goals by Jakub Voracek and Derick Brassard.

“We’ve been talking about the slow starts for pretty much all the home games, but we’re still not [stopping them],” Thrashers defenseman Pavel Kubina said. “We’ve got to be mentally sharp for the first few shifts because that’s pretty much the difference the past four games.”

Voracek slapped home the rebound of a Jason Chimera shot that Thrashers goalie Ondrej Pavelec kicked aside at the 10:11 mark. Just 2:07 later, Brassard took a turnover in the neutral zone, skated in on Pavelec and snapped a wrist shot past him to the low right side.

“I have no idea,” Pavelec said of the Thrashers’ early-game deficits. “If I know it, I would be rich probably. Right now I have no idea. It’s a tough question.”

Twice in the second period the Thrashers cut the Blue Jackets' lead to one goal. Each time Raffi Torres responded with a goal while standing all alone in front of an open net.

The Thrashers pulled to within 2-1 at the 4:06 mark when Bryan Little scored his second goal of the season by tipping in a shot from the point by Tobias Enstrom. However, Torres converted a turnover into a goal 1:43 seconds later.

Enstrom, who turned 25 on Thursday, pulled the Thrashers back to within a goal at 3-2 with a power-play goal at the 11:01 mark. However, there was Torres again, standing at the goal mouth, to bang home a rebound 1:44 later.

“We made some bad mistakes,” Anderson said. “We let the centerman go to the front of the net, and that was a tap-in. Our defense followed the play before it was out of the zone, and that was a tap-in.”

Kubina pulled the Thrashers to within one goal again with a third-period power-play goal with 17:54 remaining. The Thrashers, as has also been the precedent, ended with a flurry, but couldn’t convert the game-tying goal. Columbus goaltender Mathieu Garon, who finished with 22 saves, stopped several shots after the Thrashers had pulled Pavelec for a man-advantage.

“The very first game we played at home, the one we won, I had the guys stay in a hotel [the night before],” Anderson said. “Maybe we have something there. I don’t think [general manager] Don Waddell is going to like to hear that we have to spend more money, but at this point I’ll try to win any way we can. Maybe it’s true when you get home you start to relax. You can’t do that in this league.”

Pavelec stopped 15 of 19 shots.

The Thrashers might also want to think about burning their maroon jerseys. They dropped to 0-3 on the season wearing the alternate uniform and 6-11 all-time, dating to their debut last season.