SUNRISE, Florida (Ticker) -- The Atlanta Thrashers can thank their special teams for matching their franchise-high winning streak.
Ilya Kovalchuk and Shawn McEachern scored power-play goals while J.P. Vigier and defenseman Andy Sutton added shorthanded tallies to lead the Thrashers to their third straight victory, 6-3 over the Florida Panthers.
After Atlanta squandered three one-goal leads, Sutton got to the rebound of a shot by Vigier and drilled it past an out-of-position Roberto Luongo with four seconds remaining in the second period, giving the Thrashers a 4-3 advantage.
"We got them sleeping a little bit on their power play," Sutton said. "Anytime a defenseman jumps in, it makes it an odd-man rush. Sometimes you can make things happen."
It was the second shorthanded goal of the game by Atlanta and marked the first time Florida has surrendered two in one period since December 12, 1997 against the New York Rangers.
"We had great pressure close to our blue line," Thrashers coach Bob Hartley said. "It turned out that we had the puck and we got open. It was a good read by our guys in our zone and they each got open."
McEachern, who netted the contest's first goal, notched his first multi-goal game of the season with a power-play tally midway through the third, and Ronald Petrovicky capped the scoring with an empty-netter.
"Personally, I didn't play very well, so I can't blame anyone but myself," Luongo said. "We had a lot of scoring chances, but I have to play better than that. I'm not really happy about myself."
Defenseman Frantisek Kaberle matched a career high in points with three assists for the Thrashers, who recorded the fourth three-game winning streak in their five-year history.
The loss was the third in a row for Florida, which fell to 2-4-0 under interim coach Rick Dudley.
"I can't fault the effort tonight, they worked hard," Dudley said. "We worked hard, a stick broke, they got another one with (four) seconds left. ... Those are things that aren't supposed to happen."
McEachern, who entered with 28 points in 36 career games against the Panthers, took a feed in his own zone and skated down the left side, around the net and into the right faceoff circle before beating Luongo to the glove side with a wrister 5:28 into the game.
Olli Jokinen drew Florida even less than four minutes later, but Kovalchuk scored his league-leading 15th goal while on the power play with 4:35 left in the first to regain Atlanta's lead.
The Panthers tied the game when defenseman Mike Van Ryn assisted on Valeri Bure's tally 8:25 into the second for his 11th point, a career high. But Vigier pounced on a loose puck after Bure broke his stick and scored his first career shorthanded goal at 15:12.
"I had the puck in an open area at the top of the zone and I break my stick when trying to one-time the puck," Bure said.
"We were able to capitalize on our chances," Vigier said. "You get excited when you score a goal to take the lead. ... It's always a great feeling to score."
Just 38 seconds later, former Panthers defenseman Ivan Majesky helped ex-teammates by swiping a pass by Stephen Weiss past his own goalie, tying the game at 3-3.
