Atlanta Trashers - Florida Panthers
Jan 10,2008 7:00 pm EST

Atlanta (21-22-1)

Athough it’s only midseason in NHL all teams are making their plans for playoffs.

Last 2 seasons bottom line for reaching the playoffs was 92 points. That means that Atlanta needs 50 points from 38 games left.

In order to do that they will need to improve their defence. GM/interim head coach Don Waddell will probably try to get one or two solid defenceman to improve their weak defence that lost 3 good pleayer via free agency during the summer.

(RW) Marian Hossa and (LW) Slava Kozlov are having bad season but (L)W Ilya Kovalchuk is playing at high level and currently is best scorer in NHL with 35 goals.

If Waddell uses the usual goalie rotation that will mean that (G) Kari Lehtonen (7-10-0 with 3.16 GAA and .902) will start tonight.

Florida (19-21-3)

Florida haven’t reached the playoffs since 2000.

They made good improvement in defence in last two years, but it seems that because of their ineffective offense they will miss the playoffs once again.

Only 3 players scored more than 10 goals: (C) Olli Jokinen – 20 goals, (RW Nathan Horton – 12 goals and (LW David Booth - 10 goals.

In last 5 games Florida scored only 6 goals.

STATS COMPARISON

Atlanta home 11-11-0 *** Florida away 10-11-1

Current form (last 5 games)
Atlanta L-W-L-W-L *** Florida L-L-W-L-L

GFA
Atlanta 2.71 (17th) *** Florida 2.35 (25th)

GAA
Atlanta 3.25 (28th) *** Florida 2.70 (15th)

Power Play (%)
Atlanta 17.4 (17th) *** Florida 19.1 (8th)

Penalty Kill (%)
Atlanta 77.5 (28th) *** Florida 81.6 (15th)

HEAD TO HEAD

This Season
28.12.2007 Atlanta-Florida 3:5
14.11.2007 Atlanta-Florida 3:2 OT
10.11.2007 Florida-Atlanta 1:4

Last Season
Florida-Atlanta 3:2 OT
Florida-Atlanta 3:2
Atlanta-Florida 4:2
Florida-Atlanta 1:3
Atlanta-Florida 1:0
Florida-Atlanta 3:6
Atlanta-Florida 4:2
Atlanta-Florida 6:0

THE VERDICT

Both teams are having their problems but I’ll stick with the team that can score goals.

There is only one way how can Florida win this game:to score first and try to defend their lead. On the other side I expect to see Kovalchuk’s name on scoreboard once again.

PERCENTAGE ESTIMATE :

Atlanta 51% - Draw 23% - Florida 26%

FIXED ODDS BETTING :

Take Atlanta on the ML