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Richards, Carter lift Flyers past Lightning

Dec 3, 2008 - 6:16 AM PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- Captain Mike Richards and Jeff Carter each scored two goals to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 4-3 overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.

Richards scored on the power play just over two minutes into the extra session off a nice backhand feed from defenseman Kimmo Timonen to give the Flyers their seventh win in nine games.

Philadelphia took a 3-1 lead early in the third period when Carter scored a power-play goal at 4:36. But Tampa Bay responded quickly.

Vaclav Prospal answered 21 seconds later and fellow former Flyer Steve Downie netted his first tally of the season with 4:35 to go, burying a rebound that goaltender Martin Biron was unable to corral.

"I haven't scored in a while, so it was nice to get a goal," Downie said. "I made a chip out of the zone, then we had an odd-man rush. We made a good shot and then I just pounced on the rebound there."

Tampa Bay had a chance to win with 16 seconds left, when Ryan Malone was awarded a penalty shot. After losing his stick, Scott Hartnell threw his glove in the direction of Malone, who was skating in on a breakaway.

Biron made a pad save on Malone's attempt, taking Hartnell off the hook and setting up Richards' heroics.

"I was thinking that it would be nice to score and get this thing turned around," Malone said. "On the breakaway, Marty made a good save. On the penalty shot, I just tried to drag it across a little bit and throw back against the grain, and I got a piece of him. It was a situation as a player that you want to be in. You wanted to have a different result. It was my responsibility to put it in the back of the net."

"We could breathe when Marty made the save," Richards said. "He made two big saves, the first one on the breakaway, and then on the penalty shot. He stood tall, and Scott is definitely going to hear it."

For his part, Malone did not use Hartnell's glove-throwing antics as an excuse for not converting his breakaway chance.

"I just tried to go through (Biron's) legs there," Malone said. "I knew that (Hartnell) didn't have his stick there and he wasn't going to be able to do anything if he caught me."

"It was just a desperation play," Hartnell said. "I threw the glove, and looking back, it was kind of stupid. Marty came up huge and basically won us the game there on that penalty shot."

Malone also played a part in the overtime, and again, it left him looking for a different result. He was called for goaltender interference after bumping Biron, and the Flyers converted on the 4-on-3 power play to win the game.

"I don't know why the ref would think that I would run the goalie," Malone said. "I just tried to put some pressure on him and got bumped into him. I even fell back. The refs see what they see, and that's the way it goes."

Carter opened the scoring with a power-play goal just under three minutes into the game. Timonen had the puck at the left point and fed a pass to Carter, who took two strides into the left faceoff circle and fired a wrist shot that beat netminder Mike Smith high to the glove side.

Former Flyer Mark Recchi answered with a power-play tally of his own nine minutes later.

Jussi Jokinen dished the puck to Recchi, who was stationed in front of the net. Recchi's first shot was stopped, but the rebound came right back to him and he was able to put it under Biron.

Hartnell picked up an assist on Carter's second goal. It was the 18th tally of the season for Carter, tying him with Buffalo's Thomas Vanek for the league lead.

Biron made 34 saves for Philadelphia, while Smith stopped 28 shots for Tampa Bay, which has lost five straight.

"When you are losing, it gets contagious," said Lightning interim coach Rick Tocchet, whose team fell to 1-3-4 since he took over for the fired Barry Melrose on November 14. "So you need some kind of break to get some kind of winning streak. It seems like we're up or tied and we're waiting for something bad to happen instead on being the leader, taking the puck and holding it and taking a hit to make a play."