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Peltonen scores twice as Panthers blow out Thrashers

Jan 10, 2009 - 11:11 PM SUNRISE, Florida (Ticker) -- Ville Peltonen scored twice during a five-goal third period as the Florida Panthers cruised to an 8-4 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers on Saturday.

Cory Stillman, David Booth and Nathan Horton also tallied in the third for the Panthers, who produced their best offensive output of the season without the help of their power play (0-for-4).

Radek Dvorak recorded a goal and two assists, including the 300th of his career, Booth, Horton and rookie Michael Frolik each netted a tally and set up another and Gregory Campbell collected three assists for Florida.

Richard Zednik and defenseman Karlis Skrastins each set up a pair of goals, All-Star blue-liner Jay Bouwmeester also scored and Tomas Vokoun stopped 28 shots for Florida, which improved to 4-0-1 in its last five games.

"Everything seemed to bounce our way. That (third period) was a very weird period," Bouwmeester said. "We've had a few games lately where we managed to fight our way back in the third period. That's a very positive sign."

Todd White registered a goal and two assists and Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen and All-Star Ilya Kovalchuk also tallied for Atlanta, which has lost seven of nine (2-6-1).

"It was a case where we stopped moving our feet (in the third period)," White said. "We gambled a little too much, and turnovers will kill you."

Already leading, 4-3, the Panthers erupted for three goals in a 10-minute span in the third period to break open the game. The outburst occurred after the Thrashers scored twice in the second to tie it at 3-3.

"We had to dig ourselves out of a little hole, but we remained in good spirits coming in after that second period," Florida's Stephen Weiss said. "We came out with the right approach in the third."

Peltonen's tally 94 seconds into the session snapped a 3-3 tie and began the onslaught. He capped his second career two-goal performance with eight minutes remaining, when he chased goaltender Kari Lehtonen with his eighth of the season.

In between, Stillman scored at 2:42 and Booth added his 18th goal at 7:05.

"It's all about confidence right now," Florida coach Peter DeBoer said. "The guys responded well to what happened (in the second period), and they got rewarded for it."

"We've been riding a roller coaster pretty much all season," Campbell said. "We just have to keep riding it and stay positive."

Lehtonen allowed seven goals on 27 shots before being replaced by Johan Hedberg, who stopped one of the two shots he faced.

After giving up two late first-period tallies, including a shorthander by Dvorak that gave Florida a 3-1 bulge, Atlanta rallied to tie the game with two goals in the second session.

Just 16 seconds after Brett McLean was whistled for tripping, White's shot found its way past Vokoun on the short side at 3:53.

White also made a key play on the tying goal, delivering a perfect pass to Christensen, who directed the puck past a diving Vokoun with 3:34 left in the period.

"We battled back and everything looked fine after the second, but we had a very poor third period," Lehtonen said. "They were pretty much getting all the breaks out there in the third."