Thrashers fall to Penguins at home

The Thrashers headed into the final period Thursday night tied with the defending Eastern Conference champions.

They created the best scoring chances and put the most shots on net the rest of the game.

And they lost, on a power-play goal with 2:40 to play.

Pittsburgh’s 3-2 victory was hard to take in Philips Arena’s home locker room.

“You hate to have a loss like that, for sure,” center Jim Slater said after the Thrashers were beaten on a goal in the final seven minutes for the second time in as many games.

“We deserved a better fate,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. “I thought we took the play to them the whole third period. No question, it hurts.”

Penguins goalie Dany Sabourin stopped all 12 of Atlanta’s third-period shots on net, including a point-blank shot from just in front of the crease by Eric Perrin. Sabourin got some help from the right post on a shot by Jason Williams. And he somehow managed to trap the puck between his pads on Marty Reasoner’s shorthanded breakaway, a scoring opportunity so good, Penguins coach Michel Therrien said, “I didn’t want to look at it.”

The worst sight of the night for the Thrashers wasn’t Petr Sykora’s game-winning deflection of Sidney Crosby’s shot from the right faceoff circle. It was center Todd White trying and failing twice to get up after a crushing hit from Kris Letang early in the third period. A linesman eventually helped White skate back toward the Thrashers’ bench. White was to be checked for a concussion Thursday night and is expected to be looked at again today.

Perrin, who had two assists in the game, replaced White on the second line the rest of the way.

Slava Kozlov scored his team-leading 11th goal of the season, and Slater tied the game 2-2 on a 270-degree sweeping shot from his knees. But Sabourin stopped 21 other shots.

Atlanta’s Ondrej Pavelec wasn’t bad, either. The Penguins scored on Miroslav Satan’s tip-in of former Thrashers forward Pascal Dupuis’ crossing pass, a shot from the slot that Crosby made while falling to the ice and Sykora’s power-play deflection. Pavelec stopped 28 of 31 shots in his first appearance in two weeks.

“Their goalie kept them in the game,” Therrien said. “We had a lot of chances, but their goalie was fantastic.”

Anderson questioned the penalty on Chris Thorburn that set up Pittsburgh’s game-winner, and he questioned a penalty not being called against Pittsburgh that led to a turnover by Garnet Exelby seconds before the penalty on Thorburn.

The Thrashers won a franchise record-tying five consecutive games before this week’s back-to-back, one-goal, third-period losses at Philadelphia and to Pittsburgh. A home game Saturday against Columbus is next.

They hope that’s not too soon for the return of White, who is tied with Ilya Kovalchuk for the team lead with 11 assists. They also hope Thursday night’s result doesn’t sap their confidence that playing well will give them a good result.

“It’s tough to lose like that, especially on a power-play goal,” Slater said. “What else can you say, you know? It’s a tough way to lose.”