ATLANTA — Twenty-one games remain for the Avalanche to get its act together.

The way this season is unraveling, having twice as many left probably wouldn't be enough.

Even the presence of Paul Stastny on the ice for the first time in two months didn't help the Avalanche on Tuesday night, when the Atlanta Thrashers scored two short-handed goals en route to a 4-3 win before an announced crowd of 12,101 at Philips Arena.

"We lost the special-teams battle, and that cost us the game," Stastny said after playing for the first time since suffering a fractured forearm Dec. 23.

Stastny logged 24:20 in ice time and passed to Milan Hejduk for a power-play goal late in the first period.

The Thrashers bolted to a 3-0 lead in the opening 11:20 and held on for their 10th home win in 29 games while handing the Avalanche yet another damaging loss.

"In the past, there was no question whether we would make the playoffs," said Hejduk, who scored two goals. "It was a matter of if we were going to be among the top three teams and which spot we would be in.

"Basically, the season started for us in April."

Now, barring a miraculous finish, the Avalanche season will end in April.

"We are so many points behind," Hejduk said. "It's not fun, but we'll battle to the end."

The Avalanche closed to 3-2 on Hejduk's goals, his second coming at 11:01 of the second period.

The Avalanche went on a power play a few minutes later with a chance to tie the score but gave up a short-handed goal to Rich Peverley after Stastny was knocked off the puck in the Atlanta end.

"That's unacceptable," Hejduk said. "It's one thing to be on the power play and not score goals, but you shouldn't give up goals. It happened, and that's unfortunate."

The desperate Avalanche pulled goalie Peter Budaj for a sixth attacker with 2:43 remaining, and rookie Chris Stewart closed the scoring with 1:31 to play.

Budaj went to the bench again for an extra skater, but Brett Clark pulled down Ilya Kovalchuk and went to the penalty box for holding with 33 seconds to go, ending any chance of sending the game to overtime.

"It's always tough coming back from 3-0," Stastny said. "We tried to claw back, but it wasn't enough."

The power play, a problem area for much of the past two seasons, was worse than usual.

"It was just not sharp," coach Tony Granato said. "It didn't execute the way it needed to in order to be successful and, obviously, they took advantage of a couple short-handed situations and made the most of those chances.

"I think we thought it was going to be a little easier than it turned out to be, and we made some mistakes in our own end. We got sloppy coming back to our end, and with the skill they have offensively, they can score goals."

The Thrashers scored on two of their first three shots and three of their first eight against Budaj, who has allowed 14 goals while losing four decisions in a row.

"It was not the start we were hoping for," said Budaj, who previously played Feb. 13 against Montreal. "It was not the start I was hoping for, not being in the net for the (previous) four games. It's not working right now.

"I felt great. I was moving well. I was seeing the puck well. There were a couple lucky bounces at the beginning for them. I just tried to stay positive. You go down 3-zip and you try to work your way back. I was glad the coaches stuck with me."

Tobias Enstrom, who has two goals in 61 games, scored while short-handed at 2:57; Kovalchuk deflected in Niclas Havelid's point shot at 4:07; and Slava Kozlov passed to Marty Reasoner in front for a 3-0 advantage at 11:20.

"We just got to keep pushing," Avalanche defenseman Adam Foote said. "We got Paulie back, which strengthened it up, but we got behind quick and that gave them confidence.

"We got down pretty quick and it seemed like they had a lot of jump. We regrouped and we almost got it back. We have to stay focused."

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