I cannot think of a time I even imagined hearing myself murmur those words, over and over, in my head. The brutality of the fans tonight as our towering 6’7″ Boris Valabik stumbled around the ice at first made me think he is lucky his fate is not in the fans hands…Unfortunately, it wasn’t just Boris who seemed as though he couldn’t figure it out tonight. There was a little too much familiarity in the power plays that seemed to continually avoid the net.
One of Atlanta’s biggest issues is the constant inability to shoot the puck into (or even towards) the goal. It was very disappointing tonight to see that, with a practically brand new coaching staff we were still watching the “ring around the goalie” game that Thrashers fans are constantly being forced to witness. And while on the topic of goals, Ondrej Pavelec, well, unfortunately, he didn’t surprise me very much at all honestly. The only thing that surprised me about him is that I thought he had a little more to prove. With 5 goals scored against him though, my guess is he was just proving after 5 goals, he wouldn’t get pulled.
Honestly, there were so many issues with the performance of the Atlanta Thrashers tonight, it is hard to remember the two goals scored by Bryan Little and Fredrik Pettersson. While both Bryan and Fredrik were about to show they were in this to win it, there were a few others who tried as well. Unfortunately, Evander Kane had (another) huge target on him tonight, but even with all of the constant attacking, he still did a great job of moving the puck, shooting and passing. Spencer Machacek, Danick Paquette, Freddy Meyer and Anthony Stewart all showed they really want a spot on this team. In my opinion, Jamie Sifers was trying to make his name known as well, though there were a few people who sent him back down to Chicago tonight as well.
There is a lot of work still to be done in Duluth…this much I know for sure.
Poor Boris!
