Yesterday's photos

Here's your depressing Thrashers stat of the day: The boys are 2-10-1 in the 2nd game of back-to-back games this season. There are 4 more back-to-backs remaining in the season.

Don Wright of the AP took these. I want Don Wright to be my new best friend. These are some of the best hockey photos I have seen all season. He must be Pittsburgh-based, shame we don't play there very much. Someone should entice this guy to come work for Blueland. All photos enlarge to 1024x768.

Flower! With white pads!

Ex and Bugsy fight for position.
Kari does his thing against Sykora, poking the puck away. Ladies and Gentlemen, please note your player of the game, Joel Kwiatkowski,
letting Sykora get all up in Kari's grill............... Great D, Kiwi.

Kozzy works it in Flower's 5-hole.

Little and Genya battling. Oh look, and Genya holding Little's stick. Was that a penalty?

The GWG. Letang pretty much has this one move. I know Kari's weak on the stick side, but did no one show him video of the Winter Classic? Did Colby not tell Kari this was Tang's move? Sssssigh.

Also if anyone reading this besides me cares...
Million dollar bonus goal! Or, you know, knowing the Sabres, five million bucks. But worth every penny for its sheer beauty and genius. He stole the puck from the middle of a scrum, peeled away from the other 9 guys on the ice heading for Hasek, and by the time anyone knew what he was doing and could follow, he'd put it in the net. GENIUS! And that is why Pommerdoodle is captain for the month of March!

That's what I'm TALKIN' bout! Thrash win 6-2

6 - 2
I do not think I could have scripted this better had I tried. While driving home, praying my car didn't run out of gas, I was thinking over the aspects of the game, and revised my prediction to Thrash by 3, naming goal scorers as Kovy, Kovy, Kozzie, Perrin and Ex. I missed the first period and half of the second due to today being a deadline day at the ol' magazine, but let's check NHL.com for scores and see how close I came!

Exelby, G. (05:56 in 1st),
Recchi, M. (15:04 in 1st),
Kozlov, V. (17:27 in 1st),
Thorburn, C. (05:20 in 2nd),
Kovalchuk, I. (09:28 in 3rd),
Dupuis, P. (SHG, 15:20 in 3rd) (Can I point out, yet another amazing pass from Perrin? The boys from Laval are on fiah!)

I was pretty damned close. And! I picked a goal from X. Who doesn't love when X scores? I love watching a defenceman score, especially when he doesn't score often. This is definitely a game to download, should it be available on CIF (link over there on the right). Also, did everyone else watching on TV see Luba Kovalchuk jumping for joy when Kovy scored? Nothing cooler than the hockey moms in the stands, cheering on their boys!

Kari. Looked. Amazing. Nothing rattled the kid tonight. He was playing like a man on a mission, and let's just say, mission accomplished. I will also bring to your attention Kari's assist on Recchi's goal! Kimmo, you realise this means you can't go home - you have to be in the stands for all of Kari's games now. Goalie superstitions and all! Kari earned a .940 SV% this game, bringing his total for the season up to .890 from .889, and raised his GAA to 3.2, up from 3.81. Sometimes, the game is not always about wins and losses, but also about improvement, and this is solid improvement. Given that he's only played 11 games this season, those are damned good stats. Keep it up, Lehts!

I've been scouring teh intarwebs for photos, and the only ones I've found so far are from Getty, and god love 'em for being so on top of posting photos quickly, but I HATE that damned watermark so bad. Why why why did they have to switch to the NHL Images watermark? Was the general Getty mark not good enough? Rather than post photos with that damned thing across the middle, check back tomorrow for gloriously unmarked photos from tonight.

We're now tied for 3rd in the S/E with the Lightning (4 point game!), putting us tied for 10th in the Eastern Conference, plus we have 1 game in hand over the Bolts, and 2 in hand over the Caps, plus 1 on the Isles, and 1 on the Sabres. Things are looking good as we head towards the Holidays, and into the big playoff push.

Keep it up, boys. Ottawa up next. Let's not have a repeat of Saturday, eh?