The Thrashers were kind enough to extend the invitation to bloggers today to watch the Thrashers’ morning skate. A few quick observations:
The lower “impact” drills and practice were taking place on Ondrej Pavelec’s end of the ice – more one-on-one shooting drills, while Chris Mason dealt with the up close scrimmaging drills. Bogosian worked extensively solo on his shooting from the blue-line. He’s got a booming slap-shot that shows when he’s alone on the ice – not that it doesn’t show when he’s not alone. He seemed very focused in working on his shot. Apparently his overtime winner last week has sparked his motivation to repeat that again.
Chris Thorburn also worked on his slapshot, which flew over the net initially until he caught his focus and netted four pucks in a row.
After an off game on Thursday night which saw Peverley go just 11-for-21 on the face-off, he got some extra attention at center ice with Jim Slater to practice. Slater was two for three on offensive zone faceoffs on Thursday, and went 7-for-11 overall.
Freddy Meyer stayed one end of the ice for some one time practice during the end of the morning skate. Meyer won’t get a chance to see ice time tonight, but Tim Stapleton and Freddy Modin will. Coach Craig Ramsay was disappointed in their play again on Thursday night, which wound up earning eager seventeen minutes of penalties and just 6:22 of ice time. Bergfors had just 7:40 of time. When asked by the AJC’s Chris Vivlamore about the scratching, Ramsay said:
“We need to compete as a team,” Ramsay said. “We need to hold onto the puck in the offensive zone and we have to be good in our zone. It’s expected from everybody.”
I don’t think that ill-advised fights were on Ramsay’s to-do list for Ben Eager.
When I can get the interviews from this morning transcribed, I will have a write up on here – it will be post-game, though.