Dull as a butterknife
Come to think of it, that butter knife is more exciting than the Thrashers contest. Who would have thought I'd have more fun blowing, raking and bagging leaves for 4.5 hours than I had for 2.5 hours in Philips Arena.
Dull-lights
Columbus is the type of team that generally gives the Thrashers fits. Even though the rest of the league can take take advantage of their relatively thin offensive talent, the Thrashers have trouble moving against a team that plays defense first and can put up a wall at the blueline forcing a team to dump and chance. With little forecheck and out of sync passing, the Thrashers were doomed from the outset. In the end, the Thrashers made more mistakes than the Blue Jackets and the Jackets converted the Thrashers' mistake into the winning goal. An empty net goal with less than 90 seconds finally wrapped it up.
Thrashers simply couldn't generate many scoring chances. Whenever they reach the Jackets zone, there were too many bodies for the offense to deal with. When they tried to dump the puck, rarely would the Thrashers get their first and hardly ever won the battles for the puck in the offensive zone. In the end the Thrashers had only 14 shots and that simply isn't going to win many NHL games.
Things could have been worse for the Thrashers but Pavelec had another strong game in goal. Nothing spectacular but very solid. Columbus's only goal was the result of a Thrasher turnover that turned into a close shot attempt with wide rebound that Nash easily buried in the net.
Passing and shooting looked particular out of sync for the Thrashers on this night. I stopped counting the number of times the Thrashers wound up for a shot only to miss the puck, shoot wide or worse. Kovy had a horrible game offensively, missing on most his shot attempts and looking frustrated by the sufficating Columbus defense. Only a brief stretch of the third period featured any significant Thrasher opportunities.
A 5 game winning streak was ended a week ago and now the Thrashers have a 3 game losing streak. The frustrating inconsistencies continue. This team cannot afford to play at any less than 100% and expect to win. Last nights effort was far less than 100%.
Sitting up top is an adventure every time. I never really know what I'm going to get. This particular night featured a loud-month drunk girl who would put most sailors to shame. The worst of it came when she tried for nearly half a period to get a wave going. Fortunately, most of the fans were with me in denying her this particular pleasure.
The season is almost a quarter over but I'm waiting for the 25 game mark for a progress report. Here's hoping they get another winning streak going soon.
1 comment:
Good thing you're a Wings fan too or this would be a VERY long season. Take it from a Flyers fan.
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