Keeping Hope Alive

The Thrashers kept their playoff hopes (as slim as they are) alive with a 4-3 win over Buffalo last night. Last night's game may have been one of the best performances of the team in the last month or more.

The Thrashers jumped out early with goals by Antropov and Little and then after the Sabres answered with a power play goal of their own then Afinogenov tallied right back and that was the end of the night for Ryan Miller.

The rest of the game was a battle with the Sabres erasing the Thrasher's lead and with just over 6 minutes left Jim Slater tipped in a Nic Bergfors shot and the Thrashers took the lead.

What I liked the most from the team's performance last night was the level of physicality, they took it to the Sabres from the drop of the puck and never let off the gas. Moose battled all night long and while not on top of his game put in a great effort in net and was rewarded. The other thing that the Thrashers did was to crash the net....oh my God...that really works?!?

There is good news and bad news about this win...the Good news is we didn't lose any ground on the 8th place Boston Bruins...the Bad news is that the Bruins beat the Canes last night so we didn't gain any ground either. The Thrashers will need to build on this strong performance with Ottawa coming into town tomorrow and make sure to play a physically tough game with a lot of net crashing.

According to the Globe and Mail we are still mathematically in the playoff hunt but the Thrasher will need to play near perfect hockey for the remainder of the season and there are a lot of tough games yet to play including several against the Penguins along with a meeting with the Capitals and back to back meetings this weekend with the Flyers.