Thrashers’ winning streak ends at 5

Philadelphia — For just one period Sunday night, the Thrashers played like a team going after a franchise-record sixth consecutive victory.

But even their 21-shot, two-goal third period included one crucial breakdown.

When Joffrey Lupul stopped short on a rush to the net, defenseman Niclas Havelid couldn’t stop with him and Havelid’s teammates couldn’t get over to help. That gave Lupul enough time to skate into the slot and blast the game-winning goal under Johan Hedberg with 6:17 left in a 4-3 Philadelphia Flyers victory.

The Flyers beat the Thrashers for the 12th consecutive time, and goalie Antero Niittymaki improved to 11-0 against Atlanta. But the Thrashers said the game was more about what they didn’t do than about what the Flyers and Niittymaki did.

“We set the plate for them,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said.

Example No. 1 came less than one minute into the game, when Jason Williams made a careless cross-ice pass that Simon Gagne converted into a breakaway goal. After 20 minutes defenseman Ron Hainsey later described as “horrendous,” the Flyers had outshot the Thrashers 18-4 and led 2-0.

It looked as if the Thrashers’ previous two weeks had never happened. They reverted to all the worst habits of the 2-7-2 team they used to be and showed none of the spark or discipline that produced five consecutive victories.

“It didn’t seem like many besides the goalie were ready to go,” Hainsey said.

“When you get scored against early, a team like us that’s still learning how to win hockey games night in and night out, when you get scored on early like that, it just took all the momentum away from us,” forward Erik Christensen said. “Our start kind of gave it away for the whole game.”

Hedberg had won three consecutive starts but had little chance against the Flyers. He was screened on the middle two goals, scored by Mike Knuble and Kimmo Timonen, and had to do all he could just to keep the Thrashers close.

“The last 10 minutes of the first period I don’t think we touched the puck,” Anderson said, overstating the case only a little.

Christensen’s first goal of the season, off a beautiful feed from Ilya Kovalchuk, got the Thrashers started in the second period, and then they really went to work in the third. After being outshot 28-11 in the first two periods, they put 10 of the first 11 shots on net in the final period.

One of those shots was Bryan Little’s ninth goal of the season, which banked in off Flyers defenseman Luca Sbisa. Then, during a dominant four-on-four stretch, Slava Kozlov tied the game with his team-best 10th goal of the season, a backhand tip-in after he beat Matthew Carle for a loose puck in front of the net.

Philadelphia had won a road game at Montreal the night before, and the Thrashers tried to take advantage of the Flyers’ fatigue. But though the Thrashers outshot the Flyers 21-4 in the third period, Lupul made the most of one of those four shots.

Niittymaki stopped 29 shots, but was less impressive than he was in a 7-0 shutout of the Thrashers on Oct. 28 in Atlanta. His streak against the Thrashers is the second best active streak for any NHL goalie against one opponent. The longest: Detroit’s Chris Osgood is 17-0 against Tampa Bay.