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Holmqvist, St. Louis help Lightning edge Oilers

Jan 23, 2008 - 5:05 AM TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Johan Holmqvist's shutout streak may have come to end Tuesday night, but his winning ways continued.

Holmqvist made 25 saves and Martin St. Louis scored a shorthanded goal and added two assists as the Tampa Bay Lightning skated to their third straight victory, a 4-3 triumph over the Edmonton Oilers.

All-Star Vincent Lecavalier had a goal and set up another and Brad Richards and Craig MacDonald each tallied for the Lightning, who have won five of their last seven contests following a seven-game losing streak.

"We won three in a row and we're always going to have things to work on," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "As far as any coach in this league feels, the game is never where you want it to be. You always want to try to improve, but we're finding ways to get points and I'm not going to stand up here and nitpick the hockey club right now."

St. Louis gave Tampa Bay a 3-0 lead at 9:17 of the second period with his 19th goal - second shorthanded - of the season. The 32-year-old right wing took a pass from Lecavalier, faked on the backhand and tucked a forehand wrister between the pads of netminder Dwayne Roloson.

"I think we're giving ourselves a chance and that's what we wanted and try to implement here in this locker room. I think we've done a good job for that," St. Louis said of the club's turnaround. "We've got one more here before the break."

The cheers would not last long as Holmqvist had his 151-minute, 38-second shutout streak ended just 51 seconds later. Rookie Andrew Cogliano cut the deficit to 3-1 with a power-play goal, lifting the wrist shot over Holmqvist's left pad.

"We don't know him too much (Holmqvist). ... We had some chances when we could have put the puck in the net, too," Cogliano said. "He played pretty well when he had to and made some big stops, but we should have buried a couple more."

Lecavalier provided the eventual game-winner at the 5:51 mark of the final session with his team-leading 30th tally. The captain of the Eastern Conference All-Star squad now has a league-leading 66 points.

"We went from a really bad stretch and we know now that we must play some more desperate hockey and make sure we get some wins," Lecavalier said. "We won the game tonight and that's what matters - that's all that matters."

Holmqvist, who had blanked the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators in his previous two contests, surrendered a pair of goals late in the third period to defenseman Steve Staios and Ales Hemsky to provide the final margin.

"I wish I could've had a goal back there, but a win is a win, and that's what we needed right now," Holmqvist said. "I think we've playing a lot better lately. We've been playing pretty strong defense and we have to start from there."

The Swedish netminder turned aside six shots in the first period, seven in the second and 12 in the third to ensure his personal winning streak would be extended to four games.

"We all had to chip in, I think our fourth and third lines came in today and played really well and they scored a goal for us," Holmqvist said.

A great pass by St. Louis helped put the Lightning on the scoreboard early in the middle session. After receiving a backhand pass from Jan Hlavac in the slot, St. Louis made a quick pass to Richards, who fired a quick shot past a sprawling Roloson.

"It was good patience by Hlavac, he made a great play to me and after that, it was pretty simple," St. Louis said. "Richards was by himself with an empty net. Those are nice."

MacDonald doubled the lead at 4:29 of the second with his first goal of the campaign, unleashing a slap shot from the right circle past Roloson.

Roloson stopped 18 shots for Edmonton, which has lost four of its last five contests.

"We played well in the third. I thought the first period we checked very well, we worked hard, in the first period, but we were not crisp on the little depth plays that we needed to make," Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish said. "We had some chances. We worked hard to turn the pucks over and in a lot of instances we gave the pucks back, just not being crisp in some of our offensive plays."