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St. Louis lifts Lightning past Flyers

Feb 15, 2008 - 5:11 AM PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- All-Star Martin St. Louis notched a goal and two assists as the Tampa Bay Lightning scored three times in the second period to defeat the reeling Philadelphia Flyers, 5-3, on Thursday.

Vaclav Prospal, Jan Hlavac, Jason Ward and defenseman Dan Boyle also tallied for Tampa Bay, which is 4-0-1 in its last five games and 8-3-1 in its last 12.

Despite the positive surge, Tampa Bay remained six points behind the first-place Carolina Hurricanes in the Southeast Division.

"We're just a desperate hockey team right now," Boyle said. "With so few games to go, it's no secret that we got to win hockey games. We need this team to get back in the playoff run."

The Lightning defeated the Flyers for the eighth consecutive time in Philadelphia, dating back to the 2002-03 season.

"For some reason, we seem to have good luck here," Tampa Bay's Brad Richards said. "We've always had good teams coming in here and we've been happy with the results."

Joffrey Lupul, rookie Steve Downie and Jeff Carter each scored a goal and All-Star Mike Richards recorded two assists for Philadelphia, which lost its fifth straight game.

A former Flyer, Prospal opened the scoring 5:31 into the first period by redirecting St. Louis' shot past goaltender Martin Biron for his career-high 26th goal of the season and seventh in eight games.

Lupul leveled the game with exactly nine minutes remaining in the period.

Mike Richards backhanded a centering feed into the slot, but the puck deflected off Lupul's left skate and into the net. Replays could not conclusively show a distinctive kicking motion, allowing Lupul to register his 18th of the season.

Philadelphia grabbed a 2-1 lead with just 35.3 seconds remaining.

After serving a slashing penalty, Downie exited the box and joined Mike Richards for a 2-on-1 rush. Downie skated in on netminder Johan Holmqvist and wristed the puck just inside the left goalpost for his fifth goal.

Boyle tied the game on the power play just 2:13 into the middle period. Brad Richards' shot from the blue line never reached Biron, but Boyle gathered the deflected puck and beat the out-of-position netminder from a sharp angle.

"We gave up a shorthanded one and we felt that we owed the team a power-play goal back," Boyle said. "That second goal was a big goal, and we played down their end of the ice a lot."

Hlavac gave Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead 7 1/2 minutes later, blasting a shot from the left faceoff circle past Biron, and St. Louis doubled the advantage with 3:25 remaining in the session by tipping Boyle's wrist shot past Biron for his 21st goal.

"You have to give the credit to our forwards," Boyle said. "They're doing a good job of playing in the other team's zone and wearing them down, and we've spent a lot time down there."

Ward continued Tampa Bay's offensive onslaught just 2:18 into the third period, firing a sharp-angle shot off Biron and into the net for a 5-2 bulge.

"What has ignited us is the play of our third and fourth lines," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "Everybody is contributing and we've been keeping the puck more." Flyers coach John Stevens did not pull any punches in describing the Flyers' effort.

"It ridiculous," Stevens said. "We have to come out and play with the kind of urgency that we finish games with. We are in a fight for our lives right now. You look at the first and the second period, and we could have blown the game open, and we didn't."

Philadelphia's Scott Hartnell was equally as honest.

"The first 40 minutes were embarrassing," he said. "We're not playing hard and we aren't finishing our checks. I can go on and on about the all the bad things we did in the first 40 minutes of the hockey game."

Carter capped the scoring four minutes later, deflecting defenseman Randy Jones' blast from the blue line past Holmqvist for his 19th of the season.