BUFFALO, N.Y. — Atlanta goalie Johan Hedberg can’t explain his dominance of the Buffalo Sabres, but he can dissect his team’s hot start to the season.

"Last year we started out awfully, and we were out of it at Christmas time," said Hedberg, who made 40 saves and added an assist in his first start of the season to help send the Thrashers (4-1-0) to their best start in franchise history with a 4-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night.

"We learned from that, and we’re trying to get as many points as we can early on here because we want to stay in this race."

That won’t be hard to do if Atlanta continues getting production from star forward Ilya Kovalchuk, who scored twice to increase his total to seven, and stellar goaltending from both Hedberg and Ondrej Pavelec.

"I always expect to win," Thrashers coach John Anderson said. "I want to convey that to every guy on our team."

Hedberg continued his mastery of the Sabres by improving to 11-2-1 lifetime against Buffalo, and helped hand the Sabres (4-1-1) their first regulation loss of the season.

Todd White and former Sabre Maxim Afinogenov also scored for the Thrashers, whose four wins are the most after five games since the team’s inception in 1999.

"We have a good team," said Afinogenov, who signed with Atlanta after nine seasons with the Sabres. "Our goalies are playing unbelievable for us and that helps make our leads safe."

The Thrashers got 12 of the game’s first 13 shots in the opening 10 minutes, and jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead.

But after that sluggish start, Buffalo outshot the Thrashers 41-15 in the final 50 minutes — including a 20-4 advantage in the third period — but were thwarted continuously by the spectacular play of Hedberg.

"It was hard always coming back," said Buffalo forward Drew Stafford, who cut the Atlanta lead to 3-2 with 3:34 left in regulation only to watch Afinogenov clinch the game 17 seconds later with a splendid individual effort that was started by Hedberg. "We’d make a charge but then we’d let them get one right away."

Clarke MacArthur also scored for the Sabres.

Buffalo entered the game as the lone team in the NHL yet to be defeated in regulation.

Patrick Lalime made his first start of the season, and finished with 23 saves in the loss.