Lehtonen leads Thrashers past Lightning

This has the makings of a fruitful fortnight for the Thrashers.

They’ve got their No. 1 goalie back in net, a key defenseman back on the ice and, most importantly, a schedule packed with teams they’ve proven they can beat.

They took advantage of it Saturday night by winning 4-3 against Tampa Bay, the last-place team in the Southeast Division.

Five of the Thrashers’ next six games also are against teams in the bottom half of the Eastern Conference standings. They play Toronto twice, the New York Islanders, Carolina and, again, Tampa Bay, all teams the Thrashers have beaten. They need to convert those games into points if they’re going to do the improbable and pull themselves from 13th place into playoff contention.

Fortunately for them, they’ve got Kari Lehtonen.

Lehtonen, playing for the first time since October, made a successful comeback from his back injury by stopping 36 of the Lightning’s final 37 shots. Many in the Philips Arena crowd of 14,395 rose to applaud him after he made four saves in a 12-second flurry. All that time off clearly hadn’t robbed him of his reflexes.

“That was great that it came in the third period, not in the first when I probably wasn’t so comfortable yet,” said Lehtonen, who couldn’t keep the Lightning from scoring on their first two shots of the game but got better and better after that.

By the third period, he looked fantastic. Tampa Bay got only one third-period goal despite 24 shots, the most ever for a Thrashers opponent.

“He was a little rusty at the start [of the game], but he sure picked it up in the third period. Yikes,” Thrashers coach John Anderson said. “Once he made his first big save, his chest started to pump out a little bit. His footwork was really, really good.”

Lehtonen got a huge assist from center Marty Reasoner, who stepped in behind him on one play and stacked his legs goalie-style to block a shot. Reasoner later took a slap shot on the hand and had to come out of the game. X-rays showed no fracture.

Defenseman Mathieu Schneider played 19:23 in his first game since hurting his shoulder Nov. 30. “Great,” Anderson said of Schneider’s performance.

The Thrashers’ first home victory since Nov. 14 included goals from Slava Kozlov, Eric Perrin, Todd White and Joey Crabb. Jason Williams got his 100th NHL assist and was so strong with the puck the Lightning twice had to commit penalties to keep him from scoring.

“Maybe one of the best games I’ve seen him play this year,” Anderson said.

Martin St. Louis scored twice for the Lightning, who played like the last-place team they are until the final 20 minutes.

“Embarrassing,” Tampa Bay coach Rick Tocchet said. “To see the way they played the first two periods was disheartening. I feel bad for our fans.”

Pardon the Thrashers if they don’t sympathize. They’ve had troubles of their own and know the next two weeks provide them several opponents they have to beat.

“If you look at where we are in the standings and where they are, we need to win all of our games,” Thrashers defenseman Niclas Havelid said. “That’s what it comes to right now. It’s a critical point of the season. If we still want to be in [contention], we have to win our games right now.”