• The Thrashers rallied in the third but fell short to Philadelphia 3-2 this afternoon at Philips Arena … The team’s overall record now stands at 18-31-5 for 41 points.
   
• Team captain Ilya Kovalchuk cut into the Flyers three-goal lead at the 4:00 mark of the third period with his team leading 22nd tally of the season … Todd White registered his 31st assist of the season and Vyacheslav Kozlov recorded his first point of the night on Kovalchuk’s 99th career power play goal.
   
• Forward Vyacheslav Kozlov scored his 17th goal of the season, on the power play, at 13:04 of the final frame … Defenseman Mathieu Schneider collected his ninth assist and Kovalchuk picked up his team leading 52nd point, with his 30th assist of the year on the Thrashers second goal of the evening.
   
• Schneider now has two assists in his last two games.
   
• Kovalchuk’s two-point night (1g, 1a) was his team leading 15th multiple-point game of the season.
   
• Defenseman Ron Hainsey paced the Thrashers with 23:42 of ice time while posting two shots on goal and led the team with two takeaways.
   
• Goaltender Johan Hedberg turned aside 20-of-23 shots … Antero Niittymaki stopped 29-of-31 shots for the victory.
   
• The Thrashers travel to the St. Pete Times Forum to face division rival Tampa Bay on Tuesday, Feb. 10 (7:30 p.m., SportSouth (HD), 680 The Fan).

What were your favorite parts of the game? Chime in with your own recap, highlights, comments, or pictures at IveBecomeOne.com.
 

Heading into the game John Anderson juggled his forward lines and mixed up his defensive pairings to make room for Garnet Exelby who played his first game since fracturing his leg in mid-December. Anderson thought the lines had more jump as Kovalchuk skated with Todd White and Bryan Little, Slava Kozlov lined up with Rich Peverley and Joe Motzko, Eric Christensen returned to center Colin Stuart and Colby Armstrong, and Eric Perrin centered Eric Boulton and Chris Thorburn. Marty Reasoner missed the game with an undisclosed illness while rookies Zach Bogosian and Nathan Oystrick were healthy scratches.

The Thrashers travel to Tampa Bay Monday afternoon to face the Lightning on Tuesday before returning home to host Chicago on Wednesday night. Whether or not the new lines remain together may depend on Reasoner's health.
 

Midway through the second period Eric Boulton tangled with Flyers heavyweight Riley Cote. The scrap began in Philly's end, meandered through the neutral zone into Atlanta's zone, and back into the Flyer's end.

- Power-Play Success. The Thrashers scored twice with the man advantage and Ilya Kovalchuk attributed it to a renewed commitment to work while up a man. Thrashers skaters were more active on the power play, cycling the puck effectively and getting to open spaces.

- X Factor. Garnet Exelby logged 13:05 in his first night back and was partially responsible for the game's first goal, but overall he looked good given that it was his first game action in almost two months. Both John Anderson and Exelby himself were happy with his return and both expect to see improvement as he shakes off the rust.
 

- Costly Mistakes. Overall the Thrashers played a decent game against a good team, but the Flyers jumped on mistakes and created their first two goals off of turnovers. The third came on a defensive breakdown on a power play that was the result of an ill-advised penalty.
 

"We finally started working. We think that if we are on the power play it's time to rest, but we have to work twice as hard if we want to get some momentum. They killed all of our penalties (early) and then scored on the power play so that was the game."