Lifeless Thrashers go down in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh — Halfway home for the Thrashers, they have somehow managed to find a new way to be bad.

The NHL’s second-worst defensive team suddenly can’t score, either.

Game 41 of 82 ended Tuesday night with the Thrashers once again managing just a single goal. The 3-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins was the Thrashers’ second consecutive one-goal effort and its fourth in the past six games.

Some of the credit belonged to Marc-Andre Fleury, who made 27 saves, some of them impressively. But a lot of the blame had to go to a Thrashers team that started slowly. Fleury had to make only five saves in the first period. Half of the Thrashers’ shots came in the final 20 minutes.

“We started to play when it’s 3-0, and that’s not good,” goalie Kari Lehtonen said.

The Thrashers (13-23-5) are 10 games below .500 for the first time this season and on pace for their fewest victories since the franchise’s first three seasons. Only the New York Islanders have a worse record.

“We’ve got some guys who show up every night, some guys who just decide when they’re going to play or not,” Ilya Kovalchuk said. “That’s our major problem right now. We don’t have enough talent in this locker room to play one game easy, one game hard. We have to be everybody on the same page, everybody hitting people, playing hard. That’s the only way to win the games.

“We’re not going to point to anybody. Everybody should step up, including me first of all.”

Kovalchuk scored the lone Thrashers goal with 5:40 left. It was his third goal in four games and his 14th this season.

But Bryan Little, whose 19 goals lead the team, had to sit out the game with bruised ribs. Thrashers coach John Anderson described Little’s status as day to day. But Anderson didn’t blame Tuesday’s result on Little’s absence from the lineup, and one game after ripping his team’s lack of effort in a 4-1 home loss to Tampa Bay, he said his players generated enough chances to have gotten a better result against Pittsburgh.

“We got up against a hot goalie tonight,” Anderson said. “He made some great saves in tight.”

Playing the Thrashers was just what the Penguins needed. The Thrashers have allowed more goals than any team but the Islanders, and they have had the least success killing penalties. The Penguins scored more goals by the second intermission (three) than they had scored in any of their previous seven games. The power play that went 0-32 during those seven games scored on two of its first three opportunities Tuesday night.

Petr Sykora scored twice for the Penguins, and Sidney Crosby scored the final goal. Evgeni Malkin assisted on all three, and Ryan Whitney had two assists.

The Thrashers had a big opportunity early when Crosby took a double-minor for high sticking. The Penguins were able to kill it, though, with Fleury making a big save against Kovalchuk. After that, it took a long time for the Thrashers to show any life.

“If we’d played the whole game like we did the third period, maybe it would have been a different outcome,” forward Jason Williams said. “The way we played in the third period, we’ve got to play like that the whole game. You can’t expect to play 20 minutes and win a hockey game.”