ATLANTA Penguins conquer Thrashers, 4-1

Fourth-line partners Shean Donovan and Steve McKenna tallied in the third period Friday to spark Pittsburgh.
ATLANTA (AP) -- Shean Donovan and Steve McKenna were there to bail out Mario Lemieux and Alexei Kovalev.
Fourth-line partners Donovan and McKenna each scored in the third period Friday to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 4-1 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers.
Meanwhile, Kovalev, fourth in the league in scoring, could only hit the post three times.
And Lemieux, who leads the league, whiffed on a wide-open shot in the slot late in the second period.
Ended drought
Lemieux ended a two-game scoring drought with two assists, putting him five shy of 1,000 for his career.
Lemieux, who has 17 points in nine career games against Thrashers, increased his season total to 66 points.
Martin Straka and Dick Tarnstrom also scored for the Penguins, who won for the fifth time in seven games after going 0-9-0-1 in their previous 10.
"We don't even think about that streak anymore," Penguins coach Rick Kehoe said. "It happens during the course of a season where a team has spells like that. It's just a matter of getting through them."
Jean-Sebastien Aubin made 23 saves for the Penguins, who lost to Atlanta for the first time in franchise history on Monday after a 14-0 start.
Savard tallies
Marc Savard scored Atlanta's lone goal, his first since Oct. 22 when he was with Calgary.
Tied 1-1 after two periods, McKenna finished a pretty give-and-go with ex-Thrasher Donovan at 2:41 of the third to put Pittsburgh ahead with his third of the season -- all coming in the last seven games.
"And they've all been big ones for us," Kehoe said.
"Maybe he wants to move up to the second line or something," Donovan said jokingly. "Maybe get some more power play time."
McKenna offered to trade sticks with Kovalev, after Kovalev hit the post three times in the first period.
"He wants to give me his stick after the second period," Kovalev said. "I didn't want it, and then he goes out and scores with it. Another bad decision by me."
Kovalev did put his stick to good use, setting up Tarnstrom's one-timer less than three minutes later to make it 3-1.
Empty-net goal
Donovan added an empty-net goal in the final minute for his second of the season.
"It was obvious that we were a team that played last night with late travel and they were sitting here waiting on us," said Thrashers GM and interim head coach Don Waddell. "In the third period, it was tied 1-1 and they had a jump on us. We were kind of gasping for air out there."
Savard gave the Thrashers the early lead when he scored on the power play at 15:22 of the first, knocking in a feed from Frantisek Kaberle after it ricocheted off the skate of Penguins defenseman Hans Jonsson.
It was Savard's second goal of the season, and first in 16 games with Atlanta.
"I felt good in the first period, but we lost the game and it doesn't mean anything," Savard said.
The Penguins tied it early in the second when Straka stopped Lemieux's pass with his skate and took a wrist shot high on Pasi Nurminen's stick side at 4:33.
Nurminen, who made 35 saves in the win Monday, was scheduled to start Friday even before Byron Dafoe was shelled Thursday night in Ottawa. Nurminen (7-10-1) made 24 saves.
Pittsburgh's power-play leads the league at just under 28 percent, yet has gone 0-for-12 in the last two games against Atlanta. With 49 power-play goals in 39 games, the Penguins already have two more than all of last season.