Hossa Leads Thrashers Past Red Wings

Marian Hossa scored a natural hat trick to open the scoring for the Thrashers Tuesday night and the Detroit Red Wings never recovered as Atlanta cruised to a 5-1 victory.

Hossa scored twice on the power play and once at even-strength in the first 21:14 of the game, earning his seventh career hat trick.

The first power play goal came at 7:33, when Hossa skated out of the corner and moved out front of the goal untouched, putting a shot past Chris Osgood.

Hossa’s second game at with 5:38 left in the period. Brett Lebda missed the puck while retreating at center ice and Hossa pounced on it, jumping past him and skating in on goal alone before throwing a quick shot by Osgood.

Wide open in the slot on a power play, Hossa scored his third goal at 1:14 of the second. Todd White drew two defenders to him along the boards and the already-shorthanded Wings couldn’t cover Hossa when he took a pass and rifled a shot into the net.

Atlanta would get a power play goal from Eric Perrin and a late goal by former Red Wing Slava Kozlov to wrap up the scoring.

Niklas Kronwall scored Detroit’s only goal.

Osgood stopped 13 of 17 shots against before being replaced in net by Dominik Hasek. Hasek allowed the game’s final goal, stopping seven of eight shots. Kari Lehtonen made 46 saves on Detroit’s 47 shots.