More of the same....Thrashers vs Blue Jackets

Lately the Thrashers have gotten in to a nasty little habit, sleeping through the first period, waking up in the second and totally kicking ass in the third. Unfortunately it winds up being too little too late. This has been an awful habit on home ice. The concept of defending home ice is a joke at Phillips as the Thrashers are 1-5-0 at home. We haven't had a win at home since opening night. This has had a terrible affect on the attendance. This was even worse than the last game and I didn't think that was possible. The official number was a 10,878, but no way that many people were there. The 50/50 lottery winnings were a mere $250.




Thursday, November 5 the Columbus Blue Jackets came to town. I was super excited about seeing Mason but I had forgotten about something, Mathieu Garon. When my husband reminded me that morning that I'd get to see Garon, I just about jumped up out of the bed with excitement. You know how I love a back-up goalie!




I was deep in the enemy's zone for warm-ups.




Captain Rick Nash looking around.





You can certainly do worse than this goalie tandem. Last season Mason was the Rookie of the Year and Garon won a Stanley Cup.





Welcome to the Garon show! I don't know why I like him so much, oh wait, yes I do...He's hot!





Mason had the night off and might as well have been reading a book. I think they took like 2 shots on him.





Chimera clearing the net.





Hi baby Russian! Nikita Filitov and Derek Dorsett warming up.





Hello there! Rostislav Klesla just became a blip on my radar!





A closer view of Garon's mas. I'm not sure what is on there, some angry looking faces.





Moose trying to look like he doesn't care that I'm behind the enemy lines.





I was on photo safari for my buddy, Shiona. My other buddy Candace texted me and told me to be sure and get some shots of Alexandre Picard, that Shiona was a big fan of his. Shiona goes to a lot of Syracuse Crunch games and watches Picard there. I was happy to oblige. I always take requests.





Garon coming right for me.





Mason making another few saves.





Moose making a shot of his own, maybe at Rick Nash.





Raffi Torres stretching it out. He'd be a real problem for us in this game with 2 goals.





More baby Russian, Nikita Filatov. He's very dreamy.





Nikita: "Wow, there are no people here."





No people up there either, baby Russian.





Pull your head out of your ass, Torres.





Picard and Hejda stretching.





Woo hoo, Mason made a save! Now go sit on the bench and drink a beer, Mathieu has got this one under control.





Picard taking a shot.





After warm ups I was on another photo mission, my buddy Rand was picked to ride the zamboni! I'm jeaouls!





First period




Garon doing some crease keeping.





Like all goalies, Garon has his little "ticks." He's a tapper.
Tap left
Tap right
Tap both





Opening face off!





Up in the sky...it's a bird...it's a plane





Thorburn trying to get the puck.





Garon: You know that chick behind you? Don't look.
Stralman: Yeah.
Garon: She's taken like 11ty billion pictures of me.
Stralman: Yeah, I hear she takes a lot of pictures, that's Moose's girl.
Garon: Oh, so that's why Moose had boo-boo face earlier.
Stralman: I hear she has a thing for goalies, especially back-ups.
Garon: Sweet!





Action in front of Garon.





Garon went out to play the puck (which I love!) but had some problems when he backed over his own Dman, Stralman. Garon took a spill, but popped right back up.





Okay, what are the odds that I know TWO people that ride the zamboni in one night??? Maybe because there were only 75 people in the arena. Here is a picture of my buddy JB riding the zamboni in the first intermission.





Welcome to my side of the ice, Ondrej!





Face off.





Disaster in 3...2...1 The chick actually moved her beer but her douche bag date left his coke up there and BLAM!!! It went flying. I think when I yelled YES and pumped my fist he got pissed. He was pretty cute. Oh well. You should know better.





One of my favorite pictures of the night. Our little Dman Toby Enstrom doing what he does best, defending. Toby got a goal on his birthday!





Pavelec tracking the puck.





Pavs makes a save and Bogo scooped up the juicy rebound.





Schubert fall down and go boom.





Whitey in the face off.





Slava and Klesla.





Well I didn't know anyone on the zamboni during the second intermission.
Third Period.




Chaos in front of Garon.





Chaos resulted in some guys needing to discuss some stuff.





Antropov doing his impersonation of Tomas Holmstrom.





Another Garon shot, just because it's a good one.





Last ditch efforts to make Garon eat a puck. Fail.





Hey there, Rick Nash!





Blue Jackets win. Puke.





How adorable! Mason comes out to congratulate Garon.


Another example of "too little too late." It's also an example of a hot goalie though (and not in the way I usually mean that.) We aggressively outshot the jackets in the 2nd and 3rd periods.
First Period SOG
Atlanta 6
Columbus 11

Second Period SOG
Atlanta 18
Columbus 8

Third Period SOG
Atlanta 11
Columbus 2 (freaking 2 the entire period!?!?)

Garon faced 38 shots and made 32 - 35 saves. Ondrej Pavelec only faced 21 shots.

Get it together guys, we need a home win BADLY!