ATLANTA – Marian Hossa scored the only goal in a shootout to lift the Atlanta Thrashers to a 4-3 victory over the Nashville Predators on Wednesday night.

It was Atlanta’s first shootout victory in five tries. Nashville fell to 4-2 in the NHL’s new tiebreaker.

Thrashers goalie Kari Lehtonen stopped Steve Sullivan, Paul Kariya and Marek Zidlicky in the shootout.

Nashville led 1-0 through two periods but needed two goals in the third period by Yanic Perreault to force overtime. Atlanta rallied in the period behind goals by Slava Kozlov, Ilya Kovalchuk and Marc Savard.

Tomas Vokoun shut out the Thrashers through two periods, stopping 23 shots. Led by three of the NHL’s top nine scorers, the Thrashers began the night third in the league with 158 goals.

Trailing 1-0, Atlanta finally broke through on Kozlov’s shot past Vokoun from in front of the net less than 2 minutes into the third period.

Nashville answered quickly on Perreault’s first goal about 6 minutes into the period for a 2-1 lead, but the Thrashers again pulled even on Kovalchuk’s league-leading 33rd goal.

The Thrashers took their first lead 12 minutes into the third on their first power-play goal of the game. Savard scored on an assist from Kovalchuk for a 3-2 Atlanta lead.

Lehtonen protected the advantage with a glove save of a breakaway shot by Sullivan with 5:21 left. After diving for Sullivan’s fake, Lehtonen was face-down on the ice when he reached up for the save.

Perreault’s second goal of the game, on the power play, got the Predators even at 3.

The Thrashers struck out on six power-play opportunities in the first period, including a briefly held 5-on-3 chance late in the period. They outshot the Predators 15-7 in the period.

Kovalchuk broke his stick on each of his two shots in the opening period. He angrily threw down the broken shaft after shattering his second stick on a power-play chance.

Kovalchuk broke a third early in the second period.

Nashville took a 1-0 lead in the first period on Darcy Hordichuk’s fourth goal. Hordichuk guided Zidlicky’s sharp pass past Lehtonen 5:26 in.

Vokoun protected the lead with a backhanded stop of Kozlov’s shot in the slot early in the second period. With less than 7 minutes left in the period, Vokoun smothered Savard’s breakaway shot.

A would-be goal by Nashville’s Mark Eaton about 5 minutes into the second period was disallowed due to a goaltender interference call against Martin Erat.

Notes: For the second straight game, Nashville RW Jordin Tootoo was scratched due to back spasms. Tootoo was injured when his vehicle was hit from behind on the way home from the morning skate Tuesday. … Kovalchuk has a seven-game scoring streak. … Kozlov’s goal gave him 600 career NHL points.

AP-ES-01-11-06 2209EST