Never Forget the Great Anti-Flyers Campaign of 09-10! Here's a Final Battle Liveblog

Correct us if we're wrong, but your Chronicle is under the impression that the Thrashers have beaten the Flyers in 3 out of 4 engagements this season. Tonight is the 4th...what's going to happen?

Indeed, lots of things could happen. The Thrashers could earn themselves at least a point tonight, and that might be useful for sneaking into the 8th playoff spot.

Or they could begin another one of their patented comical losing streaks.

Or they could play reasonably well for the rest of the season but still miss the playoffs, finishing just outside the postseason group at #9. Some people, not unreasonably, think would be the worst of all possible scenarios because the team would miss both the playoffs and a high draft pick. What's worse, it might further reinforce the organization's complacency and encourage them to keep things in a state of room temperature, Business-as-Usual mediocrity.

But then maybe a 9th place finish would generate some confidence for next season (shudder; I have to admit that, as much as I love hockey, I DO NOT understand these people for whom summer is just an unwelcome distraction between hockey seasons).

Anyway, the game is a-starting! Keep it here. The liveblog will begin as soon as I wrangle myself another Pacifico.

*****

- The game appears to have started. The Bergfors line just did their familiar crashing-the-net-and-trying-to-score-early shtick. It's a SHTICK, I tell you, not unlike Carl Reiner's.

- HOLY SHIT HAINSEY.


No one will ever convince me that Ronald Hainsey is not also Patrick Bateman.

- Nic Bergfors almost had a fine goal, but Boucher just barely made the save. Slater unleashes his storied one-timer, misses.

- So I was talking to Big Shooter at the game last night, and he said something like, "You know who's had a good year? Ron Hainsey, that's who. I don't care what anyone says. He's had a great year, and he makes me laugh, and he treats me like a gentleman. I mean, HE'S the gentleman."

This is an accurate statement. Ronald has been pretty steady all year, and he occasionally does stuff that results in goals. His comic plus/minus has to do with playing with Zach Bogosian much of the year.

- Nik Antropov: a man with a full head of beautiful hair.

- Good lord all of a sudden there's a howling storm outside. I wonder if this has to do with the Thrashers.

- Mark Popovic tends to make the same kind of move every time he has a chance to shoot. Matt McConnell is noting this as I type.

- Credit where credit's due: Todd White has been much better recently.

- Lots of fighting in the corners, lots of Flyers in the Thrashers zone, a goddamn deluge outside.

- OK, this Bud Light auto-tune commercial needs to be sent to to the gulag.

- I TOLD YOU TODD WHITE RULED.

- Very pretty pressure by the Thrashers just now; Max seems determined to make something happen. I've said it before and, hell, I'll say it now: he protects the puck exceptionally well.

- This is stone cold nuts. The Thrashers just had the puck in the Flyers zone for like two weeks.

- Whoa hey Daniel Carcillo very nearly scored a goal. I have literally no idea how Pavelec made the stop---AHHH I see, Afinogenov was cold hookin' the dude. Flyers power play.

- Our movie hero Rich Peverley just got sent to the box for cold tripping some dude after he and Clarke MacArthur had a short handed breakaway. But you know that, because you're watching the game, right?

- Excellent:


*****

- 2nd period just cold beginning right now.

- Oh yeah, that penalty.

- Penalty on the Flyers. Darren Eliot says "That's for boarding" in the exact same tone Sean Connery says "That's for blasphemy" after he slaps Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

- Daniel Briere goes to the box. Huh huh BOX. What now?

- ...and SportSouth employs its most ridiculous camera angle.

- Our power play is still balls, apparently.

- If the Thrashers make the playoffs this year, I promise to sing Cory Hart's "Sunglasses at Night" at some karaoke place or other. Mr. Speaker and Krisabelle will be my witnesses.

- Why is Eric Boulton so very mean to Daniel Carcillo? AND Mike Richards? How many penalties have there been in this period anyway?

-


- Todd White speaks with such authority.

- That last scramble-and-shoot orgy around the Thrashers net was pretty nerve-racking. Someone could make the Thrashers blogosphere a lot more interesting with a serial online comic book about some Ondrej Pavelec-esque superhero and his funny sidekick, Goal Post.

*****

- So the third period is underway. What might happen? I predict Bryan Little, having spent the 2nd intermission reading Lawrence Durrell's travel books about the Greek isles, will score a crazy goal.

- Hartnell and Slater fighting. Hartnell's coarse locks a-flying, Slater decks him. Jimmy is PISSED. Crowd involved, lots of screaming. If you punch Hartnell, beads and doubloons fly out of his hair.

- Arron Asham tries to murder Bryan Little with his stick. PENALTY. Thrashers power play still comical, OH LOOK FLYERS COMING ON SHORT HANDED...but it's okay. This power play is a horse-faced shithouse.

- Flyers all over the Thrashers zone. Can't get behind this.

- Why does Matt McConnell always call players by their first names?

- Up and down, up and down, another Thrashers goal would be no bad thing.

- Camera just lingered on what's-his-name, James Van Der Beek or whoever, for far too long.

- Jimmy Slater is a man afire.

- JEEZUS H. DID YOU JUST SEE PAVELEC STOP THAT POINT-BLANK DEATH SHOT?

- Oh fuckity fyck fuck fyucuckckkckckckcfu fuck

- Hartnell's lock ooze has an evil influence.

- The Thrashers had damn well better not let this one slip away...

- The Flyers are too good at the stick-checking. Thrashers will have to---what else?---just cold storm the crease.

- Pavel Kubina. Player of the year? Perhaps co-Player of the Year alongside Antropov.

- DLKDLKDSJLKDJKFSDKLFJDSLKFJ84390FJLDKJSFSD

Our Hero comes through big time.

- Ricky Pevs is now a 20-goal-scorer, I believe.

- EMPTY NET LET'S BURY THIS BIOTCH.

- This is insane.

- SWEPT.