Happy Thanksgiving Atlanta...I Hope You Choke

By Adam W Parks

Wednesday, November 26, 2009 Thrashers 2 @ Red Wings 0

Of all the ridiculous places to put an NHL team...Phoenix, AZ, Sunrise and Tampa Bay, FL, Nashville, TN...Atlanta, Georgia has to be the worst. And who names a team after a bird that is not an eagle, or a falcon, or a hawk, or a raven? What are thrashers anyway? Read on, you'll find out that they are much dumber than penguins. (Sorry, but when the Wings lose in a shootout, I do not have much to talk about, so I'm pretty much going to rip on the Thrashers franchise for a while here.)

Why Atlanta? Why Thrashers?
















Seriously, I cannot think of a single thing that I like about the Atlanta Thrashers. Not one. Nope, nothing. I would like to know what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was thinking giving the state of Georgia a franchise. He must have gone delusional sucking fumes while stuck in traffic on the 403. Ever drive through Atlanta on the way south to have fun in a different state? It sucks, trust me. Anyway, the city already has three respectable professional sports teams: the Braves, Falcons, and Hawks. College football is huge with the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, and Nascar/auto-racing is massive with the Atlanta Motor Speedway just miles away from the city. So, why try to jam hockey into an already over-crowded sports market?

The Thrashers entered the league in 1999 and have served as nothing more than a springboard for free agency sign-aways and trade deadline deals. A place where the elite can go to pad their stats and earn bigger contracts without those nagging pressures of playing in the playoffs. Remember where Marion Hossa came from before he ditched the Penguins for the Wings for the Blackhawks. Yup, Atlanta. The Thrashers have never won a playoff game, and the only time they reached the post season was in 2007 (first round sweep by the New York Rangers). Hossa led the team that season in goals (43), assists (57), and points (100). In the middle of the following season, as Atlanta sank back to the depths of the Eastern Conference where they belong, Hossa was dealt to the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was his third season in a three-year, $18 million contract with the Thrashers. A seemingly great situation for a guy to score a ton of points and become a perennial all-star right? Wrong. Hossa couldn't wait to get out of Atlanta because it is not a hockey town. Go ask Dany Heatley, Marc Savard, or Keith Tkachuk how they liked playing down there. In the last year of his contract, let us count down the days before the Ilya Kovalchuk, the franchise's leading goal-scorer and assist-maker, is sent packing for a contender.

Honestly though. How are players supposed to concentrate on the game of hockey in Georgia when all they can think about is picking peaches?














Want to know what a thrasher is? You are looking at one. Yup, the brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) is the official big, bad, bird of the state of Georgia. It belongs to the same family that boasts other ferocious winged wonders like mockingbirds. Mock--Yeah! Ing--Yeah! Atlanta--Yeah! Now, a long time ago at Lake Superior State University, I was a biology major, but I switched (for the first time) to English only three years into the degree process. I never took ornithology (the labs for that class were at 6 AM on Saturday mornings!), so I will refer to Wikipedia for some insight to the nasty, fly and let die lifestyle of the thrasher:

The Brown Thrasher is brown or reddish-brown above, with a white breast and throat streaked with brown, and two white bars on each wing. It has a long tail, and its beak is also relatively large and somewhat curved. Adults average about 29 cm (11.5 inches) in length.

It is difficult to see all this however, as the bird is a retiring type that prefers thickets and heavy brush, often searching for food in dry leaves on the ground. In fact, it is more likely to be heard than seen, not only because of the rattling of leaves, but also because of its call, a sharp lip-smacking type sound. This bird is omnivorous, eating insects, berries, nuts and seeds, as well as earthworms, snails and sometimes lizards.

An omnivore! How terrifying! It's like a tiny, warm-blooded, feather-covered pterodactyl! I have actually heard something about the thrasher's diet that Wikipedia failed to mention. Although they do sample a wide-assortment of food items, they really prefer nuts over anything else.

Absolutely positive that there is nothing I like about the Atlanta Thrashers.










The Russian Three?

Oh how we love to remember how amazing it was to watch Russia's finest exports (this side of Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, and vodka) play around with the Detroit's opposition in the mid-1990s. The Russian Five! Sergei Fedorov was the ungrateful marquee guy. Igor Larionov was the 'Professor'. Viatcheslav Fetisov was the grand-father. Vladimir Konstantinov was the 'Impaler'. And Vyacheslav Kozlov was the guy that was inconsistent who never really reached his potential in Detroit so we traded him to Buffalo for Dominik Hasek.



Kozlov has carved out a fine career in the NHL and has been in Atlanta since the 2002-03 season. On the current Thrashers roster he is joined by fellow countrymen Maxim Afinogenov and Kovalchuk to form a trio of Russians that are highly-skilled and can offer their own style of Soviet play today. Going into the game Wednesday night against the Wings the three were all ranked in the top six in scoring for their team, and it was they who slayed the Wings at the Joe. Kozlov led the way against his former team with a power play backhand goal in the second period off a great feed from Kovalchuk. It was Kozlov's fifth goal in the past six games against Detroit. In the first period he and Afinogenov both assisted for Nik Antropov who, despite the -ov last name, is not Russian, rather Kazakhstanian.

