Chris Mason will play entire game in goal for Thrashers vs. Hurricanes tonight.
In addition to that, Ben Wright of the Blueland Blog has posted a "line-up" card consisting of 23 players whom Coach Ramsay can choose from to ice a 20-man line-up for this evening's contest against the Canes. Ben just informed us that the Canes plan on using a veteran-laden roster (Staal, Samsonov, Cole, Pitkanen, Corvo, Ward etc) tonite so we can expect a fairly experienced line-up from the Thrashers too. Let's hazard a guess as to who will play, shall we?
After looking back on Tuesday night's box score, coupled with my recollection of written reports about the Columbus debacle, I've cobbled together what I think tonite's line-up will be.
Of the 4 LW who took the ice on Tuesday night, 3 of them are either not on the roster card for tonite or have been re-assigned already (Danick Paquette). With both Evander Kane and Nigel Dawes sitting this one out, there is no doubt that the following left-wings will get to play their first game tonite: Andrew Ladd, Freddy Modin, and Enver Lisin whom the coaches surely want to assess before making some hard roster-related decisions early next week. Former Blackhawk Ben Eager would be the logical choice to get the other LW slot available.
In addition, the coaches will likely continue their survey of several players who have made a return to the center position, namely Bryan Little, Chris Thorburn and Patrick Rissmiller. However, since there is dearth of top-6 experience up the middle on this list, my gut tells me Rissmiller could be a late scratch. Surely Alexander Burmistrov will suit up at the pivot tonite as it is important to get the 1st round pick as much playing time as possible early on. Logic says to play Little with Pettersson again since they gelled so well together on Tuesday nite, but I suspect Ramsay may want to mix it up a bit instead.
I'm thinking that Rissmiller, Riley Holzapfel, Spencer Machacek and Anthony Stewart are on the roster card because the coaches want to get one last look at them before sending them down to the farm in Chicago. Even though I would prefer not having to watch any of those 4 players, each of them stands to get one final chance to make an impression playing with more experienced players. But since Stewart and Rissmiller played reasonably well on Tuesday nite, I'm going to predict that they both sit tonite in favor of Holzapfel (C) and Freddy Pettersson (RW), who may even get a chance to play with countryman Freddy Modin.
Lastly, it stands to reason that right-wings Niclas Bergfors and Rich Peverley will get their first taste of "live bullet" action, which leaves 2 openings to fill from 3 players (Freddy P, Stewart or Machacek). I think Machacek needs this game to show what he's capable of and therefore Anthony Stewart sits in favor of playing Monday nite in Nashville. Thorburn will likely play the pivot between Machacek and LW Ben Eager while the more proven Rissmiller sits so Riley Holzapfel can bore us with his lackluster play one final time. Riley will have a chance to play between two good players I think so look for a line combo of Modin-Holzapfel-Pettersson.
Finally, based on all of the crap I typed above, probably for no good reason (but isn't it fun to play the role of Coach Ramsay?), I see our forward line combos shaping up like this:
Ladd - Burmistrov - Bergfors
Modin (Lisin scratched) - Little - Peverley
Rissmiller (for Modin) - Holzapfel - Pettersson
Eager - Thorburn - Machacek
UPDATE: Well, I couldn't really be more wrong with respect to tonite's line-up but it was a fun exercise to help idle away some time on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Here is the actual line combos for the forwards as I actually got the defensive pairings correct:
Ladd -- Little -- Machacek
Modin -- Peverley -- Freddy P
Holzapfel -- Burma -- Bergfors
Eager -- Thorbs -- Stewart
Thanks to Chris Vivlamore for giving us all the scoopage!! Should be fun watching these players play together in the exhibition game tonite. Oh, and there is a sobering injury update on Antropov and Slater contained within.
Defensive corps should look like this:
Enstrom & Bogosian
Oduya & Byfuglien
Welch & Sopel
We already know Mason is starting in goal and Vivlamore told us that Mace is expected to play the entire game. So let's hope we don't see Opie coming in midway through the first or second period because Mason is as rusty as Pavelec seemed to be Tuesday nite.
There you have it, let's drop the freakin' puck!!
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