Playoff Hopes..Meet Drain

The Thrashers' playoff hopes have not totally faded yet...but they are doing that slow death spiral right around the drain and may soon empty out into the ocean. With last night's tough loss to Nashville the Thrashers are now in a position where they have to play .750 hockey the rest of the month. They haven't preformed that well all season, even back in November when they were hot. The best winning streak the Thrashers have been able to put together all season was 4, they did this twice in November, since then the best they have been able to string together is 2. They need to win 9 out of the last 12 games in March that means that they have to put together no less than an average of 3 winning streaks of 3 games a piece. With teams like the Coyotes (4th in Western Conference), Sabres (3rd in Eastern Conference), Senators (5th in Eastern Conference) and Flyers (6th in Eastern Conference) that's a tall tall order.

Unlike our divisional rival Carolina who can look at their derailed playoff hopes from the beginning of the season and maybe hang a lot of the blame on injury, the Thrashers have nobody to blame but themselves. Their porous defense, lazy starts and lack of consistent play, along with the Kovy contract drama (if you really believe the BS that it didn't cause problems you're fooling yourself) and the instability in goal all helped to set up this situation.

Ok...for the 3 or 4 of you who read my blog on a pretty consistent basis you know that I am usually pretty ra-ra when it comes to the Thrashers. I love this team and I had said from the beginning of the season that this team would make the playoffs and honestly spewed a little venom in the pre-season against those that predicted our finish to be around the 12-14 positions in the conference. First, I apologize for those that predicted we would finish outside the playoffs, I guess you were right and I was wrong. Second, I think this team, as it was when it broke camp, could have made the playoffs if some of the things that happened this season hadn't happened; namely Kovy not re-signing.

Is it over this season? Technically....mathematically....not yet. If you've followed this team for any real amount this season, and I'm assuming you have if you're reading my blog then you know that the chances of the Thrashers pulling off the performance they will need for the rest of this month and the month of April is highly unlikely.