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Prospal's OT goal extends Lightning's road streak

Feb 8, 2008 - 6:11 AM NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Ticker) -- Suddenly, the Tampa Bay Lightning have turned into road warriors.

Vaclav Prospal scored 58 seconds into overtime and Brad Richards added a goal and an assist as the Lightning extended their road winning streak to six games with a 2-1 triumph over the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

Johan Holmqvist made 18 saves for Tampa Bay, which improved to 9-14-3 away from home after a dismal start on the road.

"The road has been good (lately)," Richards said. "We have to put some more (wins) together. ... There is a lot of hockey left. We have to get it in our heads that we haven't accomplished anything yet."

Despite still occupying last place in the Southeast Division, the Lightning only are six points behind the first-place Washington Capitals with 27 games remaining.

"We know where we're at," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "I've told my players to look at the standings. We also have to just worry about ourselves, too. We've won a couple of road games here. With our division the way it is, it gives us a chance to stay in the hunt."

"We still have a chance," Prospal added. "That's what everyone is talking about here. We shot ourselves in the foot for the first couple of months of the season, and now we are crawling back. Everyone is saying that the only way for us to get into the playoffs is to win the division, and we still have a chance."

Tampa Bay plays four of its next six games on the road. It concludes a three-game trip at Atlanta on Saturday.

"I mentioned after the Florida loss (at home last Saturday) that the only way to come back was to win three on the road," Lightning defenseman Dan Boyle said. "Now, we can realistically do that. Three games ago, we were pretty much out of it. Now we have a little pulse, a little life."

Following a scoreless third period, Richards unleashed a slap shot from the top of the slot that hit goaltender Dan Ellis in the chest. Standing on the doorstep, Prospal gathered the rebound and slid the puck between Ellis' pads for his 23rd goal of the season and Tampa Bay's third victory in four games overall.

"We got the puck in the zone, we turned the puck over, got it back and got a shot on the net," Prospal said. "We were able to get the rebound because we were hungrier than they were and we were luckier than they were. If the goalie had held on to the puck, we wouldn't be standing here right now."

"Vinny made a great play," Richards said. "Boyle made a nice play to get it to me, and I just tried to get it on net. I didn't see how Vaclav scored, but I know he was in there banging away."

Ellis obviously was unhappy with his inability to control the rebound.

"It was a situation where they found a loose puck and they passed it across to Brad Richards," the netminder said. "The puck was bouncing, he had to wait for it to settle down and he took a shot. It hit my chest and went down. It was a fluttering type of shot that I needed to control. He was able to pounce on it before I was."

Nashville defenseman Greg Zanon refused to fault his netminder.

"It was an unfortunate bounce," Zanon said. "Ellis played a great game for us tonight. He gave us a chance to win when we didn't have our best tonight."

Things got off to a tough start for the Lightning as Alexander Radulov continued his torrid pace for the Predators.

Entering with seven goals in his previous seven games, the 21-year-old Russian wristed a shot from the left faceoff circle that beat Holmqvist high on the glove side with 7:23 remaining in the first period.

"I thought we started off slow," Tortorella said. "I didn't think that our first period was great."

Drafted 15th overall in 2004, Radulov has 21 goals this season after netting 18 as a rookie in 2006-07.

Richards evened the contest with 6:51 to go in the second with his 17th goal. Vincent Lecavalier fired a hard wrister from just above the right circle that was redirected by fellow All-Star Martin St. Louis.

Ellis made the save, but Richards pounced on the rebound at the left side of the net and buried it, forging a 1-1 tie.

"They have great chemistry together," Ellis said of the trio of Richards, St. Louis and Lecavalier. "They know where each other are and they know each other like the backs of their hands. We did a pretty good job tonight of shutting those guys down, for the most part, but they were able to get a couple of points."

"Their line is good and strong, and if you add up the points by the trio from Tampa Bay, it's as good as it gets," Predators coach Barry Trotz said. "They were good and we had to use two lines tonight to check them, for the most part. They were just tough all night."

Ellis finished with 23 saves for Nashville, which had won three in a row.

"I didn't think we brought our best effort tonight, but I don't want to take anything away from Tampa Bay," Trotz said. "They had a lot of urgency in their game and they found a way to take it in overtime. We had a good stretch of games here, but we weren't on our game tonight."