Kris Letang doesn't have a point in 11 games.

He hasn't scored a goal or set one up since Feb. 10.

Letang hung a pretty large asterisk on that statistic yesterday, however, when he got the shootout goal that gave the Penguins a 3-2 victory against Atlanta at Mellon Arena.

While that doesn't count in the regular league stats, Letang gets credit for a "shootout game-deciding goal," which is a pretty fair consolation prize. Especially when it adds to the body of evidence that he is a worthy candidate to succeed Erik Christensen as the Penguins' go-to guy at the start of each shootout.

"I would like to, but I have to prove myself, like [Christensen] did in past years," said Letang, the only player from either team to get a goal in the shootout. "He scored almost every time."

True enough, although Christensen, who was 5 for 8 in shootouts with the Penguins this season, couldn't do it against his old team yesterday.

Five days after being sent to Atlanta in the trade that brought Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis to the Penguins, Christensen had an opportunity to help the Thrashers steal a critical point from the Penguins.

Atlanta had grabbed an early advantage in the shootout when Penguins winger Petr Sykora put a backhander off the post, and Christensen could have put it firmly in control by burying a shot behind Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

Because he had faced Fleury one-on-one countless times in practice, Christensen decided to abandon the moves Fleury was familiar with and try to catch him off-guard with a quick forehand shot.

Not a bad idea.

"It kind of messed me up," Fleury said. "It was kind of surprising."

Just not successful.

"I've told him before [there's] no point going on a breakaway against him in practice anymore because he just poke-checks me if I try to deke, and I deke 95 percent of the time," Christensen said. "I just thought, 'If I see a corner, I'm going to go with it,' and I just nicked the crossbar."

Letang promptly put the Penguins in front by scoring on a backhander, and Fleury stopped Eric Perrin and Ilya Kovalchuk to earn a victory in his first NHL start since getting a high ankle sprain Dec. 6 in Calgary.

Fleury's 31-save performance wasn't his best of the season, to be sure, but it wasn't bad, under the circumstances.

"He was solid," coach Michel Therrien said.

Good enough to help pull the Penguins (37-23-7) out of a two-game losing streak and lift them into sole possession of first place in the Atlantic Division, as well as a tie with Montreal for the No. 1 spot in the Eastern Conference.

"The goal is to make the playoffs," Therrien said.

"That's the No. 1 goal. The second goal is to try to establish yourself in the best position possible."

The Penguins put Fleury there by scoring twice during the first 129 seconds.

Ryan Malone made it 1-0 50 seconds into the game when he dug a puck out of goalie Kari Lehtonen's pads and tossed it behind him for his career-best 23rd of the season.

"I knew [the referee] must have not blown the whistle for a reason, so I figured I'd go and check it out," Malone said. "I saw the puck just sitting there and ended up chipping it into the empty net."

Max Talbot put them up by two at 2:09 with a sensational individual effort, as he carried the puck down the left side, then cut inside defenseman Steve McCarthy before tossing a backhander past Lehtonen.

A pretty fair display of skill by a guy more renowned for his tenacity and defensive work.

"I blacked out for 10 seconds," Talbot said, smiling. "I woke up and I was [against] the boards. I heard some people cheering, and the puck was in."

The Thrashers could have wilted, but got a sharp-angle goal by Jim Slater at 14:25 of the first -- "I thought it was going to hit me or go wide," Fleury said -- and one from Slava Kozlov on a power play at 1:11 of the third to push the game into overtime.

"We just kind of put it into neutral [when it was 2-0] and figured it was over," Malone said. "We don't want to make a habit of that."