Too Little, Too Late??

Playoff crashers? Thrashers' success too little, too late
April 7, 2006
By Wes Goldstein
CBS SportsLine.com Staff Writer

If nothing else, the Atlanta Thrashers deserve credit for making their
general manager's unlikely guarantee a lot more plausible than it
initially sounded.

Before the Olympic break, when Atlanta was still below .500 and bouncing
around between the ninth and 12th spots in the Eastern Conference, Don
Waddell promised a postseason berth. Barring a miracle, the Thrashers
won't be in the playoffs -- but they did come back from the proverbial
dead when the season resumed, and they have made a run that has them
mathematically alive with less than two weeks to go, giving them
something to build on next year.

Thursday's shootout loss in Tampa Bay left the Thrashers six points
behind the eighth-place Lightning with only six games remaining, and
even further behind Montreal and New Jersey. Atlanta has played some of
its best hockey this season in the past five weeks, going 11-6-1 since
the break, but the Canadiens have been on fire, while New Jersey and
Tampa Bay have been good enough to make the Thrashers lose ground
overall.

"It's been a little frustrating because we've gone at a pretty good clip
and not been able to get anywhere," said captain Scott Mellanby.

In many ways, that has been the story of the Thrashers' season.

Looking for its first playoff appearance, Atlanta acted aggressively in
the aftermath of the lockout, loosening the purse strings to make some
major personnel changes. The biggest move was a trade of young stars
that sent Dany Heatley to Ottawa for Marian Hossa. Atlanta worked the
free-agent market as well, signing veterans Bobby Holik and Peter Bondra
to bolster an offense that already included Ilya Kovalchuk and Marc
Savard.

Along the blue line, the Thrashers added veterans Jaroslav Modry,
Nicklas Havelid and Greg de Vries, and with "can't miss" rookie Kari
Lehtonen set to stake his place in goal for the next decade, the
Thrashers began the season widely expected to see postseason action.

But things went wrong almost immediately when Lehtonen suffered a groin
injury midway through the first period on opening night, sidelining him
until New Year's. His backup, Mike Dunham, went down a week later, and
by the time Lehtonen came back, Atlanta had gone through three other
goalies and had lodged itself in with the conference also-rans, close
enough to have hope, but far enough behind to make sure it wouldn't be
easy.

"The one thing we've had going all year is consistent inconsistency,"
said Holik. "You cannot afford that this year when league is so even."

That lesson is being driven home painfully these days for Atlanta, which
actually climbed into eighth only two weeks ago on the heels of a three-
game winning streak, and at least temporarily wiped the smirks off the
faces of Waddell's naysayers. But then the Thrashers came up flat in a
game they should have won against the Islanders, again dropping out of
the final spot. They haven't been able to climb back from since.

"It's been tough because it seems like we play great and then we can
collapse," said Lehtonen. "I think nobody feels tired right now because
when you get down to this point, everybody still has that extra push."

Atlanta is going to need help with that extra push. A night after
producing a convincing win against Florida, the Thrashers played with
the requisite intensity and desperation in their critical match Thursday
in Tampa Bay, tying it on a Kovalchuk goal with less than three seconds
remaining. It gave them a point, but in a game they had to win, it ended
up doing little good. It also proved costly because Lehtonen, who has
started the past 39 games and was 5-0 in shootouts this season, left
after spraining an ankle in a collision with Tampa Bay's Chris Dingman
and might not return this season.

Thrashers coach Bob Hartley was livid about the hit after the game,
calling Dingman the "worst three-minute player in the league," but that
said more about his frustration than the actual incident. Atlanta goes
home to face Carolina and has one more meeting with the Lightning, but
has to face the reality that a solid second-half run has likely been too
little, too late.

"Basically we have to run the table from now on and hope we can catch
someone," said Mellanby. "It's a daunting task, but we're not going to
pack it in."