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Four-goal second period pushes Thrashers past Hurricanes

Nov 10, 2008 - 1:30 AM RALEIGH, North Carolina (Ticker) -- Marty Reasoner had two goals as the Atlanta Thrashers scored four times in the second period to cruise to a 5-2 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

Reasoner scored early in the second period to tie the game at 1-1, and he added a second tally 6:03 into the third period to cap the scoring.

Defenseman Ron Hainsey, Jason Williams and Ilya Kovalchuk also scored in the second period and Johan Hedberg made 35 saves for Atlanta.

"We played a very simple game," Williams said. "We didn't want to make too many mistakes. We know they are a very good transition team. We wanted to make sure we got the puck low on them and work them as much as possible. I felt we did that. The chances they had, we had guys down low helping out around the net."

Captain Rod Brind'Amour scored 92 seconds into the middle session to open the scoring for Carolina and Ray Whitney answered Reasoner's first goal just over two minutes later to give Carolina a 2-1 edge.

Carolina entered the game having won three of its last four and had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 in the second period, but could not make it stand.

"It's tough," Brind'Amour said. "In today's game, you can't have little things go against you because everyone is so evenly matched. We didn't have a lot of jump. We just didn't play well enough."

Goaltender Cam Ward made only 17 saves on 22 shots and was especially vulnerable in the middle session when the Thrashers scored four times on only nine shots.

After Brind'Amour slipped the puck under Johan Hedberg's pads to give Carolina a 1-0 lead, Reasoner put away a rebound from just inside the left circle to level the contest.

Whitney put Carolina back on top with his fourth goal of the season before Atlanta took over.

Hainsey blasted a rising slap shot from the left point to tie the game, 2-2, midway through the second period. Williams scored on a short-side rebound to give the Thrashers their first lead of the game, and Kovalchuk tipped in a centering pass from Williams with 97 seconds left in the session to give the Thrashers a 4-2 advantage.

"Carolina is a team that likes to cycle and what we tried to do was contain them and keep them to the outside," Atlanta coach John Anderson said. "It's hard to do because it seems like you're going around and around in your own zone but as long as you're not giving up quality shots that's all right."

"Our goaltender played really well today. He was really sharp. He was tremendous."

Reasoner capped the scoring with an unassisted tally in the third period.

"We're getting some chemistry and getting to know each other and we're feeling comfortable in our system," Reasoner said. "We took some lumps early and that brought us all together. Even in the games we were losing, there were a few games where we thought we should have had better results. We played better than the results we got. Hopefully we can keep this rolling."