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Richards powers Lightning past Flyers

Oct 26, 2007 - 4:12 AM TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Brad Richards helped the Tampa Bay Lightning continue their mastery of the Philadelphia Flyers with a 5-2 victory on Thursday.

Richards scored two goals and former Flyer Vaclav Prospal netted his eighth of the season as Tampa Bay improved to 12-1-0 against Philadelphia in the team's last 13 meetings.

The Lightning improved to 5-0-0 at home, tying a franchise record.

"With back-to-back games, we didn't want to lose two in a row and we kept things going on a good roll here on home ice," Richards said. "We want to establish ourselves in this building, and we have so far."

As for the Flyers, they dropped their second game in as many days in the Sunshine State. On Wednesday, they lost, 4-2, to the Florida Panthers.

"Nobody likes losing," Philadelphia's Daniel Briere said. "The one thing that's important now is we stop losing as soon as possible. It's a two-game losing streak. We have to make sure we stop it there and move on."

"We generated a good attack, we just didn't capitalize," Flyers coach John Stevens said. "We lost the special-teams battle and it cost us a hockey game."

After Tampa Bay's Jason Ward opened the scoring 6:50 into the first period, Richards doubled the advantage just under three minutes later on the power play. His wrist shot from just inside the blue line beat goaltender Antero Niittymaki, who was screened by Michel Ouellet.

Philadelphia halved the deficit two minutes later thanks to some miscommunication between Tampa Bay netminder Johan Holmqvist and defenseman Filip Kuba. After stopping the puck on a routine dump-in, Holmqvist pushed it toward Kuba.

But Jeff Carter capitalized on the confusion, grabbing the puck and stuffing it into a vacant net for his sixth goal of the season.

Prospal, who began his career with two seasons in Philadelphia, redirected a pass from Richards past Niittymaki to give the Lightning a 3-1 lead just 3:38 into the second period.

"He's been a key guy for us," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "He's beginning to do it on the power play, he's doing it a lot of different ways. He's finding a way to score some goals."

Philadelphia, which has lost three games this season, suffered its first defeat this season when former Flyers Geoff Sanderson and Joni Pitkanen combined for three goals in Edmonton's 5-3 victory on October 6. Both players were dealt to the Oilers in the deal that brought blue-liner Jason Smith and Joffrey Lupul to the City of Brotherly Love.

Niittymaki, playing his first game this season in place of Martin Biron, stopped 21 shots.

Ouellet and Chris Gratton - another former Flyer - also scored and Holmqvist made 21 saves for Tampa Bay.

"Holmqvist did a great job," Lightning defenseman Shane O'Brien said. "The forwards did a great job, it was just a good, solid team win. Somehow, we can't figure it out on the road right now, but at home, we're pretty fun to watch."

Flyers left wing Simon Gagne did not play after experiencing dizziness following Wednesday's game against Florida.