Stuart, Thrashers thriving shorthanded

In Colin Stuart’s world, sometimes four is greater than five.

Welcome to the mind of a goal-scoring penalty killer, where less can be more and disadvantage can turn into opportunity in the bounce of a puck.

Stuart has played only 30 NHL games and already is tied for third in Thrashers history with four career shorthanded goals. Three of them have come this season, which ties him for sixth in the NHL.

Who knows where Stuart would rank if he’d been playing in the league since mid-October like all of the others on the list? He was still with the minor-league Chicago Wolves in late January and has played only 12 games with the Thrashers this season.

When the Thrashers recalled Stuart on Jan. 30, they had just two shorthanded goals in 50 games. They have six in the 11 games since, and Stuart has scored half of those.

There’s a reason.

“It’s hard to replace speed, and that’s what he has,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said.

Stuart also has a scoring mentality. He says he never forgets that his first priority as a penalty killer is, as the name of the unit implies, killing penalties. But he also never stops remembering that the team with four skaters sometimes has some advantages over the team with five.

“You get a lot of good opportunities shorthanded if you’re moving your feet, because the other team’s kind of flatfooted,” Stuart said. “They have an extra guy, so there’s a different mentality for them. Sometimes you can catch teams sleeping.

“You can catch teams off guard, out of position defensively, because they’re more geared toward scoring goals on the power play.”

There can be personnel advantages, too. A lot of teams, the Thrashers included, play a forward at the point on the power play. That can increase the firepower in the attacking zone but can become a liability when the shorthanded team advances the puck. Those forwards aren’t always cautious about staying in position, and they aren’t always quick about transitioning to defense. The result: A breakaway or an odd-man rush for the shorthanded team.

Stuart is likely to be the one on the breakaway or the leader of the odd-man rush. He’s fast. It’s his biggest asset, not just after he gets the puck but also when he’s deciding whether to chase after it when it’s loose.

“You’ve got to be sure that you can get to the puck,” he said. “You’ve got to be sure that you’re going to be able to do something with it. You can never leave the [defensive] zone before the puck leaves the zone. If you have the puck or you create a turnover and you see open ice, if you can win that battle, then it’s OK to go.”

One of his shorthanded goals was unassisted, but the other two involved a lot of teamwork. Eric Perrin and Mathieu Schneider assisted on one at Tampa Bay. In Los Angeles, Stuart grabbed the puck in the defensive end and passed ahead to Marty Reasoner on a breakaway, then got the rebound of Reasoner’s shot and passed to Reasoner, who passed to Tobias Enstrom, who passed to Stuart for the goal.

“You talk about overwhelming a team’s power play,” Stuart said. “We had three guys in their zone, and I think we caught them off guard, and we were able to make a pretty good play off of it.”

Note: The Thrashers sent forward Jordan LaVallee back to Chicago Wednesday. LaVallee appeared in two games since being called up Feb. 12.