Close But No Cigar...Again
The Thrasher played hard and were competitive against a better team...again. Here's a quick re-cap of the Thrashers record after 10 games.
7-4 WAS
2-3 FLA
2-4 MIN
0-1 NJD
3-2 BUF
2-3 TBL
3-5 DET (EN goal)
4-5 BOS
2-3 NYR
Basically the Thrashers have been involved in one blowout win and one blowout loss and all the rest of the games they were either tied or within one goal right up until the end of the game. (In the MIN game the score was to 3-2 until 18th minute of the third period).
People are flipping out on the official message boards. I guess if I expected this team to make major strides I might flip out too. But I never expected this team to make the playoffs this year. They look like a 85-88 point team to me and playoffs usually require 95 points. Yet, the guys have played hard in every game other than the Philly contest. They have been in every contest but the Philly game.
Last season's Thrashers club would have stumbled along for several games after a terrible blowout loss such as the Philly 7-0 game. This team came out and competed, they bounced back and did the good things they were doing prior to Tuesday night. That's the most I can ask as a fan (other than a win). Coach Anderson remarked that they have been a bit unlucky so far and I concur with that. They should probably have a couple more points in the standing but they haven't been able to finish off on some crucial scoring opportunities.
This team has more of a future than last year's team. We actually have some young players who could be on a Cup contending team in 2010. Last year we had too many guys who were destined to be out of the NHL by 2010.
7-4 WAS
2-3 FLA
2-4 MIN
0-1 NJD
3-2 BUF
2-3 TBL
3-5 DET (EN goal)
4-5 BOS
2-3 NYR
Basically the Thrashers have been involved in one blowout win and one blowout loss and all the rest of the games they were either tied or within one goal right up until the end of the game. (In the MIN game the score was to 3-2 until 18th minute of the third period).
People are flipping out on the official message boards. I guess if I expected this team to make major strides I might flip out too. But I never expected this team to make the playoffs this year. They look like a 85-88 point team to me and playoffs usually require 95 points. Yet, the guys have played hard in every game other than the Philly contest. They have been in every contest but the Philly game.
Last season's Thrashers club would have stumbled along for several games after a terrible blowout loss such as the Philly 7-0 game. This team came out and competed, they bounced back and did the good things they were doing prior to Tuesday night. That's the most I can ask as a fan (other than a win). Coach Anderson remarked that they have been a bit unlucky so far and I concur with that. They should probably have a couple more points in the standing but they haven't been able to finish off on some crucial scoring opportunities.
This team has more of a future than last year's team. We actually have some young players who could be on a Cup contending team in 2010. Last year we had too many guys who were destined to be out of the NHL by 2010.
posted by The Falconer at
9:51 PM
2 Comments:
Thank you - finally someone in the blogosphere doesn't feel the need to be a complete negative nellie.
When you finish 28th out of 30, there are a *lot* of areas needing improvement and that improvement doesn't happen overnight. Last season, out of the Thrashers 48 losses/OTL/SOL, only half of them were by a goal margin of 2 or less - about 1/4 were by one goal and another 1/4 by two goals. And in the first 10 games those margins were even uglier last season. This season, as Falconer showed, 5 of 8 losses were by one goal, two by two, and only one blow-out. There has been a noticable, tangible improvement to this team overall from last season. It hasn't translated into wins yet but by the same token look at the teams we have played - Detroit, Minnesota, Rangers, New Jersey ... those teams aren't exactly bottom-feeders.
IMO the goals of this season are to a)get a feel for whether or not Anderson's approach will work in the NHL and b)determine which players on our roster can execute that system successfully. If we assume that eventually (a) will prove to be true, then all that's left is (b). So far the only two players I have concerns about are Williams and Christensen. They've both had some good moments but neither one has really been in sync with the various lines they have been on. I'm not at a point where I'd say definitively either is a bust, but I'm cautious. There are some other players where we could do with an upgrade ... guys like Boulton. Now I like Boulton, but maybe we can find someone who does what Boulton does but better...Hoffman might be that guy. Who knows. But realistically, as much as I know Coach wants to win, this season shouldn't necessarily be about winning as mich as it is building the foundation for success. A little late in coming after 8 full seasons, however at least this time we are starting with much better bones than in 1999-2000.
By
Anonymous, at 7:39 AM
Speaking of Cup contending players by 2010, how long do you think Kozlov will stick around? He's one of my personal favorites.
By
Anonymous, at 1:14 PM
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