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St. Louis, Lecavalier lead Lightning over Capitals

Jan 12, 2007 - 6:05 AM TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Martin St. Louis insists on making the race for the Maurice Richard Trophy a fight to the finish.

St. Louis snapped a third-period tie with his 28th goal of the season and Vincent Lecavalier scored twice to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 5-4 victory over the Washington Capitals.

The 2004 Hart and Art Ross Trophy winner, St. Louis extended his points streak to eight games by tying Washington's Alex Ovechkin for the league lead in goals. His tally helped the Lightning (22-21-2) win for the fourth time in five games and jump ahead of the Capitals for eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

"It's going to be like that the rest of the way," St. Louis said. "We're aware of that. Every team is knocking off the other teams. There (are) five, six teams right there. You just have to keep plugging away. It's nice to be above water, you know, over .500."

St. Louis broke a 4-4 deadlock at 3:22 of the third session by taking Vaclav Prospal's pass from behind the net and finding the gap between goaltender Olaf Kolzig's pads.

"It's the type of game where we haven't won many of those where you need to outscore a team," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "I don't think either goalie was that great during the game, and those are the type of games I think last year we struggled to win."

"I'm a firm believer that games aren't won or lost because of one play," Washington coach Glen Hanlon said. "We lost because we gave up five goals, and the goal we gave up for the fifth was no different than the goals we gave up before then. I'm not going to put the blame on one person."

The Capitals had pulled even with 10 seconds left in the second period, when captain Chris Clark converted Ovechkin's cross-ice pass for his 15th goal.

After giving Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead in the first period, Lecavalier completed his second multi-goal contest of the season with 7:36 remaining in the second with his 26th of the campaign for a 4-3 edge.

"We played the whole game with confidence and we went after them even when we had the lead at the end," Lecavalier said. "That's the way we should play all the time with the lead."

"It was just an enjoyable game from the sense that it was well-played," Hanlon said. "Fans want to see scoring, and we had a lot of skill out there. At the end of the second, the score was 4-4 with like 30 shots. Every time there was a mistake, it ended up in the right people's hands."

Alexander Semin recorded his third two-goal game in the last four outings, including a power-play tally that deflected off St. Louis and beat netminder Johan Holmqvist just inside the left goalpost seven minutes into the first period.

Prospal and Ryan Craig tallied and Holmqvist made 18 saves for the Lightning, who have won three of the four meetings with the Capitals this season.

"Goals and points are hard to combine," Prospal said. "Anytime you have a chance to play on the first line is great. In a game like this, you need all the points we can get for the playoff race."

"I hope he gets his confidence," Tortorella said of Prospal. "It's not like he hasn't played hard, it just hasn't gone his way. He (has) been playing well. Tonight, he gets rewarded with points."

Former Tampa Bay left wing Ben Clymer netted his sixth goal and Kolzig stopped 20 shots for Washington, which had a three-game winning streak stopped.

"We made some of the little mistakes in our own zone," Clark said. "They were the ones where we couldn't get the puck out. It was usually five seconds, but it would feel more like 20 seconds, which led to a couple of their shots. We didn't do the little things to get it out at the right time."