Skating on the brink

ATLANTA - Sure, it's still January. Even so, the Atlanta Thrashers are doing plenty of scoreboard watching each night.

Did Toronto win? What's the Tampa Bay score?

"It's exciting," right winger J.P. Vigier said. "We're in the hunt. We want to stay in the hunt as much as we can."

The Thrashers headed into the weekend clinging to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, an up-and-down franchise still trying to find its way.

Atlanta entered the league in 1999 but has never made it past the regular season. The Columbus Blue Jackets, who joined the next year, are the only other team that doesn't need for a playoff section in its record book.

This is a crucial season for the Thrashers, who figured to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the post-lockout NHL. The salary cap evened things up between the haves and have-nots. The new, offensive-minded rules played into the hands of a team with three of the league's top 10 scorers (Ilya Kovalchuk, Marc Savard and Marian Hossa) as of Friday.

Also, this is year six for the Thrashers, more than enough time to build a playoff-worthy squad based on other expansion franchises' history.

"This is definitely a playoff team," said Peter Bondra, one of the top career scorers in the league and playing his first season with the Thrashers. "It's just a matter of how much we want it."

Atlanta didn't start with much enthusiasm, losing 19 of its first 29 games. There was an ugly four-game skid in October, in which the Thrashers were outscored 22-2, and a season-high five consecutive losses at the beginning of December.

Then, suddenly, they started playing like the team everyone expected.

Atlanta picked up points in nine games in a row(six wins, two shootout losses, one overtime loss). Kari Lehtonen, who missed most of the first three months with a severe groin injury, returned in late December to bolster the goaltending. The Thrashers put together a five-game winning streak - the longest in franchise history - and surged into seventh place in the East. There was even bold talk about chasing down the first-place Carolina Hurricanes.

That subject faded over the past week, as the Thrashers suddenly fell into a four-game slump - only one loss from their worst streak of the season. Three of those losses came at home, the last a dismal 5-1 setback to the Hurricanes.

"Everyone needs to look at themselves a little bit and try to figure out what's been happening the last few games," Lehtonen said.

Still, the Thrashers are part of the playoff race. That's a start.

"To me, it's like we're already in the playoffs," Bondra said. "Every game is important for our position. We can't relax at all."