No love lost. Bad blood. A war of words. All those phrases and more were used in the buildup of what was supposed to be a heated, competitive contest between the Atlanta Thrashers and Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night at Philips Arena.
You wouldn’t have known it from the Thrashers’ performance.
Toronto (14-13-6) raced out to a 3-0 lead and held on with little difficulty for a 6-2 win over Atlanta (11-18-4).
The Thrashers and Maple Leafs were renewing a bit of a rivalry that developed earlier this season on November 25, when Atlanta went into Toronto and stole a 6-3 victory. The story of that game, however, was the physicality. The Thrashers committed 10 penalties, including two for fighting, two for roughing, and one for unsportsmanlike conduct.
Thrashers forward Ilya Kovalchuk and Leafs defenseman Ian White went after each other that whole night and it didn’t end on the ice. “If he’s got something to say,” Kovalchuk said of White, “I’m always ready to answer.”
In this rematch, however, Atlanta had few answers for the Maple Leafs offense and an inexperienced goaltender. Toronto sent heralded prospect Justin Pogge, 22, into the net for his NHL debut. Pogge was filling in for Vesa Toskala, who aggravated a groin problem in Saturday’s win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. As if Pogge needed any help, he got more than enough from his teammates.
A mere 59 seconds into the game, Alexei Ponikarovsky took a rebound off a Nik Antropov blast and scooped a shot that dribbled through the legs of Thrashers goalie Kari Lehtonen. Jeremy Williams made it 2-0 10:43 into the first period when he beat Lehtonen top shelf off a nice centering pass from Dominic Moore.
The Maple Leafs extended the lead with 2:24 remaining in the second. A three-on-two breakaway resulted in Antropov finding Matt Stajan open in front of the net.
Atlanta finally got on the scoreboard with less than nine seconds to go before the second intermission. Jason Williams fed Colby Armstrong with pass up the right side of the ice and Armstrong, with a slap-shot, found an opening above Pogge’s left shoulder.
Pogge went largely untested throughout the majority of his NHL debut, but the Thrashers put some pressure on him during a brief comeback attempt in the third period. The rookie’s most impressive save of the game came with 14 minutes remaining. Center Todd White received a pass in front of a seemingly open goal, but Pogge, on his stomach, stoned him by kicking out his right leg and deflecting it away with his skate.
“That was a great save,” said Leafs coach Ron Wilson. “A goal could have changed the momentum.”
“I was on the ice for that one,” added Jeremy Williams, “so he (Pogge) bailed me out. He made some highlight-reel saves.”
The Thrashers never mounted another charge and Toronto put the game away minutes later. At 10:06 of the third period, six seconds after Slava Kozlov got hit with a roughing penalty, Moore backhanded home a rebound in front of the net. A victorious faceoff by Williams sent the puck back to defenseman Pavel Kubina, who set up the goal with a shot from just inside the blue line.
Atlanta’s second and final goal also came when the Leafs had an almost insurmountable three-goal lead. White and Kozlov started a give-and-go from center ice and it ended with White taking a perfect centering pass and flicking into a mostly open net past Pogge.
Just to make sure things didn’t get too interesting, the Maple Leafs added another goal with 4:24 remaining in the game. John Mitchell found Niklas Hagman with a centering pass from the right side and Lehtonen could not quite recover to his right in time to stop Hagman’s wrist shot. Stajan added an empty-net goal with 1:15 left to cap off the night’s scoring.
“We got out-competed tonight; there’s no question,” said Thrashers coach John Anderson. “We weren’t ready to compete tonight. If you play anyone, if you give that kind of effort you aren’t going to win.”
Dimon can be reached at rdimon@scoreatl.com.
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