31-35-9: 71 Pts.	33-30-12: 78 Pts.

Atlanta's record against Carolina: 3-2-0

This back end of a home and home with the Carolina Hurricanes is yet another must win for the Thrashers, though a mustier must win than Saturday.  The Flyers took out the Devils 5-1 last night, putting them 4 ahead of the Thrashers (along with the Habs), and the Bruins are a game ahead with one more game remaining than do we.

There are only two weeks left in the season, and every game is a necessary win, especially when you don't want to be on the outside looking in for the 9th year out of ten.  Tonight's game, as well as Tuesday's against the Leafs, theoretically should be easy, but nothing is ever easy with this team.  Of course, to make it even more difficult is the fact that Cam Ward is set to return - either he will be in tip top shape and we won't crack him, or he'll still be off and we'll have a chance.

Bergfors and Peverley could be set to add to their 21 goals tomorrow night and overtake Maxim Afinogenov for the franchise lead.  Whoever scores, though, they better do it quickly and they better do it often.

From DailyFaceOff.com, tonight's starting matchup:

24-43-7: 55 Pts	35-30-9: 79 Pts

Blues' Record Against Edmonton: 2-1-0

The Edmonton Oilers are coming to town to face the Blues, who couldn't win a game at home if their lives depended on it, it seems.  Thankfully, the Oilers have the worst road team in the league.  Not thankfully, we managed to lose to them already at home.

Par for the course.  Four more home games to go, and it looks like the Blues are falling farther and farther out of the playoff picture.  Witness (via DanGnR, who is awesome).

Click for full size, of course.

The tragic number is down to six.  We're 10 points out with only 8 games remaining not counting today's.  Calgary looks like they're getting ready to beat the Caps, so they'll be 6 ahead of us.  This can either be the best or worst time of season - last year we got a taste of what it could be like.  This season we squandered our abilities at home, and let the fact that Phoenix and Colorado "weren't supposed to make it" get to our heads.

Not to be a Debbie Downer, but it's over folks.  Let's just watch the game tonight and enjoy hockey for hockey's sake, and see if TJ Oshie whaps someone into next Tuesday.  There's always that to look forward to.

On an unlrelated note, Keith Tkachuk's 38 today.  Let's see if we can't get Big Walt a decent birthday gift (other than teeth).

Today's starters courtsey of DailyFaceoff.com:

Very rarely will I highlight a play on its own - usually it winds up being part of the re-cap or whatnot, but Niclas Bergfors' 21st goal of the season, which ties him with Rich Peverley for the 2nd most on the team, was an out of the air backhand that blew my mind.  Witness:

The fake out to Antropov, who looked like he expected the pass, caused Legace to float to the right and focus attention on the center, giving Bergfors the perfect chance to sneak that over Manny's shoulder.  This gives him 7 goals since joining the Thrashers, and making him 4th in rookie points as well as 3rd in rookie goals.  Outstanding acquisition by Don Waddell.  It's not often that you acquire someone in a trade that will become a franchise cornerstone, but it looks like he did it.

The Thrashers nailed an impressive, and necessary victory last night over the Carolina Hurricanes, continuing the road team winning trend and giving the Thrashers faithful who made the trip something to cheer about -  4-0 shutout by Johan Hedberg.

You can tell a turn-around worked when we had as many SOG after 1 period as we did the entire game against the Leafs.  Whatever was said in that locker room, and whoever said it, needs to give the exact same speech before every single one of our last seven games.  Fourteen points lay in the balance, and while I don't expect the Thrashers to get every single one of those points, I do expect Philly to lose as many points as we get (to put it one way).

Wait, Philly?  What of Boston?  Boston and Philadelphia are tied for 8th in the East with 80 points, with the Bruins holding the tiebreaker of having more wins.  Boston seems to have righted their ship as of late under the outstanding goaltending of Tukka Rask and the re-emerging Tim Thomas.  Philly has short three of their top 4 goalies, which leaves Brian Boucher in their starting role.  Making up the goals allowed is going to be tough, since their top scorer, Jeff Carter, is done.  Philly plays the Devils tonight.  I hope that Ilya Kovalchuk scores 5 goals, I seriously do.

32-30-12: 76 Points	31-34-9: 71 Points

Does anyone else have a problem with the Canes having a mascot you can eat slathered in mustard based BBQ sauce?  I mean, not a problem problem per se, but just think that it's a bit morbidly odd?

