NNN: We've Got the Pogge Fever

From Atlanta Thrashers blog "Do The Thrashers Have Large Talons" (Survey says: no):

Do any of these players feel guilty for taking the organizations money after an effort like that? They ought to be donating the pay check for this game to charity because they certainly didn't earn it. They should thank their lucky stars that they don't play in Detroit, Toronto or Montreal because they would be getting ripped apart by the local media and fans on sports radio stations.

Darn tootin', here in Toronto we haven't accepted players who are just here for the paycheck and didn't earn their cash for over 30 games. That's a three month tradition of excellence, thank you very much.

The entire defense corps ought to be ashamed of themselves. In baseball they have a term "defensive indifference" which means that a runner advanced with no attempt by the defense to stop him. Well the official scorer for the Thrashers-Leafs game could have used that phrase on the first three Leafs goals.

I actually sort of feel bad for this writer at this point. However one thing I really liked was this:

Cumulative Damage: Players on the ice for
4 Against: Kovalchuk, Reasoner
3 Against: Oystrick, Schneider Thorburn

Toronto counterattacked well twice when Kovalchuk had controlled the play in the Leafs zone, and it's nice to see Thorburn hung out to dry after his hit on the new look "decent player" Jason Blake during the last Leafs-Thrashers meeting.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution had this to say about last night's game:

Where was the effort the Thrashers had shown when beating this team 6-3 a month ago in Toronto?

“It wasn’t there, not even close, from the start of the game,” said forward Colby Armstrong, who showed more energy pumping his fist to celebrate his second-period goal than his teammates had shown in the first 39 minutes.

Fist pump on a meaningless goal? Check. Maybe Colby and Blake are related.

“We weren’t ready to compete tonight,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. Asked if there was a button he could push to change that, he said, “Sometimes it’s hard to tell. It seemed like we were ready to go, and then we were a flat tire out there. At some point we have to rally beyond that.

“In 82 games [of a hockey season], sometimes you get games like that. The hard thing for a team like us that’s so desperate for points [in the standings] is that we can’t afford it, especially in the situation we are in right now. And that’s the thing that hurts.”

This is why Toronto brought in Ron Wilson. Sometimes it's hard to tell? Ron Wilson knows the Leafs are coming out of the gate hard or he knows that their next practice won't involve pucks.

Every team comes out flat sometimes, but their coach can't just write it off, especially not on a terrible team. Ron Wilson has brought accountability to the Maple Leafs, and that's why in their first year of rebuilding they've leapfrogged over teams like Atlanta.