Thrashers come up short against Panthers

The Associated Press

Sunrise, Fla. -- Michael Frolik scored with 1:21 left to lift the Florida Panthers to a 4-3 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Wednesday night.

Stephen Weiss, Radek Dvorak and Bryan McCabe also scored for Florida, and Tomas Vokoun stopped 20 shots.

Ilya Kovalchuk, Nik Antropov and Vyacheslav Kozlov scored for Atlanta, which overcame a three-goal deficit to tie the game in the third.

Johan Hedberg made 25 saves for Atlanta.

On the winning goal, Frolik poked in a rebound, putting the puck high in the net.

Kovalchuk started Atlanta's comeback with his 18th goal of the season. His slap shot from the left circle beat Vokoun and cut Florida's lead to 3-1 with 2:08 left in the second period. Atlanta made it 3-2 at 1:59 of the third when Antropov, positioned in front of Vokoun at the crease, pushed a rebounding puck under the goalie's legs.

The Thrashers tied it at 6:27 of the third period when Kozlov picked up a loose puck in the high slot and scored on a slap shot.

McCabe scored at 2:54 in the second period to give Florida a 3-0 lead. He took a pass from Victor Oreskovich then shot from the right circle, sending the puck under a leaping Jeff Taffe and into the net for his fourth goal of the season.

The Panthers made it 2-0 with Dvorak's goal at 8:19 in the first period. Dvorak took a pass from Steven Reinprecht and scored with a shot from the low slot.

Weiss opened the scoring at 6:42 in the first. Hedberg stopped the initial shot from Nathan Horton, but then Weiss put in the rebounding puck with a wrist shot. It was the 16th goal of the season for Weiss and his third in three games.

Entering Wednesday night's game, Florida had dropped six of its last seven home games, and all but one of those seven contests had gone into overtime or a shootout.

The Thrashers had already twice met the Panthers this season, both games that ended in disappointment for Florida. Maxim Afinogenov scored the winning goal with 6 seconds remaining to lift the Thrashers to a 4-3 win on Nov. 30, and Kovalchuk scored with 1:04 left in regulation in a Dec. 5 game that the Thrashers eventually won 2-1 in a shootout.