Gameday: Thrashers vs Avalanche

Tonight your Atlanta Thrashers play their second and final game of the season against the Colorado Avalanche. The last time these two teams met in Denver, the Thrashers didn't play particularly well, but managed to eek out a 3-2 win in overtime to tie the franchise record for wins in a row. (That streak would be broken in the next game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.)

The two teams meet again tonight with the Thrashers remaining one of the hottest teams in the NHL, going 8-2-0 in their last ten. The Avalanche, on the other hand, have gone just 4-4-3 and clearly seem to be hurting since the loss of leading goal-scorer Chris Stewart. In fact, they've lost four straight since his injury.

Here're the stats from NHL.com:

	STATS
27	GP	28
13	W	15
10	L	10
4	OT	3
30	P	33
0.556	P%	0.589
3.41	G/G	3.11
3.18	GA/G	2.79
21.9	PP%	24.8
79.2	PK%	81.2
30.9	S/G	31.1
30.6	SA/G	34.9
49.6	FO%	50.3

I believe I mentioned this when the teams played last time, but the Thrashers and Avalanche seem to be very similar teams, at least stats-wise. Both are high-scoring teams with a strong power play and lots of contributors on offense. The Thrashers have 8 five-goal scorers, the Avalanche have 9. Both teams have similar winning percentages and penalty kills. Both play an uptempo style and feature high-scoring defensemen (Liles and Shattenkirk for the Avs, Enstrom and Byfuglien for the Thrashers).

The game tonight should be a good one, with the Thrashers winning six straight at home. Perhaps tonight would be a good night to drag some friends along for the game?

Also, I have a quick table for you. I wanted to show the goals and points (at even-strength) for each of our four forward lines. These numbers are presented with one comment: Ramsay's "balanced scoring" system seems to be working.