Traffic in Atlanta can sometimes cause a person to get a little edgy once they finally arrive at the office. I’ve suffered through a few rough commutes before…but the Thrashers trip into to work Saturday takes the cake.

While Atlanta was playing in Washington Friday night…losing 5-2 to the Caps… there was a nasty winter storm kicking through the eastern seaboard, dumping about two and a half feet of snow in the Washington area.

The Thrashers’ charter jet was unable to get off the ground and the team was forced to hop a bus down to Richmond Saturday morning. Along the way the encountered a little bump-up with a truck…knocking off a mirror on the bus. They arrived at the airport at around 2 pm but the flight was delayed until shortly after 4 o’clock before making what Don Waddell described a s a “white knuckler” type of take off.

After about 10 hours of a commute to Atlanta, they finally reached Philips Arena around 6:30…about 30 minutes prior to the scheduled face off. The game was pushed back almost an hour.

Wow…talk about your rough commutes to work!

Some would have given them a pass for not making much of a showing Saturday night, given their game the night before against an unbelievable good Capitals team and then their day-long excursion into work in less-than favorable conditions. But the guys found enough fight in them to overcome a 2-0 first period deficit and beat the Florida Panthers 4-2…Florida being one of the teams they are jockeying for position in the standings with.

Maybe the commute in…being cramped up in a bus and plane all day…made them a bit feisty, eh?

Two games into the post-Kovalchuk era in Thrasherville I have to say I’ve been very impressed with the way the team has responded. True, they lost in D.C., but they played them to within 2-1 after 40 minutes…but eventually the better talent took over for the Caps and they took care of business. That Capitals team is just scary good right now.

But the way they came out after the first intermission Saturday night was a very unexpected and very pleasant surprise. Starting off with Ron Hainsey’s battle with Keith Ballard, the Thrashers began to put bodies on Panthers players…getting very physical with their play. Then came some very solid defense…they held Florida to just 5 SOG that period despite having to kill off 4 Panthers power plays.

That seemed to wake up the offense that then scored twice to tie the game before the second break. 3:49 into the period, Maxim Afinogenov notched his 18th of the season on a blast from the right point while on the power play. Bryan Little’s rebound 4:50 later then made it 2-2.

The two teams battled it out for much the third…but newcomer Niclas Bergfors put Atlanta on top with 4:26 remaining in the period. Bergie took a pass from Nic Antropov…made a nifty move to his right around a defender…then snapped of a shot that bested Tomas Vokoun.

Evander Kane was credited with an empty-netter later after his shot was knocked away by a thrown Panthers’ stick.

I’ve been very impressed with the two players that came this way in last week’s trade with New Jersey so far. As I expected, Oduya has played very well on the blueline…adding a lot more experience and depth. He’s been solid and workmanlike in his play. Johnny was a +1 in the 20:46 TOI last night.

Bergfors, however, has been a very pleasant surprise for me. I haven’t really followed his play much before last week…but he shows a tone of hustle and grit out on the ice. He has a nose for the net too…getting off 8 shots on goal in the two games played in a Thrashers jersey. He was a +2 Saturday night.

As for the team, if they can bottle up that passion, energy and edge shown last night…bring it with them night in and night out…this team will be OK. It’s tough to replace the amount of scoring that departs with a player like Kovalchuk, so they are going to be forced to look to everyone else to bring a little more edge to their game.

Also, they will have to grind out more 3-2 type of games now…not looking to one player to score lot’s of goals and try to come out on top of 4-3 and 5-4 kinda games.

In the past, as Don Waddell has said, this team was built around Kovalchuk. But now the tam has to be built around…the team.

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