Winless Streak Ends as Thrashers Romp

It took another trip to New York for the Atlanta Thrashers to finally have something to celebrate.

The Thrashers went more than a month without winning a game, but Frantisek Kaberle had a goal and two assists as Atlanta earned its second consecutive victory at Madison Square Garden with a 7-2 rout Monday night over the New York Rangers.

“You go from a team that was pretty confident and feeling pretty good about themselves, to all of a sudden you haven’t won in 13 or 14 games,” said Ray Ferraro, who had a goal and an assist as the Thrashers ended a 14-game winless streak.

Patrik Stefan had three assists for Atlanta, which went 0-10-3-1 since beating the Rangers, 4-1, on Dec. 28. That victory put the Thrashers over .500 (15-14-6-1) for the first time in their two-year history.

“We’ve played some pretty good games, actually. It’s hard to believe when you don’t win in that time frame,” Ferraro said. “It always seemed to be that we’d find a way to shoot ourselves in the foot.”

This victory was much more convincing as the Thrashers took the lead 56 seconds after the opening faceoff on Donald Audette’s power-play goal.

“We played with a lot of confidence,” Coach Curt Fraser said. “We got a couple of good bounces during the power play, a couple of breaks, and the guys were able to turn it into a win.”

St. Louis 2, Toronto 1--Mike Eastwood’s short-handed goal was the winner at St. Louis.

Eastwood gathered a loose puck at the Toronto blue line, moved in and beat Toronto goalie Curtis Joseph at 4:47 of the third period.

Nashville 5, Phoenix 2--Mark Eaton had a goal and an assist and Mike Dunham made 22 saves for the Predators at Phoenix.

Carolina 5, Tampa Bay 2--Jeff O’Neill scored two goals and Ron Francis had three assists at Raleigh, N.C., as the Hurricanes extended the Lightning’s NHL-worst losing streak to 10 games.

Around the League

Forward Billy Tibbetts of the Pittsburgh Penguins was suspended by the NHL for four games for punching Atlanta Thrasher forward Darcy Hordichuk. Tibbetts was on the ice when he delivered a blow to the face of Hordichuk, who was on the Atlanta bench during the third period Saturday night.