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O'Brien, Lecavalier lead Lightning in rout of Hurricanes

Nov 9, 2007 - 3:57 AM By Joe Johnson PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Ticker) -- The Tampa Bay Lightning had not won a road game in their previous seven tries this season. That all changed with a trip to Carolina.

Defenseman Shane O'Brien scored twice and Vincent Lecavalier, blue-liner Filip Kuba and Vaclav Prospal each added a goal for the Lightning en route to a dominant 5-1 triumph over the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.

Johan Holmqvist stopped 40 shots for Tampa Bay, including 18 in the second period. His bid for his second career shutout was ruined when Ray Whitney tallied on a slap shot from the left faceoff circle two minutes into the third period.

"You have bad nights and you have good nights," Holmqvist said. "You just want to make sure you have more good nights. I had a good start. I was in good position all night long. It's fun to play when you've got a lot of shots coming your way. It's very nice.

"Obviously, we've been trying to get a win on the road. We know we can play on the road, but we haven't had the results before."

Carolina right wing Justin Williams had one of numerous opportunities to score on Holmqvist.

"Sometimes you can find holes in a goaltender and sometimes he stands tall and has his angles," Williams said. "When he didn't see shots, they hit him. And when he saw them, he saved them. He stopped us from having any momentum."

Carolina have only have themselves to blame, according to defenseman Bret Hedican.

"Winning games is hard work, and we didn't do any hard work tonight. We didn't even get close to that," Hedican said. "We let one slip away tonight. We've got to put it behind us and move on."

Tampa Bay, meanwhile, was a lot more upbeat after its first victory away from home.

"We gave up a few too many chances, but it is a road win, and we'll take it right now," O'Brien said. "We give (Carolina) a lot of respect. We know how well they've been playing at home. We were ready to go before the game. We've got a lot of leadership in our room and we were ready to go. It was a good win."

Lecavalier opened the scoring when grabbed the rebound of Michel Ouellet's shot and stuffed it in at the right goalpost with 7:37 remaining in the first.

O'Brien doubled the lead less than four minutes later. Prospal stole a pass in the offensive zone and fed a streaking Ouellet, who unleashed a slap shot from the right side. Cam Ward made the save, but O'Brien collected the rebound and beat the netminder to the stick side at 16:12 for his third goal of the season.

Kuba made it 3-0 when he wristed what appeared to be an innocuous wrist shot toward the net. The puck handcuffed Ward and slipped through, giving Kuba his 50th career goal - and first this season - just 1:58 into the second period.

O'Brien's second goal came with 1:49 left in the session, when he stepped out of the penalty box, took an indirect pass from Andreas Karlsson off the boards in front of the Tampa Bay bench and skated in on a defenseless Ward. O'Brien also tallied twice against Atlanta on Saturday to snap a 76-game goalless drought.

Prospal became the first Tampa Bay player to reach double figures in goals when he was the fortunate recipient of a hard carom off the end boards and shot the puck by Ward with 6:24 left in the game, making it 5-1.

Ouellet and Prospal each had two assists for the Lightning, who have won four of their last five visits to the RBC Center.

Carolina, which has the second-best power play at 26.2 percent, was unable to get a man-advantage goal on three tries. Tampa Bay's penalty-killing on the road had been only working at 75 percent.

Carolina, which outshot Tampa Bay, 41-31, managed just eight shots in the opening period.

"I don't think we came out strong," Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette said. "I thought they had the jump on us. The first 20 minutes, they were able to get a couple of goals. They did the same thing in the second period, but I thought our period was better. We didn't do much of anything in the first period."

The Lightning have won back-to-back games for the first time since opening the season with three straight victories.

"We're a good road team," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "It was nice to get the results. I thought the first period was one of our better periods, especially traveling late last night, getting in late and having back-to-backs. We kept it simple."