Thrashers coach lays down the law after rout

John Anderson decided not to test the cliché about the sun coming up tomorrow. He couldn’t afford to wait that long.

Wednesday’s 7:55 a.m. sunrise was still nothing but a distant promise when Anderson arrived at the office the morning after the Philadelphia Flyers ripped his Thrashers 7-0. He had players to reassess, expectations to set, lines to realign, a team to resurrect.

He hadn’t yelled in the postgame locker room Tuesday night. He always prefers to deliver his assessment the next day, when he’s no longer swayed by game-night emotions that might lead him to say something he’ll regret. But the sleepless overnight wait didn’t make Wednesday’s message any less forceful.

He laid down the law in one-on-one meetings with players, and he spoke at length with the entire team on the ice before practice. This was one of his first big tests as an NHL coach, and he made it clear he had no intention of failing it.

The Thrashers (2-5-2) couldn’t wait for a 10-games-into-the-season evaluation. They needed to start fixing their problems immediately, before flying to New York for tonight’s game against the Rangers and Saturday’s game against the New Jersey Devils. Not only are the Thrashers on a four-game winless streak, but they’re coming off their worst game of the season.

“I just know we’re better than that. I just know in my heart,” Anderson said. “We have to be better than that. We don’t want to be so far behind the eight ball we can’t come out.”

He changed all four of his lines. He reunited Erik Christensen and Jason Williams with Ilya Kovalchuk in a trio that last worked together in the preseason. He put Todd White and Bryan Little with Slava Kozlov and moved up Chris Thorburn onto a line with Marty Reasoner and Colby Armstrong. Jim Slater centers Eric Perrin and Brett Sterling or Eric Boulton on the other line.

Here’s what Anderson wants: “With Christensen’s line, goals. With White’s line, goals. With Reasoner’s line, goals and stopping goals. And with Slater’s line, energy.”

Goals and stopping goals have been problems at various times this season, and energy was in short supply Tuesday.

Although Anderson didn’t talk in the postgame locker room, some players did. They don’t like getting humiliated any more than their coach does.

“I don’t think we played 10 minutes of good hockey,” Christensen said. “It was embarrassing. It really sucks getting booed in your own building, and especially when we’re trying to bring fans back into the building.

“We want them here to support us, so we have to put in a lot better effort than that. The word around here this morning and last night was, ‘It was unacceptable.’?”

The Thrashers lost more than a game. Rookie defenseman Zach Bogosian hurt his left leg and was scheduled to undergo an MRI on Wednesday. Results were not immediately available, but Bogosian did not travel with the team to New York.

His teammates will carry on against a Rangers team that owns the NHL’s best record. The Thrashers think they’re better than they looked against the Flyers and that they have the heart as well as the ability to prove it.

“We’ll see [today],” defenseman Niclas Havelid said.