Thrashers ‘outplayed’ in loss to Leafs

A day after the longest night of the year, Atlanta’s hockey team took a long winter’s nap.

The Thrashers slept soundly in front of a Philips Arena crowd announced as 16,413 people, and with the lamp behind their net lighting half a dozen times.

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Pouya Dianat/pdianat@ajc.com

Leafs left wing Alexei Ponikarovsky knocks in the puck past Thrashers’ goalie Kari Lehtonen just 59 seconds into the first period.

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They lost 6-2 to a Toronto Maple Leafs team whose goalie was making his NHL debut. Instead of putting Justin Pogge under pressure, the Thrashers welcomed him to the league by all but leaving him alone.

Pogge faced only six shots in each of the first two periods. At the other end of the ice, Kari Lehtonen had faced 30 shots by the second intermission.

Where was the effort the Thrashers had shown when beating this team 6-3 a month ago in Toronto?

“It wasn’t there, not even close, from the start of the game,” said forward Colby Armstrong, who showed more energy pumping his fist to celebrate his second-period goal than his teammates had shown in the first 39 minutes. “We were caught in between, on our heels. It kind of looked like we were playing scared out there.”

The Thrashers were so passive they drew only two penalties on the Leafs.

Toronto scored in the opening minute and went up by two goals 10 minutes later, and the game never got closer. Lehtonen, in his second game after missing a month and a half with a back injury, looked a little rusty and paid a price for giving up too many rebounds. He blamed himself for the first two goals.

But he also made 32 saves on 37 shots, far from the worst showing by a player in a blue sweater.

“We got outplayed in every place: defense, forwards and goalies,” Lehtonen said. “We cannot expect to win anything [like that].”

“Our effort tonight I don’t think was acceptable,” forward Chris Thorburn said. “No one should be happy.”

The Thrashers lost by at least four goals for the fifth time this season. This one looked as bad as any and worse than most.

“We weren’t ready to compete tonight,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. Asked if there was a button he could push to change that, he said, “Sometimes it’s hard to tell. It seemed like we were ready to go, and then we were a flat tire out there. At some point we have to rally beyond that.

“In 82 games [of a hockey season], sometimes you get games like that. The hard thing for a team like us that’s so desperate for points [in the standings] is that we can’t afford it, especially in the situation we are in right now. And that’s the thing that hurts.”

The Leafs (14-13-6) won for the fifth time in their last six games and assured themselves no worse than a .500 record heading into the Christmas break.

“Our team is starting to feel good about itself,” coach Ron Wilson said.

The Thrashers (11-18-4) had little time to ponder the way they felt. They left Philips Arena and headed for the airport and a flight to Long Island for Tuesday night’s game against the last-place Islanders.

“We don’t want to have a first period and a second period like that [Tuesday], or the same thing will happen, I don’t care who you play,” Anderson said. “If you play Detroit, you play Tampa, you play anybody, if you give that kind of effort you’re probably not going to win.”