Thrashers look to correct errors

If John Anderson directed horror movies, he would spare you the close-ups of blood and guts. He’d show you only what you need to see and let your brain fill in the rest.

So it is with the video the Thrashers coach will show his players today at Ottawa. It’s part “Saturday the 13th: Thrashers at Bruins,” and part “Wednesday the Third: Thrashers at Senators,” and that merits an R rating, even after Anderson’s edits.

But it’s a Thrashers film, not a slasher film. If you want to see all the lowlights of last weekend’s two losses to Boston or the Thrashers’ first trip to Ottawa, don’t watch Anderson’s director’s cut. He will show his players a version purged of some of their biggest individual gaffes from the 5-1 loss to the Senators on Dec. 3 and the 7-3 and 4-2 losses to the Bruins Friday and Saturday.

“What we look for basically is system breakdowns,” Anderson said. “An individual mistake, somebody getting beat one on one, a mishandled pass, those guys already know they did that. There’s no point in me showing that. What we try to show is, here’s what we want to do, and here’s what we did. Or, if they do this, in this system, this is the way we have to react.

“We do show positive things. We show goals scored, and we show some good checks. We’re not unmindful of the fact that this team doesn’t feel so good about itself right now.”

Self-esteem issues come with the territory for a 9-16-4 team that has won just one of its last nine games and two of its last 13. This past weekend’s two losses were by a combined 11-5. Tonight in Ottawa the Thrashers try to right themselves against a Senators team that embarrassed them the last time they visited Scotiabank Place.

On the face of it, the Thrashers should have a better chance than they did against the Bruins. Boston leads the Eastern Conference; Ottawa ranks only one spot ahead of Atlanta, which is in a three-way tie for fewest points in the East.

But Anderson said his team should be able to compete against everybody, including the Bruins.

“When we go against a team like that, we’ve got to ramp it up,” he said. “We’ve got to be the 70-pound lady lifting a car off somebody who’s trapped under it. We’ve got to get psychologically prepared to do that instead of just going out there and playing OK. We have to be prepared to ramp it up against the elite teams, and for us, almost every team’s elite because we’re at the bottom of the barrel.”

Garnet Exelby felt that way the last time he was in Ottawa. Exelby, a defenseman, was on the ice for all six goals in that game, only one of them scored by his team.

“I’ve got to be better than I was in that game, obviously,” Exelby said. “There’s been many games since then where I’ve tried to wipe that away. It’s obviously in the back of my mind. I’ve just got to play a bit smarter.”