Gretzky Round 2 Game 4 Scores

[KevanGuy]

13 THRASHERS 5 HURRICANES 2
14 PANTHERS 3 RANGERS 1

[Cheese]

Congrats to the Hurricanes for an excellent series and good gamesmanship!
Thrashers move on to the Semi-Finals...

[notoepik]

Rangers must regroup. Get back to Flordia and kick some sand in the Panthers face!

[Cheese]

Thrashers move to Semis!

THRASHERS 5 at HURRICANES 2

The Atlanta Thrashers disposed of a pesky and dangerous Carolina Hurricane team tonite 4 games to zero. With perennial all-star goaltender Patrick Lalime out for the playoffs the Georgia team was extremely worried coming up against this young and explosive team.
Garth Snow played a solid if unspectacular series holding the Georgia team in every game until the scorers did what they had to.


Garth Snow bears down on an attempt from the wing.

The key to the series as far as GM and Coach Peterson could determine was to stop Alexander Ovechkin, Rick Nash and Doug Weight. Wednesdays game saw Ovechkin break out with two goals, but overall all 3 were held off the scoresheet.
The Thrashers continued their scoring by comittee with 5 different players notching a goal. The Canes had taken a 2-1 lead into the 3rd period before the afforementioned power and depth of the Atalanta team came through. 22 shots were taken on the Canes goaltenders in the 3rd period and 4 goals were scored within 4 minutes to eliminate the Canes by a 5-2 count.
Martin St Louis was the Thrashers MVP for this quarter final series as the team now awaits the completion of the Rangers/Panthers series now tied at two games each.

Period 1
1. HURRICANES, OVECHKIN 4 (NASH, BRISEBOIS), 08:08
2. THRASHERS, BONDRA 3 (RADIVOJEVIC, LANGENBRUNNER), 14:05

PENALTIES: V. KOZLOV THR (CROSS-CHECKING, Double Minor) 14:45, S. HILL HUR (ROUGHING, Minor) 14:45, J. BLAKEE HUR (ELBOWING, Minor) 17:59

Period 2
3. HURRICANES, OVECHKIN 5 (LANGKOW, BROWN), 05:13

PENALTIES: R. NASH HUR (BOARDING, Minor) 09:26, B. HEDICAN THR (ELBOWING, Minor) 13:13, P. BRISEBOIS HUR (HIGHSTICKING, Minor) 13:13, A. OVECHKIN HUR (HIGHSTICKING, Minor) 13:38, S. HILL HUR (CROSS-CHECKING, Minor) 17:23, R. NASH HUR (BOARDING, Minor) 19:51

Period 3
4. THRASHERS, RADIVOJEVIC 2 (LANGENBRUNNER, HEDICAN), 06:27
5. THRASHERS, STLOUIS 5 (NIEDERMAYER, SHANAHAN), 09:25
6. THRASHERS, SHANAHAN 4 (RAFALSKI, CONROY), 09:37
7. THRASHERS, GUERIN 2 (RAFALSKI, FRIESEN), 10:34

PENALTIES: S. YELLE HUR (BOARDING, Double Minor) 15:15

Goalie Statistics Garth Snow (THR), 22 saves out of 24 shots, W, 4-0-0
David Aebischer (HUR), 22 saves out of 27 shots, L, 4-4-0
Byron Dafoe (HUR), 10 saves out of 10 shots

Power Play Conversions
THRASHERS 0 for 6
HURRICANES 0 for 1

Game Stars
1 - Alexander Ovechkin (HUR)
2 - Brendan Shanahan (THR)
3 - Branko Radivojevic (THR)

[MJK]

Manager Penney with Holik and Handzus

Panthers Win Again on the Road!

Can the Panthers be beat on the road? The Panthers are now 4-0 on the road in the playoffs and they set a CPHL record with an amazing 33 road wins. Thats more wins than any team managed to get at home all year long! The Thrashers and Oilers won 30 games at home in 2005-06 and no one has ever come close to the record set by the Panthers.

The series with the Rangers will be won at home. If the Panthers can manage a win at home on Friday night, they would have a clear advantage in the series going on the road for game 6. The Panthers are due to win at home, something they haven't been able to do all series.

Jokinen was the star of the night scoring two goals playing on the third line! Jokinen was the odd man out after the Panthers went down in the series 2-0. handzus was moved up and the lines have been shuffled and it has meant an immediate impact in the scores. The Panthers could have easily been up 3-1 in this series but Roloston stood on his head in game two and Nabby played like crap to lose that game. Since then, Nabby has settled down and managed to hold the fort for two stright victories.

Goalie Statistics
Evgeni Nabokov (PAN), 24 saves out of 25 shots, W, 5-2-0
Dwayne Roloson (RAN), 27 saves out of 30 shots, L, 6-4-0

Power Play Conversions
PANTHERS 0 for 3
RANGERS 0 for 2

Game Stars
1 - Evgeni Nabokov (PAN)
2 - Olli Jokinen (PAN)
3 - Miroslav Satan (PAN)

[Sylvanfan]

Well got to hand it to Cheese 10-0 all time in playoff series. Hopefully the NHL Oilers don't get a hold of him.

[eyipyip]

wow Cheese is unstoppable!!

[Hanna Sniper]

‘Canes GM schooled in series



For the fourth straight game in a row the Carolina Hurricanes are trampled by the Atlanta Thrashers. “it’s very disheartening to loose a series anytime, but I really didn’t see this coming” GM Hanna was quoted after the game.

The Hurricanes headed into the series and into Atlanta riding a high after benefiting by defeating an injured riddled squad in the opening round verses the Boston Bruins. “We really thought we deserved to be in this match-up and if we played our cards we could make a fight out of it” Obviously, the Hurricanes GM still has a lot to learn about winning in the post season as the GM has managed to win 5 playoff games in his duty of controlling the Hurricane bench. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that” commented the frustrated GM as reports surrounded the flustered manager “I’ve really enjoyed my stay in Carolina, I can’t deny I’m not worried about ownership replacing me, I think we’ve really have a good crop of players here but it’s out of my hands. All I can do is take what I learned from this post season and get ready for the draft.”

When Hanna was questioned about the play of his goaltender the GM continued to back his players much in the same light as he’s done all series “look David played extremely well, to go and start pointing fingers at this player or that player is wrong, lets be honest about it. These players played hard, they followed our system and game plan since ever since we dropped the puck Thursday night. If there’s anyone to be blamed it me, There’s certain intangibles that come up in a series and I just wasn’t able to adjust fast enough. I seen it happening game after game but yet we as a staff wasn’t able to stop it.”

“It’s all a learning curve I guess, my 1st season we struggled and failed to make the playoffs, 2nd we ended being ousted by the Bruins in 5 quick games. I know our fans would like to take bigger steps but we’re getting there… we’ll just have to keep looking over our shoulder and continue to improve as a team.. and as a GM I’ll have to do the same”

[Radically Red]

Big win for the Panthers.. Road team has won every game so far this series... Does not bode well for the Panthers who have "home' Ice advantage.

Congrats to the Thrashers for moving on.. Congrats to the Hurricanes on great season.