If it were up to the Vancouver Canucks, games against the NHL's Southeast Division would happen a little more frequently.

On the strength of two goals from Brendan Morrison, the Canucks continued their domination of Southeast Division teams with a 3-2 win over the Atlanta Thrashers on home ice Saturday night.

Brendan Morrison celebrates with teammate Matt Cooke after scoring in Vancouver's 3-2 win over Atlanta on Saturday.
(Richard Lam/Canadian Press)

Markus Naslund also scored for Vancouver who pulled into a tie with the Calgary Flames and the Minnesota Wild atop the Northwest Division with the win. The three teams are tied at 66 points.

This was the only matchup this season between the Canucks and Thrashers and the first since February of 2004. The Canucks have only lost once in regulation time against a Southeast Division foe in 30 games since the 2000-01 season.

Jon Sim and Ilya Kovaluchuk tallied for Atlanta, who dropped the second game of their season-long six-game road trip after starting it with a 6-3 win in Colorado on Thursday.

Goalie Roberto Luongo made 27 saves to earn his Western-Conference leading 31st win of the season for Vancouver.

Atlanta's Kari Lehtonen made 30 saves in a losing effort.

Canucks score early, hang on late

Morrison put the Canucks on the board early, whipping a wrist shot past Lehtonen for his 13th goal of the season at the 1:44 mark in the first period.

Vancouver built on their lead in the second period on the strength of its power play.

Naslund blasted a shot into a crowd that deflected off defenceman Niklas Havelid and past Lehtonen for his 18th goal of the campaign at 9:02. Just 10 seconds later, Morrison struck again with a tip-in goal off a shot by Sami Salo to build a three-goal lead for Vancouver.

Sim finally got Atlanta on the board at the 13:10 mark of the middle frame, banging home a loose rebound off a shot from Eric Boulton past Luongo for his 15th goal of the season.

Atlanta made the score 3-2 after Kovalchuk blasted his 32nd goal of the season through a crowd and past Luongo to set up a wild finish.

But Luongo withstood the final flurry from the Thrashers to seal the win for the Canucks, who will now prepare for a divisional showdown against the Wild in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

"We held on," Morrison told Hockey Night in Canada after the Canucks' win. "They were coming at us hard, we got a little lucky but we held on."

With files from the Canadian Press