• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Thrashers unable to rally past Capitals

Apr 5, 2007 - 4:22 AM ATLANTA (Ticker) -- The Atlanta Thrashers wasted an opportunity to further secure third place in the Eastern Conference.

Alexander Ovechkin scored twice and goaltender Brent Johnson stopped a flurry of shots in the closing seconds as the Washington Capitals topped the Thrashers, 3-2.

Atlanta, which has clinched a playoff berth, remains the third seed in the Eastern Conference and leads the idle Tampa Bay Lightning (44-32-4) by only a single point in the Southeast Division.

Failure to win the division will drop Atlanta to sixth place, or worse, in the playoff seedings. Atlanta and Tampa Bay each have two games remaining and will meet Saturday in the season finale for both teams.

"We gave Tampa an opportunity to make that game mean something," Atlanta defenseman Andy Sutton said.

Washington took a 3-1 lead over the Thrashers in the second period, getting a goal from Boyd Gordon and two tallies from Ovechkin, who has 46 goals this season.

A shorthanded goal by Sutton with just under five minutes remaining in the third period gave the Thrashers life at 3-2.

Atlanta had a golden opportunity to extend or win the game following a pair of Washington penalties late in regulation. With 44 seconds remaining, Atlanta pulled netminder Kari Lehtonen and had a 6-on-3 advantage. However, Johnson was up to the challenge, turning away every Atlanta shot to secure the win.

"(The end of the game) was pretty frightening," said Johnson, who made 30 saves. "Especially when you are facing a team with their fire power. It felt like there were nine guys out there. I said, 'I can't believe that it's happening.' They were going full out at the end."

Washington had not beaten Atlanta in regulation in seven prior meetings this season, going 0-5-2.

"I hope this was a kick in the rear for us tonight," Atlanta left winger Keith Tkachuk said. "We did not want to be in that situation (at the end). We had our chance to capitalize and we did not."

Lehtonen admitted that the Thrashers are not making things easy on themselves.

"We're still in the playoffs. But we have to play a better 60 minutes to win in the playoffs. I'm confident we can turn it around," he said.

Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk scored his 40th goal of the year and the 200th of his career.