The 40 Year Old Virgin Got Luckier More Than the Wings Did On Wednesday

The Wings are struggling to get goals right now, that much is obvious. Detroit has scored just five times in the past five games and is 1-3-1 in that stretch. Watching them try to put the puck in the net on Wednesday was like watching Andy try to put his...I mean Pavel Datsyuk even tried flipping the puck over Thrashers goalie Ondrej Pavelec from behind the net! Tomas Holmstrom actually got a great scoring chance off the play! The Wings threw 19 shots on goal, ten on the power play, in the first period alone...uh oh. They finished with a total of 40 shots on Pavelec. Pavelec finished with a total of 40 saves for his first career NHL shutout. It was just the second time that Atlanta has won in Detroit and their third victory overall against the Wings in twelve tries.

The Turtle Tank

And now I would like to introduce a new segment to LAMP THE LIGHT. This is the first ever appearance of The Turtle Tank, my version of the doghouse, just a little more tailor-made for me. It will not appear in every post; I shall use it at my own discretion when I feel a certain player deserves calling-out. If you read my last post, you might think that Todd Bertuzzi would be swimming with turtles. Not so, not after Ville Leino's performance on Wednesday.

What is up with this guy? Of all the skaters that the Wings were counting on to step up and fill the void of the free agency losses, Leino had the highest expectations as far as goal scoring. He has just three goals and five assists in 22 games played this season. There should be no reason for the lack of production as Mike Babcock has regularly given him opportunities to skate on Detroit's top lines, and he has received consistent power play time. It is amazing that a guy with as much skill and opportunity that he has cannot put the puck in the not more often, though it was not his inability to score against the Thrashers that got him in the Tank.

Leino made a season's worth of terrible mistakes against Atlanta and they all resulted from a lack of hustle and urgency. Two of the following three examples directly affected the scoring of the game while the third easily could have.

1) Antropov should never have scored that goal in the first period. Afinogenov sent a pass across the crease in front of Jimmy Howard and Antropov was right there to tap it in. Who was following late in the play, behind Antropov, bent-over and reaching out lackadaisically and uselessly with his stick? Instead of coasting into your own zone Leino, try taking a few strides and tying up the guy who is in front of you.

2) Detroit had plenty of quality opportunities to score against Pavelec, but the best chance came off of Zetterberg's stick from a lazy dish from Leino. Dan Cleary came into the Thrashers zone and forced Pavelec to skate forward and play the puck off the boards at a bad angle. Leino was able to pick up the puck inside the blue line and sent a molasses pass to Hank for a one-timer. The pass was spot on, it just took way too long to get to Zetterberg. Pavelec had plenty, almost too much, time to recover and made a glove save that looked more spectacular than what it actually was.

3) The game could have been 1-0 in favor of the Wings if Leino had been moving his feet and playing with a sense of urgency. The following play almost made it 3-0 Atlanta. In the second period, the always-dangerous Kovalchuk brought the puck in for a one-on-one against Nicklas Lidstrom. Harmless right? No big deal. Kovalchuk actually avoided Lidstrom and took the puck to the outside, allowing a lane for the trailing Thrasher, Anssi Salmela. Lidstrom, now out of position, had to make an awkward play on the puck and drew a critical penalty to stop the breakaway on Howard. Who was slowly following the play for the Wings? Leino crossed into the zone with a few nonchalant strides and made no attempt to catch Salmela. The penalty came just a few minutes after Kozlov's power play goal, and Atlanta has the fifth-best power play (23.5%) in the league, whereas the Wings (74.4%) have the third-worst penalty kill. The Thrashers did not score, but the penalty did keep the momentum in their favor for most of the second period.

So there he is folks, Ville Leino, the first turtle in the tank. When I see young guys, former Griffins like Darren Helm, Jonathan Ericsson, and Justin Abdelkader hustling on every shift, and the new veterans like Brad May, Patrick Eaves, Drew Miller, and yes even Bertuzzi working their butts off to fit into the Wings system, it seems shameful that Leino continues to slack off. He has already been benched once by Babcock, perhaps a trip to Grand Rapids would get this guy's head straight and feet moving. Too bad the Wings cannot afford to do that right now.

Mickeyisms

Because I have not had a good Mickey Redmond quote in a while, here are two. After Leino's lame pass to Zetterberg, Mickey said, "There was only one problem with this play and that was the pass took too long to get there, and it gave the goaltender time to adjust and make it look easy." When Datsyuk lifted the puck over the net and Holmstrom chopped away in vain at the puck, Mickey said, "That's the reason when Holmstrom comes off after a shift the puck's got about 8 chips in it. He just keeps hacking and whacking at it."

Peace. Happy Thanksgiving.