Wildly inconsistent against everybody else in hockey, the Thrashers have enjoyed a nearly two-year run of success against their own division.

This season, they're 12-7-1 against Southeast opponents, the best record in the division.

The Thrashers haven't lost a division game in regulation since Jan. 4 and last season their 18-7-7 record in the division was the reason they hosted playoff games as the Southeast champ.

Now, they head to Raleigh to play first-place Carolina, which built a three-point lead on the Thrashers while the Thrashers took a four-day break between games.

It's the first of 12 division contests in the final 21 games of the season for the Thrashers. Nine of the final 10 Thrashers games are against the Southeast.

"The race starts now," Ilya Kovalchuk said. "It's a great challenge."

Explaining the Thrashers success in the division might be this simple: The Southeast just isn't that good.

Carolina's division-leading 65 points would mean fifth place in the Atlantic and Pacific divisions. And the Southeast is the only division in hockey in which every team has allowed more goals that it has scored.

But there's also extra motivation for division games, and as inconsistent as the Thrashers have been this season, they tend to play well when motivated.

"As pros we need to be ready for every game equally," Garnet Exelby said. "But in the back of our minds, we know if we have success against our division and win our division, we'll make the playoffs and we're in a great spot with home-ice advantage. I definitely think that's part of the reason."

Last year, the Thrashers won three of their last four games against Carolina en route to winning the division.

But this year, the Hurricanes have held first place most of the season. That lead is tenuous. They've held steady since captain Rod Brind'Amour hurt his knee on Valentine's Day, going 1-1-1 since.

You have to wonder if that can last since Brind'Amour is out for the season.

"He does everything for them," Exelby said. "He takes all the defensive zone face-offs. He's a leader; he's a captain. He kills penalties and logs a lot of ice for them. He's arguably their best player all around. It's going to hurt them."

Hossa misses practice

Considering he's at the center of every trade rumor surrounding the Thrashers, it raised some eyebrows when forward Marian Hossa wasn't at practice Wednesday.

But associate coach Brad McCrimmon, who has been running things while Don Waddell is at the general managers meetings, assured there is nothing brewing.

Hossa is just the latest player to catch a flu bug passing through the dressing room. Niclas Havelid, Alexei Zhitnik, Ken Klee and Brad Larsen have also been hit with the bug.

"It was just [Hossa's] turn," McCrimmon said.

Waddell left the GM meetings without making a trade, and he said on Tuesday night that if he's going to trade Hossa, teams will have to make better offers than the ones discussed in Florida.

"The [Hossa] talks have started, but I can tell you nobody is stepping to the plate and saying 'I've got to have this guy right now,' " Waddell said.

"Right now, there's nothing on the table that I'm considering."