Reflections on the Thrashers' Inter-Divisional Play

First of all, a commanding and definitive analysis of last night's game:

Good effort by Kari, sweet goal by Hossa, the late Slava Koslov seemed alive again, could've done with an earlier lead and/or a shutout and/or a game without a Vincent Lecavalier goal. But we won, so I'm not really complaining...

Which brings me to Zhitnik. Zhitnik. Zhitnik?

Now then, on to other matters. I was in conversation with T-Man/Big T/Big Shooter (he changes his name every two weeks I think) a few days ago and he told me that Don Waddell said in an interview that the reason the Thrashers won the division title last year was because they had the best record against their fellow Southeastern Division teams. Apparently our record of inter-divisional victories is highest this year as well, and it looks set to continue that way. It's great that we wallop Carolina, Washington, Florida, and Tampa Bay more often than not (that's what we MUST do), but it would be awfully nice to have won against the Flyers and the Canucks this past week! Ah well. We've proven we can compete with Big Dick Teams like the Senators and the Penguins, and our play against Western Conference teams is far from disastrous (read: the Detroit Red Wings game). Which is why the coming weeks will be interesting and stressful: most of our remaining games are against Southeastern teams, but we'll also be running into Westerners like the Minnesota Wild, Colorado Avalanche, and Calgary Flames. I'm fairly confident about our road trip and the final homestead; I predict that...well, I don't want to jinx anything. Suffice it to say that our record is identical to Carolina's and we now share the top spot in the division (with the Caps and Panthers just behind us). The play among our main competitors for the top spot has been in our favor this weekend: for us to tie first again, we needed Carolina to beat Washington, then lose to the Devils, and now the Caps have to lose to the Rangers today. If that happens we'll be set to add some handsome points to our lead come Wednesday.