Last night was just what the doctor ordered. The Atlanta Thrashers feasted off a struggling Ottawa club and broke out of their lingering December doldrums. Last night's game was the first won in regulation since the end of November, and it also saw the official end of Todd White's goalless streak.
Other notable things about the game include Eric Boulton's first ever power play goal, who along with his goal had an awesome fight with Chris Neal and gave the visiting Sen a nice little Atlanta beat down.
Ondrej Pavelec looked like the boy of October as he stood strong in the crease allowing only 1 goal on 31 shots and making some great saves with odd man rushes on several occasions.
The D jumped up in the play and tallied two goals on the night with the pairing of Enstrom and Kubina both finding the back of the net.
Little also found twine and pushed his season tally to 6 goals, hopefully this will help him find the spark his game has missed much of this season.
The Penalty Kill offed both shorthanded sets including most of a 5 minute major penalty early in the game by Christoph Schubert for boarding on Jonathan Cheechoo. Valabik and Donovan decided to trade punches...but that was just a warm up for the main bout on the card...Boulton vs Neil. Adrenaline and testosterone both were riding high last night as the refs stepped in and didn't let either Kozzy or Diamond Jim Slater throw down the way they wanted to, and then close to the end of the game Boulton/Neil II was about to go down..but the tree hugging...peace loving...refs stepped in and sent both guys to the showers early with game misconduct penalties for wanting to whip ass.
The Thrashers took control of this game early and never let up on the gas. The made it evident to the Senators early and often that they didn't stand a chance this night against our boys in blue. This was also the hoped and expected response by fans after the 8-1 embarrassment of Saturday night when the Thrashers were humiliated at the hands of the Washington Capitals.
No time to rest on our laurels though, we face the Buffaslugs on Thursday night when we once again don the maroon. The Sabres are currently in 2nd place in the conference and have so far amassed 61 points behind the strong play of goalie Ryan Miller. This game will not be like the pasting we just handed a weakened and vulnerable Ottawa team. Buffalo is firing on all cylinders and will be ready to make up for their loss last night also.
The Thrashers will need to come out firing and take the game to Buffalo, much in the way they did to Ottawa. What they need to go ahead and count on now is a tighter defensive effort by their opponent and a much better goal tender. We'll need to get pucks deep and fire at Miller often, with as Eric Boulton put last night in the post game show, "Getting to those pucks in the dirty areas"
Thrasher fans...enjoy the win..it was convincing..in regulation...and it felt good...but be ready to go to work on Thursday. Come out to Phillips Arena and show this team we're still supporting them.
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