DEL.ICIO.USThrashers fall to Bruins again
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, December 28, 2008
For almost 54 minutes Sunday evening the Thrashers matched one of the best teams in hockey goal for goal, shot for shot and save for save.
Anybody who has followed Atlanta’s NHL team this season — or just about any season — can guess what happened next.
Gregory Smith/FRE
Ilya Kovalchuk battles for the puck against Boston Bruins center Marc Savard.
One slip-up for the Thrashers. One goal for the Bruins. And one more loss for the home team at Philips Arena.
Michael Ryder beat defenseman Nathan Oystrick to the far post to tap in David Krejci’s crossing pass with 6:04 left to give the Bruins a 2-1 victory.
The Bruins have won eight consecutive games, starting with back-to-back, home-and-home victories over the Thrashers. But unlike in those two games, decided by a combined score of 11-5, the Thrashers hung with the Bruins on Sunday and looked, if not as good as their opponent, at least worthy of playing in the same league.
Boston leads the Eastern Conference and pulled into a tie with San Jose for most points in the NHL. The Thrashers are second to last in the league, ahead of only the New York Islanders. Still, Atlanta managed to outshoot an opponent for just the sixth time this season.
“It doesn’t make it feel any better really at all,” said Bryan Little, who scored his team-leading 18th goal and his sixth in three games. “We need the points right now. Even though they do have only five losses all season, we wanted to win. We were with them pretty much all game, but just a couple of mistakes and it’s over.”
It wasn’t over until the final seconds, when Little almost stuffed the puck past Manny Fernandez for what would have been a game-tying goal. Thrashers coach John Anderson had pulled goalie Kari Lehtonen for an extra attacker, and the team was on the power play. With six skaters to the Bruins’ four, Atlanta managed to apply a lot of pressure, and the puck got loose in the crease right in front of Little.
“I had it sitting there,” Little said. “If I was by myself I probably would have been able to knock it in, but the [Bruins defender] got his stick on mine at the last second, so I could hardly get any wood on it.”
“I gave a bad rebound right on the doorstep, and had to make a desperation save,” Fernandez said. “Some nights you get those, and some you don’t, and tonight was a night that you do.”
Fernandez made 32 saves. Lehtonen made 26. There was nothing he could have done about the game-winning goal, but Phil Kessel’s goal in the second period went in off Lehtonen’s glove.
Little had given the Thrashers a lead late in the first period, and he wasn’t even shooting the puck. His pass for Ilya Kovalchuk went under the stick of Shane Hnidy but hit the stick of Matt Hunwick, who had lunged forward to keep the pass from reaching its target. He was too successful; the puck went straight from his stick past Fernandez.
But that was the only goal for the Thrashers, now 5-12 in one-goal games.
“We’ve got to be a little more responsible when it gets really tight,” Anderson said. “When it gets really tight like a 1-all game or a one-goal differential, we have to play tight and then wait for opportunities or make them. We just can’t kind of hope the puck’s going to go one way and then let it come the other.”
