TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Bolts Have Plenty To Cheer

ADVERTISEMENT

By ERIK ERLENDSSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 7, 2007

Updated: 10/07/2007 01:11 am

TAMPA - The stat sheet from Saturday's 5-2 Lightning victory against division-rival Atlanta will show the usual suspects showed up.

Brad Richards scored twice, as did Vinny Prospal, who now has three goals. Vinny Lecavalier notched his third goal in two games and Marty St. Louis added two assists, giving him five to start the season.

But it was more than the headliners who contributed in helping Tampa Bay improve to 2-0 for the third time in franchise history and the first time since the start of the 2003-04 season.

The Lightning put forth about as complete a team effort as many in the locker room have seen in these parts in a while with contributions in almost every facet on the ice.

'I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I haven't been in a game where this team has played with that much energy and tempo,' Richards said. 'I know it's early in the season and I don't want to get ahead of myself, we are at home and haven't played a lot, but I really like how all four lines were playing with a lot of tempo. I haven't seen that in while here.'

The final result was somewhat misleading as Tampa Bay looked to be in control of the game seemingly from the opening faceoff against last season's Southeast Division champion, which has dropped its first two games of the season. The Lightning had 34 shots and 19 scoring chances, held the Thrashers to 15 shots and six scoring chances, won 62 percent of the faceoffs, blocked 11 shots - three each by Brad Lukowich and Shane O'Brien - and registered 23 hits.

'They took control of the game right from the start and they applied lots of good pressure on us and we were basically never in the game,' Atlanta coach Bob Hartley said.

Prospal opened the scoring 3:40 into first period when he jumped into the slot while Lecavalier held the puck in the corner without being challenged and planted a perfect pass on Prospal's stick. Prospal was able to get enough lift on the shot to get it past Johan Hedberg.

By the end of the first period, though Tampa Bay's lead was just the one goal; Atlanta had four shots on goal and zero scoring chances.

It almost looked like it could have been one of those games, however, when Marian Hossa stripped Paul Ranger of the puck in his own zone, allowing Hossa to stride in on a breakaway and beat Johan Holmqvist high 57 seconds into the second period to even the score.

But Tampa Bay regrouped and seized control on Prospal's redirect of a St. Louis shot for a power-play goal at 14:38 of the second period. Richards extended the lead with his seventh career short-handed goal with 4:41 left in the period when he intercepted a Tobias Enstrom pass just below the blue line and skated in on a breakaway.

Lecavalier made it 4-1 at the 5:22 mark of the third period, and Richards iced the game with a power-play goal with 4:49 left after Atlanta cut the lead to 4-2 on Slava Kozlov's power-play goal.

'I think it was a pretty complete game,' Lightning coach John Tortorella said. 'I thought we really did a much better job in the battles, I thought we played good, strong defense and special teams were good ... so it was a night that I thought everybody contributed.'

Instead of having to double-shift the top two lines, the coaching staff was able to roll out all four lines for the most part throughout the game.

'It's always great when the scoring is spread around and our third and fourth line, they are going out there and they are not getting scored against so it's the whole team,' Prospal said.

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835 or eerlendsson@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT