Thrasher’s coach mixes it up
Head coach John Anderson decided maybe a change was in order. On the heels of the loss handed to the Thrashers in Toronto on Monday the coaching staff made some changes in practice yesterday with regards to the lines.
The newly shuffled lines look like this
Kovalchuk-White-Little
Kozlov-Antropov-Afinogenov
Slater-Peverley-Armstrong
Kane/Boutlon-Reasoner-Thorburn
Moose in goal.
There’s speculation on who the defensive pairings will be also. Mark Popovic did not have a very good game so I look for him to be a scratch in favor of Anssi Salmela. Boris Valabik has yet to see action since his return and against a gritty Calgary team he may also be an option for the coaching staff.
As far as forwards go who will be the scratch is kind of up in the air at this point. This is the first time this season that Kane has practiced on the 4th line and with the aforementioned grit needed against Calgary he looks like he may be a scratch but recent comments by John Anderson make that unlikely. Jim Slater has been a press box regular and therefore he may be returned to that position come game time, but with the poor performance by practically all the forwards on Monday with the exception maybe of the 4th line it’s still anybodies guess.
This will be the only meeting this year against Calgary for the Thrashers and they look to turn things around following the abysmal performance Monday night when the Maple Leafs trounced them in the 2nd period for 5 unanswered goals on the way to a 5-2 win.
Statistically these two teams match up pretty well. Atlanta holds a statistical lead in power play, penalty kill, shots taken per game and goal for per game. Where Calgary holds a statistical lead in goals against per game and shots allowed per game.
The goalie match up is where it really begins to look interesting
Miikka Kiprusoff – 16-7-3 2.21GAA .926Save% 3 SO
Johan Hedberg – 9-7-2 2.16GAA .933Save% 1 SO
Hedburg is currently ranked 5th in Goals Against and Kiprusoff is ranked 6th.
The game will be broadcast tonight at 9:30 Eastern Standard Time.
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not sure how Kovy will do w/o his russian counterparts, however, he is one of the best snipers in the game. the thing here is, maybe this gets littles game going properly, as well as maybe this helps antro more help with kozlov and afino – nice balance there however, should be a fun game!
It’s certainly going to shake things up.
Per Dan Kamal’s twitter (Dan is our local radio play by play) scratches are going to be
Popovic (foot), Kane, Schubert.
This means that Slater, Valabik and Salmela are playing. Expect lines to be as seen above