Flyers Top Thrashers

Ruslan Fedotenko and Chris Therien also scored for the Flyers, who have won four straight and are 8-2 in their last 10 games.

Stephen Guolla scored a power-play goal in the third period for the Thrashers, who have won only one of their last 13 road games (1-10-2).

Gagne, who leads the team with 26 goals, put the Flyers ahead 1-0 with 5:10 left in the second period. He took a pass from Eric Desjardins deep in the Flyers zone, skated up the left side and fought off Atlanta defenseman Andrei Skopintsev to flip a wrist shot past goalie Damian Rhodes.

Philadelphia scored twice in a span of 2:41 early in the third with Rick Tocchet assisting on both goals.

Tocchet fed Fedotenko with a cross-ice pass to the left of the crease at 1:05, then dropped the puck on the stick of Therien, who scored from the slot at 3:46.

Guolla`s goal on a rebound of a shot by Herbert Vasiljevs got Atlanta within 3-1 at 8:09 of the third.

But Gagne scored again from inside the left circle at 9:10 and then fed Mark Recchi on a give-and-go at 13:00 to break the game open again.

The Flyers won the season series from the second-year Thrashers 3-0-1.

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Notes: Bill Barber is 19-7-5 since taking over as Flyers coach. Since then, Cechmanek has lost only three times in 24 decisions (18-3-3). ... Rhodes is 3-10-1 career against the Flyers. ... The Thrashers killed off 21 of 24 of their opponents` power-play attempts in the last five games. ... Gagne, in his second NHL season, has 101 career points.

(Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Author: 6 ABC - Action News (AP)