Thrashers Rebound on Leafs

With the Thrashers still stung from their shutout loss in Sunrise the Thrashers got back home to the friendly confines of Phillips Arena and a home town crowd (though there were still plenty of leaf fans in the stands) and was able to gut out a win against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Overall a good game from the Thrashers with a solid effort by Ondrej Pavelec who earned 3rd star honors for the night. Personally I was ready to give him top honors for his efforts in goal, it seems like the 1st star of the night...Kaptain Kovy did the same in the paper crediting the young Czech with the key to a successful outing last night.

After falling behind 2-0 in the first period on a few defensive lapses...I'm looking at you Salmela and Hainsey, we were able to come out in the 2nd period and knot things back up on the strength of goals by Kovy and Kane. Kane's goal in particular was nice because it was sooo damn grungy, I love those dirty goals.

With the game all tied up we came back out and really took it to the Leafs and were able to throw up another goal this time on the power play as the Pevs dispenser did his thang.  Soon after that Kovy dropped the hammer on his 2nd goal of the night to add some well needed insurance, in what eventually became the game winner. Toronto fires back but we end up holding on and fighting off a stupid ass penalty with less than 2 minutes to go where the Leafs pulled Toskala to give them a 6-4 man advantage.

For the most part I thought we played very well, we didn't get down and feel sorry for ourselves after dropping the first two goals. We got good timely scoring and killed off all our penalties, a desperately needed act by the way. We could have been a little more disciplined and stayed out of the box more as those penalties kept us on the defensive for some tough stretches including having to kill off a 5 on 3 for just over a minute.

Shoutouts to Bill Tiller (a.k.a Rawhide) I spent the night chillin' with him in 110 last night and to R. Stroz and his lovely wife. It was great to see you guys again. To my peoples up on 310..I missed you guys and I'll see you tomorrow night. Dan I saw you in the Leafs sweater...shame on you...not when they are in town dude!!

Tomorrow we have Carolina coming into town, we've beat them in both matches so far in Raleigh and now we get them in our house. Don't underestimate this team...and I'm speaking to both fans and the team alike. They may be sitting in the divisional cellar but they can be dangerous and have pushed this team to the limit in both meetings so far this season. The Canes will be looking for some payback and are fighting to win every game they can to save their pride.

Come out to Phillips and make some noise...Caniac fans are always great to be around and this team is starting to get back to mid November form.

Believe in Blueland