Cats Collapse vs. Thrashers

Panthers give up two late goals to Atlanta, lose in shootout

Bryan Little and Alexander Burmistrov scored in the shootout and the Atlanta Thrashers rallied from a late two-goal deficit to beat the Florida Panthers 3-2 on Monday night.

Atlanta won the shootout 2-1, clinching the victory when Ondrej Pavelec stopped Cory Stillman's wrist shot on Florida's third attempt. Mike Santorelli scored on the Panthers' first attempt to give Florida a 1-0 lead in the shootout.

Little and Burmistrov scored on Atlanta's first two attempts.

Little and Chris Thorburn scored in regulation for Atlanta, which snapped a four-game losing streak.

Pavelec stopped 38 shots in regulation and overtime. The Thrashers had given up 24 goals in their previous four games.

Dennis Wideman and Dmitry Kulikov scored in regulation for the Panthers, who had won three in a row and failed to win four straight for the first time since March 2008.

Scott Clemmensen, making his third consecutive start, stopped 28 shots.

Stephen Weiss had two assists.

Atlanta trailed 2-0 when Little scored off a rebound in front of the net at 18:02 of the third period with Pavelec on the bench for an extra attacker.

Thorburn scored 44 seconds later when he tipped in Little's wrist shot from long range.

The game was scoreless after two periods before Wideman scored at 4:30 on a two-man advantage. He scored his third goal in four games by beating Pavelec from the right circle with a wrist shot over the left shoulder.

Kulikov made it 2-0 at 7:18 with a short backhand while he was standing in front of the net. Pavelec stopped the shot with his leg but it went in off defenseman Brent Sopel.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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