Thrashers.Today.Com

By Bud L. Ellis
thrashers.today.com

ATLANTA — Lifeless. Listless. Embarrassing. Horrid. Wretched. Putrid.

You get the idea.

I attended my first Thrashers game of the season tonight, and let’s just say I was disappointed in what I saw. Or actually, in what I didn’t see.

I didn’t see anything that resembled an NHL team. I didn’t see hustle. I didn’t see jump. I didn’t see promise. I didn’t see hope.

It’s just one game, but my goodness, it was horrible.

Tonight’s 2-0 loss to Columbus featured perhaps the worst game I’ve ever seen Ilya Kovalchuk play. Turnovers. A fanned swing on a one-timer. A frustrated star who slammed the door to the bench so hard after one rotten shift, you could hear it echo through half-empty Philips Arena.

Ondrej Pavelec kept this from being a 4-0 game in the first period. Columbus hit the post early on. It could have been a lot worse than it was.

The second line of Slava Kozlov, Todd White and Bryan Little generated scoring chances. Jason Williams played OK. Garnet Exelby got into a fight and hit everybody in sight. He played well. So, too, did Toby Enstrom and Ron Hainsey.

But after that … nope. The rest of the Thrashers need to donate their paychecks from tonight’s game to charity.

Or pay back the folks – including myself – who watched this disastrous excuse for hockey we were subjected to tonight.

Full gamer tomorrow. I’m out.

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