ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Teemu Selanne would almost rather play one of the NHL's upper-echelon teams than an expansion team because of the mental preparation involved.

"There's always a risk that you're not going to show up when you know you're playing an expansion team. That's why I've always been nervous about these kind of games," Selanne said after his two goals Sunday led the Anaheim Mighty Ducks to a 4-1 victory over the Atlanta Thrashers.

	Anaheim's Marty McInnis fights for control of the puck with the Thrashers' Dean Sylvester on Sunday. Sylvester scored his team's only goal.

"We know how hard those guys work -- and that's all they really have. But there's not that big a gap between a good team and a bad team, when the bad team works hard. We have no problems showing up against the good teams like Phoenix, L.A., Colorado and Detroit."

Selanne and Mike Leclerc scored 39 seconds apart in the second period, helping send the Thrashers to their fourth straight loss.

Steve Rucchin had three assists and Paul Kariya added two for the Ducks, who broke out of their offensive slump against the NHL's worst defensive team after totaling only eight goals in their previous five games.

Backup goaltender Dominic Roussel, making his first start in 12 games, earned his first victory since Oct. 27 against Pittsburgh with 27 saves after getting only five shots to handle through the first 27 minutes. Dean Sylvester converted a rebound of Darryl Shannon's wrist shot with 11:49 remaining to spoil Roussel's bid for his seventh career shutout.

"I felt pretty good right from the start, which I didn't expect," Roussel said. "I thought I'd have a little problem with my focus, but I was right in the game. We played almost perfect defense in the first period and the guys were positioned perfectly."

Selanne triggered a three-goal second period with his 100th career power-play goal, and only the third by Anaheim in a span of 34 opportunities. He beat Norm Maracle to the stick side from the left of the crease at the 3:45 mark following a holding-the-stick penalty against Ray Ferraro. The only goals Selanne had in his previous 12 games were the three he put past Ed Belfour on Nov. 26 at Dallas.

"I haven't had many slumps," Selanne said. "But when they do come, you just have to stay patient. If the team was losing all the time and I had these slumps, that would be the toughest thing."

The Ducks capitalized on turnovers to scored their next two goals. Ruslan Salei intercepted a clearing pass inside the Atlanta blueline and sent a wrist shot toward the net that struck Atlanta's Steve Staios. But Leclerc pounced on the loose puck and whipped it past Maracle for his sixth goal.

"Our guys make that one mental mistake, throwing it up the middle and getting it picked off. That's been the case since the beginning of the season," Atlanta coach Curt Fraser said. "And all these teams don't need a lot of chances to score. They need two or three, while we need five or six."

Less than 3 1-2 minutes later, Ladislav Kohn got a cross-ice feed in front of the net from Kariya and waited until Maracle committed himself before flipping the puck over him for his second goal of the season. The play started when David Harlock made a weak pass into the neutral zone from his own blueline and Rucchin intercepted it.

"Steve is one of the best two-way players in the game," Kariya said. "Sometimes, he doesn't realize how good he is. He plays well with me and Teemu, but we play well with him, too."

The three-goal period was the first by the Ducks since Nov. 3, when they did all their scoring in the second period of a 3-3 tie against Philadelphia.

Selanne's second goal and 13th of the season ended the scoring with 2:46 remaining.

The Thrashers lost left wing Matt Johnson 7 1-2 minutes into the game after he was struck near the left eye by a slapshot from Staios and required several stitches.