(My Sportsbook) - Well, the tiny amount of optimism that surrounded the Atlanta Thrashers before the season has pretty much evaporated into the Georgia sky.

The team's fourth campaign, which was supposed to be one of progress, has been anything but to this point, as Curt Fraser's troops are 0-3-0-1 thus far.

And the Thrashers can't even claim they've been victims of the schedule. The defeats have come at the hands of Carolina, Florida, Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, and of that bunch, only the Hurricanes were a playoff team last spring.

Things hit a low point -- hopefully it's a low point -- on Friday night with an 8-5 loss to the Lightning at the St. Pete Times Forum. Atlanta jumped out to a 3-1 lead in the match, only to afford the Bolts four goals in the second period to essentially seal the game's fate.

General manager Don Waddell put it simply after the debacle.

"The roof fell in," Waddell told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

And once again it was the team's defense, which has been -- to put it mildly - embarrassing during the Thrashers history, leading the way in the collapse. The Thrashers have now surrendered 21 goals in four contests.

"Our defense really let us down," said Fraser. "This gets tougher and tougher."

Making the defeat even more bitter to swallow is the fact that Atlanta looked like it was on its way to getting the job done early on. Patrik Stefan, with two goals, and Shawn McEachern both beat All-Star goalie Nikolai Khabibulin in the first, but Lightning center Vincent Lecavalier turned the tide quickly in the second with two scores within as many minutes.

"Five goals for us is terrific," Fraser said. "That should be way more than enough to come out of here with a win. But we continue to slip up, especially in the neutral zone.

"They know exactly what they are supposed to do. But they have to go out on the ice and execute it for 60 minutes. Then we'll win and it won't be hard, either."

Friday's game showed somewhat of a new look for the Thrashers as well, with sophomore phenoms Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley getting split up. Fraser felt they weren't playing to their potential, so he took Heatley off Kovalchuk's line and replaced him with Stefan. Heatley moved down and played next to McEachern on line two.

"They weren't playing the way they are capable," Fraser said. "They looked for each other all the time, and it just wasn't happening like it can.

"Now, Kovalchuk gets to play with [Slava] Kozlov and Heatley with McEachern. This should give us two real strong offensive lines, and we've got a good third checking line."

UP NEXT

The Thrashers, who played three of their first four games away from home, return to Philips Arena to take on the Islanders Saturday night. They visit Florida on Monday and host New Jersey Wednesday.