Six players score in Senators' rout of Thrashers

ATLANTA -- The Ottawa Senators have stressed staying around the net to collect rebounds. It paid off against the Atlanta Thrashers.

Six players scored for Ottawa as the Senators won their third straight, a 6-3 victory over the Thrashers.

Magnus Arvedson, Chris Neil, Daniel Alfredsson, Martin Havlat, Mike Fisher and Shawn McEachern scored for the Senators, who climbed back to .500 (6-6-1).

The Senators scored four goals on rebounds using their superior speed to dominate Atlanta with a three-goal second period.

"They've been after us to go to the net really hard so we've been trying to do that," Neil said. "In games we lost, rebounds were coming out, but they were clearing them. We were jumping all over them tonight, and it's starting to pay off for us."

Ottawa goalie Jani Hurme stopped 26 shots to improve to 4-2. The loss snapped Atlanta's two-game winning streak.

Arvedson gave the Senators a 1-0 lead in the first period, poking a shot past Atlanta goalie Milan Hnilicka.

The Thrashers tied it when Ottawa turned the puck over at the end of its power play and Atlanta center Tony Hrkac beat Hurme on a breakaway.

The Senators scored two goals in the first 3:01 of the second period to lead 3-1.

Neil scored his first NHL goal after Hnilicka blocked two shots. The rebound of the second shot came out in front, and Neil flipped it in.

"We were hungry at the net, and that's how you're going to score goals in this league," Martin said. "Quite often you're not going to score on the first shot. You're going to score goals off rebounds and second effort and determination."

Alfredsson scooped up the rebound of his own missed shot and fired the rebound past Hnilicka to make it 3-1.

"I try and steer it to the corner, but I wasn't able to do that," Hnilicka said. "I was giving up more rebounds than usual."

Havlat made it 4-1 with a power-play goal with 5:19 remaining in the period.

The Thrashers got within 4-2 when Ilya Kovalchuk scored his seventh goal of the season with 2:07 left in the second period. The top pick in this year's draft has scored in four straight games.

Fisher made it 5-2 with his second goal of the season.

Atlanta's other top rookie, Dany Heatley, scored a power-play goal with 11:37 to play to make it 5-3.

McEachern scored into an empty net with 12 seconds remaining.

Notes: The Senators are 5-0-1 when scoring first. ... Kovalchuk set the Thrashers' record for consecutive games with a goal.