Also surprising is that the Thrashers have won exactly 1 more game than the Canes, who started the season off just God awful, and then they mysteriously improved over the year even with their top goalie out.  How did Carolina manage this?  And, if it comes in a bottle and is legal in Georgia, can we buy it (but not on a Sunday, of course)?  You know, for a future season like last one.

If you're a paranoid puckhead like me, I'm sure that you've been following your team of choice over at SportsClubStats.com.  Math confuses me and makes me cry, but this is one time that crunching numbers is useful to me - though more often than not it still makes me cringe.  All season I double check to see what my teams' playoff chances are, even during week 3 when you know that anything can change.

Of course, this time of year I check it every single morning.  The percentage fluctuations are greater now - a single loss can drop you twenty percentage points.  A win can bump you up just ten.  Last season was the first time in a while that I looked at it for anything other to see when the Thrashers and Blues were officially out - the Blues' playoff run had me checking about ten times a day to make sure that what I was seeing was real.

Me, this time last season.  I would steal & sell a TV to see how close the Blues were to the playoffs.

Unfortunately, the Blues aren't making me do it with the abandon of Bobby Brown at a crack house this season.  Despite a record of 34-30-9 going into last night's game, the Blues are almost mathematically eliminated from the race.  That win over the Kings that the Post-Dispatch was making a to do over, and that players were saying "hey, one point at a time!" about?  It bumped up our chances to .06%.  Yes, we gained 2 points on Calgary, but 9th place does you absolutely no good.

34-39-9: 77 Points	36-23-13: 85 Points

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My God.  One point away from the playoffs, one win to 8th place - even if it'd be temporary.  Playoff atmosphere, decent attendance, and me in the club section enjoying really good food and overpriced alcohol.

Thank goodness this game didn't take place on $3 beer night, or else I'd be in a drunk tank somewhere.  Getting back at me for singing the praises of our 1A goaltender, Johan Hedberg, karma decided to give me a 4-0 loss to enjoy that was capped off by a few soft goals and effort that was just not there enough from the team.  Thrashers bloggers had been stressing the importance of the game since Sunday, and whispers were going around that the last time we had a 5 game winning streak was in the 2006-2007 season, where we ended the year atop the Southeastern Division.  Unless we win five of our last 9 games in a row, it will stay that way.

The pressure proved to be too much, at least last night, for our young team.  Expectations are higher for this team than it's been for years.  Instead of being written off as being in year 10 of our 5 year re-build, bloggers and pundits were expecting us to leapfrog the Bruins and make our 2nd appearance in the playoffs - this can still happen, but only if they rebound mentally from the shaky game of last night.  You can't have a couple near misses on a hot goalie and shut down like the team did on Rask last night.  Our first round opponent would be the Washington Capitals.  If we can't handle the decimated Bruins' offense, how in the world can we stand up to the best one in the league?

We can't.  If we keep letting the pressure get to us, we won't make it.  The guys need to read the (kind of) flattering Hockey News article by John Grigg that was published before yesterday's game.  Put it up in your lockers.  Lay a copy on John Anderson's desk.  There's a lot more than postseason on the line - some respectibility'd be nice.

I've been accepted into the Bloguin circle of awesomeness.  Thank you to Derek, Dave, Stephen (kick ass banner), and the rest of the Bloguin squad for welcoming me aboard.

The old Thrashing the Blues site can always be accessed at the top of the site, in case you want to thumb through some older posts, but from here on out I'll be centered here - update your bookmarks accordingly.

I'm very excited to be covering both the Blues and Thrashers over here now - no more tweaking the layout, no more trying to figure out what in the world I'm doing on a daily basis - I post, and then boom.  It looks awesome.  I'll still be working at the other sites I write on, but a bulk of my stuff will be here.  The more interesting articles I write, the better the site does, so I'm going to try to be almost interesting.

Speaking of which, the Men Behind the Mask feature on Johan Hedberg I wrote for NHL Hot Stove got picked up and re-tweeted by Hedberg's agent Jay Grossman - you might remember him from such things as the "Ilya Kovalchuk Contract Saga."  So, um, people read what I write apparently.

I have some more stuff coming up today regarding whatever the heck happened last night, and commentary a decently positive (if incredulous) write up on the Thrashers from The Hockey News. I will also try really hard to ignore the SB Nation kerfluffle between Stanley Cup of Chowder and the very pissed off Falconer.

Aw, who am I kidding.  If the nice folks at CoC want to apologize to Thrashers fans for being asshats and to Bruins fans for making them look like schmucks, I'll say something.