On Sunday night, the Thrashers hosted the St. Louis Blues in the Philips Arena.
It’s surprising just a few days ago I had written that the Thrashers needed to change up their defensive pairings, which would guide them to better defense and wins.
The last few games of losses, which included a 6-3 loss on Saturday night from the lowly yet now streaking New York Islanders, lead to Coach John Anderson to switch up his lines.
Most of this season, the Thrashers have had fairly bad defense, and having two young more offensive minded defensemen on the same pairing has puzzled me. Yes, they’ve produced offense, but just offense doesn’t win games.
On Sunday, Coach Anderson finally decided to split up Tobias Enstrom and Zack Bogosian. Enstrom played with Pavel Kubina, and Bogosian skated with Ron Hainsey, as well Mark Popovic was inserted into the line-up putting Anssi Salmela as a healthy scratch.
“Obviously we didn’t play well in our zone last night. We did much better tonight [Sunday],” Kubina said.
Not only did the defense look better, after a couple of shifts, the offense from them was still there.
Down two to ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Peter Bojarinov
Atlanta Thrashers Change Up Goaltending and Lines, Earn Shootout Win
November 9th, 2009 by Peter Bojarinov Leave a reply »
Advertisement