Here are some long overdue pictures from the trip to NY last week.

One of the highlights of the trip from a "well I never thought I'd find myself doing this" standpoint had to be the bus-ride from the hotel on 52nd to Madison Square Garden on 33rd. Have you ever seen Manhattan traffic at 4:30 in the afternoon on a business day? It's not pretty. So as we all loaded onto the bus on Tuesday and Wednesday there was a uniformed officer waiting beside the bus. When we gave the signal he pulled out in his squad car, turned on the lights and away we went with our own police escort. Want to see New York pedestrians and motorists get upset in a real hurry? Make them wait for  a bus full of guys they don't recognize. The looks (and gestures) that we got were priceless. A 25-block short drive that should have taken about 30 minutes took five or ten. "we're here way too early," cracked Bobby Holik both days. "Can we circle the block a couple of times?"

Eric Boulton and Brad "Beast" McCrimmon with one of New York's finest. Who's protecting who?

Madison Square Garden- the "world's Most Famous Arena."

They call the seats the reds and the blues. They've faded to pink and teal. 

The famous MSG ceiling and scoreboard.

Shortly before the Rangers pulled ahead for the final time in the series.

The end of the road for the 2006-07 Thrashers.

I just talked to Randy, a Rangers season ticket holder who was in Atlanta for Game One last week. We chatted a bit and then I had to come back to my seat. I told him I'd see him on Sunday when we're back for Game Six, so we better come away from this with a win.

I feel good about this period, and if we win this game we're winning on Friday.

I think the sheer embarrassment of last night's debacle is a huge motivating force for this team.

And now we're waiting.... and waiting.... and waiting... and they're not showing a replay... and we're waiting... and it's a goal. They finally showed it on the big screen once the call was made and it looked in to me. That's a heartbreaker folks.

The Thrashers are trailing for the first time this game. Time for a gut check.

And we have another lead! And boy is this crowd upset. Apparently they have no concept of what constitutes tripping and what constitutes a legitimate defensive play. If you play the puck, it's usually not tripping. We still got a tripping penalty though, so here comes a PK.

For what it's worth, Rangers fans really know how to give it to refs.

MSG is a bit more subdued this evening. Some fans around me are a bit nervous about how the Thrashers are going to come out of the gate. Others think we've totally lost our focus and forgotten how to play. We'll know soon, won't we?

It'll be interesting to see how this crowd reacts if the Thrashers can actually have a lead for the first time in this series. If they an score first and hold off New York for a while they might manage to calm the crowd. Four minutes until faceoff. Instead of VanMassenhoven we've got Hasenfratz reffing the game. That ought to work out well. What's the over/under on when the first misconduct gets handed out?

Deprive the Rangers fans of a win (and sweep) at home. Bring it back to Atlanta for our fans and see what happens. Win one more for Mellanby. Win for pride's sake. Go down swinging instead of with heads hung.

Those are the things that the Thrashers have to play for tonight. They can't afford to think about the hole they're in and the task before them. It's overwhelmingly difficult, and no matter how much of a cliche it might be, the Thrashers have to take this one game at a time. 3-0 is daunting, but if the Thrashers can make it out of Madison Square Garden alive tonight they can go back to Philips and try to win one at home. Then they're staring at a 3-2 deficit and they have something to work with.

As for tonight's game, there won't be any lineup changes for the game aside form in net, where Johan Hedberg will get the nod. Moose had an intense look about him today and his body language was defiant. The forwards need to show up and give him something to work with, but don't be surprised if Moose steals this one.

There's not a whole lot you can say about that game. It was what it was and there's no point in trying to polish it up. When a team loses that badly there's no single person to blame. All I can tell you is that there were a whole lot of upset players in the locker room and plenty of heads hanging with shame. The team was embarrassed by their play and embarrassed about the way they let each other down. While the quick and easy thing to do is blame the goalie who let in seven goals, Keith Tkachuk stated plain and simple that "We didn't do anything in front of him. We hung the poor kid out to dry and it's unfair to blame him."

Two of the better players in this series for the Thrashers have been Bobby Holik and Garnet Exelby. Both of them had interesting things to say after the game, as did Kari Lehtonen and Bob Hartley. Click the links below to hear for yourselves.

Garnet Exelby
Bobby Holik
Kari Lehtonen
Bob Hartley

In case there was any doubt, Johan Hedberg will get the start tomorrow as the Thrashers try to win one and bring the series back to Atlanta.

In case you were wondering, there are 17 Thrashers left in the game including both goalies.

Oddly enough a lot of people in the lower levels have left, presumably to beat the traffic. I can't imagine what it would be like to try to drive around here after a game.

This is where I try to come up with something positive to say.

Here we go- have the Thrashers scored three goals in a single before before? Yes. Have they have ever scored three or more goals over the span of two periods? Yes again. And have they ever shut another team down for two periods? Umm... yes.

It's been a brutal start for the Thrashers, but the team that has done all of those things is perfectly capable of pulling them off tonight.

You can probably disregard my "Kari is going to stand on his head and steal a game for us" prediction though.

Considering their team went up 1-0 30 seconds into the game this crowd sure is nervous. Hossa has the people around me worried, and the rink went silent for a second or two after Exelby upended Matt Cullen along the boards. I don't expect the Thrashers to give up and I don't expect our fans to either.

That second goal probably just got rid of any nervousness in here though.

Dear MSG announcers- Scott Mellanby is not a center.

The Rangers used the same song for their opening video as we did, but I've got to say that our video was better. That counts for something, right?

I have a feeling I'm going to be suffering from a severe case of Dan Kamal-itis. If you listened to his radio broadcasts from MSG you might remember him having to tell the fans in front of him to sit down so he could see. Well, I might have to watch the game on my feet if I want to see anything.

The national anthem just finished and I have two things to say.

1. Being Canadian it's pretty rare for the Star Spangled Banner to give me chills. It gave me chills, this place was so loud.
2. Every fan in Philips that yell "Knight" could have been inhere yelling it at the top of their lungs and nobody would have heard them. Just before the singer got to "And the rockets' red glare" the place exploded and didn't let up until the puck was dropped.

Don't you ever let a Rangers fan give you a hard time about Thrashers fans not getting to games early. I've seen our fans lined up hours before games started, but here it is, 6:32 in Madison Square Garden, and there are no more fans in here right now as the skaters come out for warm-ups than there are in Philips during warm-ups.

I was warned by NHL.com writer Sean Roarke that the fans around me are going to be unbearably loud. I'm up at the back of section 310, above the Thrashers blueline, and there fans in front of me and behind me. This ought to be fun.

Some Philips vs. MSG Comparisons:

MSG is the old car that you love that's served you well and given you plenty of find memories. Philips Arena is the new car that you trade it for.

So we know there's at least one Thrashers fan in New York City, and his name is Patrick Hubbard.

If you have pictures of you or your friends sporting Thrashers gear in the Big Apple send them on in. I know some of you are heading up there for the games next week, so take some pictures of the Blueland invasion.

Update:

Here's another one from a young fan who toured MSG with the accompanying text from the Yanovich family:

"We did our part today visiting the locker room of the NY Rangers :-) at Madison Square Gardens and wishing them lots of luck - NOT. Good luck tomorrow, go and make us proud."