Last night's photos, and Kari's comments

I'm too bummed out still to bother with captions. Here's to hoping we don't make Toronto look like a Cup contender on Saturday. Photos courtesy the AP and Presswire. Only a few are 1024x768, and so notated.

(click for larger)

(click for larger)

(click for larger)

Snippet from Craig's AJC column today:

Raleigh — All the goalie equipment that had piled up around him was gone, ready to be loaded on a bus for a trip to the airport. The hum of the postgame showers whistled while Thrashers teammates hurried to wash away the ugly 5-3 loss to the Hurricanes.

But Thrashers goalie Kari Lehtonen just sat and stared. If he was in a hurry to get to Toronto and face another barrage of shots, he didn't show it. The usually affable goalie was still steaming. At his teammates. At himself.

In a game against first-place Carolina, the Thrashers followed four days of rest and preparation by letting the Hurricanes dominate play for the first period. The Thrashers were outshot 21-5 in the first.

"It was a big joke," Lehtonen said of the effort to start the game. "The whole period. I don't know why we were not ready."

He was. He made all 21 saves, and the Thrashers went into the first intermission in a scoreless tie.

But then came his mistakes. Early in the second, Lehtonen went behind the net to backhand a puck to a teammate, but instead Carolina's Eric Staal came away with the puck and fed Ray Whitney in front of the net for an easy goal.

Later in the period, a turnover by Lehtonen kept the puck in the Thrashers' zone, giving Carolina another shot at scoring, which they did. Ryan Bayda gave the Hurricanes a 2-1 lead.

Then came the backbreaker. Scott Walker ripped a slapshot from 45 feet away, at an angle Lehtonen usually handles. But this one beat Lehtonen and sapped what little energy the Thrashers had mustered during a decent rally in the second period.

"That's the bad thing about goaltending; when you make a mistake there's not another goalie to save your [butt]," Lehtonen said.

After saving his teammates in the first, there was nobody to save Lehtonen.