And now you know why Bob Hartley called Joe Thornton the best passer in the
NHL yesterday morning after the morning skate.
Wow, was that ugly or what? It should have been an up-tempo match with
heavy-weight contenders matching each other blow for blow. Instead the Thrashers
landed one good punch at the beginning of the opening round and then wound up
punch drunk by the time the first bell sounded.
It's entirely possible that nobody can stop Joe Thornton's line the way
they're playing right now, but you at least have to answer with some
counter-punches. Last night that didn't happen and the Thrashers just took a
good old fashioned whooping. There's no way to sugar coat it and there's no
excuse to it. San Jose was the better team for fifty minutes and nobody on our
bench responded. As good as the Sharks' offense was, ours was equally futile.
How many genuine scoring chances did Tkachuk, Kovalchuk, Hossa and Kozlov have?
You could probably count them all on one hand. Toskala had an easy night in his
end while Lehtonen was hung out to dry in his. Don't try to pin this loss on the
refs or the missed offside call. If the players had been doing their jobs
properly they wouldn't need a linesman's help to clear the puck.
There's no silver lining, but it could have been worse. I'd be more concerned
if the real Thrashers had shown up and still lost 5-1. Instead we can take a
small amount of comfort in knowing that we don't have a bad team- we just have
one that inexplicably goes through periods where they look like amateurs boxing
in the first pro bout.
It should make thing nice and easy for Bob Hartley at practice though. He
doesn't have to single out a handful of players and blame them. He can just look
at every guy wearing an Atlanta jersey and tell them they collectively stunk up
the joint.
At least the penalty kill was perfect though, right? Not that I would have
minded if they took a couple of roughing minors or played with more aggressions
once they got down by a pair of goals...
The whole game can be summed up by
these comments from Keith Tkachuk (mp3).
The real test now is to see how the team bounces back from an embarrassingly
bad home loss. If you want to be a contended in the playoffs you have to be able
to regroup quickly. Let's see if the Thrashers can do that tomorrow afternoon in
Pittsburgh.
By the way, there's no word yet on Jon Sim's condition. Anything you heard
last night or this morning about him being out for the season (I'm looking at
you FSN Final Score) are premature at this point. When I know more, you'll know
more.
