Good Start to March Madness

The Thrashers came out of the gate with a good start last night against the Florida Panthers. With 16 more games to play this month (11 left at home) the Thrashers have just begun a march to the playoffs, but they started in fine fashion last night.

Coming out of the gate you could tell that the typical listless 1st period play of the Thrashers this season was not in force. They came out with a purpose and played hard. With less than 5 minutes in we found ourselves up by 2 goals and I was beginning to think we were going to chase Clemenson from the net. The Panthers never say die though and fired back scoring the next two goals and knotting the contest at 2 apiece going into the first intermission.

The boys in blue came out for the second period and put the game away on a power play goal by Todd White and then a slap shot from the point from Pavel Kubina and sealed the deal. The Thrashers finished out the 3rd period strong with Todd White's goal standing up as the game winner.

Last night's win put us at 64 points, just 1 points out of 8th place and 2 points out of 7th place. Next up is the Islanders, who we have not been able to beat thus far this season. The Thrashers will need to jump out quick and steal the momentum of the game. Look for Artyukhin to make the lineup on Thursday, not sure who's going to be sitting out.

As Ben Wright posted on twitter the 23 man roster limit has been lifted for the rest of the season so the feeding frenzy is on for teams to beef up their rosters. The Thrashers added veteran defenseman Chris Chelios yesterday to a 2 way contract. This should be seen as nothing more than a depth signing and I don't expect you'll see him up unless we have some injuries that sideline our regular corps of defensemen.

There is still about 5 1/2 hours left before the trade deadline. I'll post something more based on any moves the Thrashers are able to make.