PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Jaromir Jagr couldn't beat the Atlanta Thrashers with his shooting. So he beat them with his passing -- and his talking.

Jagr set up two of Pittsburgh's four goals in the third period, giving him a league-high 82 points, and the Penguins rallied to beat Atlanta 5-2 Wednesday night.

"He hit the pipe three times, and the way he was playing he could have had six goals," Penguins coach Herb Brooks said. "If there's any doubt who's going to say 'Follow me' and grab the hockey club and say 'Here I go,' it was Jagr."

The Thrashers wasted a 2-0 lead on first-period goals by Denny Lambert and Steve Staios to lose their seventh in a row, three to Pittsburgh. Atlanta is 0-9-2 since beating Philadelphia 1-0 on Jan. 14 and is 3-20-4 on the road.

Pittsburgh, which had been 2-14-1 when trailing after two periods, matched a season high by winning its fourth in a row and closed within one game of .500 at 24-25-4.

Defenseman Darius Kasparaitis said Jagr challenged the Penguins, who are barely holding onto the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, by forcefully reminding them they couldn't lose to the NHL's worst team.

"He was a true leader," Kasparaitis said. "He told us in the locker room we couldn't lose this game."

Jean-Sebastien Aubin replaced Tom Barrasso after the first period and shut out Atlanta the rest of the way, turning aside all 18 shots he faced. But the biggest save was made by Martin Straka, who jumped into an abandoned net to block Kelly Buchberger's shot with the score 2-2 in the third period.

About a minute later, Robbie Brown scored at 7:16 on a power-play goal set up by Jagr to give Pittsburgh the lead for good.

"Instead of being 3-2 them, it was 3-2 us because of the play Marty made," Brown said.

With Nelson Emerson off for holding, Brown pounced on a loose puck along the left-wing boards, threaded a pass to Jagr, then took a short giveback pass to beat Maracle inside the near post for his seventh goal.

Pittsburgh scored on four of its 12 third-period shots.

"Going into the third period, we were still in position to win that game," Atlanta coach Curt Fraser said. "And the guys came out of the room, I've never seen them higher, ready to go. We made a bad mistake on the first shift of the period and the game's tied and, all of a sudden, it got worse."

The Penguins needed only 17 seconds of the period to make it 2-2 as Jan Hrdina grabbed Jagr's backhanded pass through the crease to beat goalie Norm Maracle for his 11th goal.

Maracle shut out the Penguins until Martin Straka's power-play goal at 10:56 in the second period. But he was under constant pressure after that as Jagr twice put shots off the post and another time missed an open net -- and that was just in the second period.

"I remember when I played with Mario (Lemieux), and look how good he was, he would have these kind of nights, too," Jagr said. "Maybe the next time, they will go in."

Robert Lang made it a two-goal lead at 8:36 with his fifth goal in six games. Alexei Morozov weaved back and forth behind the net, looking for an opening, before threading the puck to Lang in the slot.

Morozov scored himself shorthanded at 16:55 to finish off the Penguins' five-goal flurry, working a 2-on-1 break with Alexei Kovalev for his seventh goal and first since Jan. 5.

"When Pittsburgh ups its level of play like it did, we have to be able to respond," Fraser said. "Until we do that we are going to be in this problem."

Pittsburgh forward German Titov missed the game with a severe case of the flu and a high temperature. Barrasso, whose father has been seriously ill, was lifted because of what Brooks said were personal reasons.