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Holmqvist Robs Florida

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 11, 2007

TAMPA - Talk of thievery ran through the Lightning locker room Wednesday night.

There were no reports of missing wallets. There were no absent sticks, pucks or gloves. No jewelry was misplaced.

The only talk of something being stolen was in regards to how Johan Holmqvist robbed the Florida Panthers with a 30-save effort in a 2-1 Tampa Bay victory in front of an announced crowd of 18,540, a game in which the Lightning were outshot 31-23.

Former Panther Chris Gratton scored both Lightning goals in his first game against the team which traded him during the summer as Tampa Bay opened the season with a three-game winning streak for the third time in team history, matching the streaks set in 2002-03 and 2003-04.

But the big stat from Wednesday's victory that jumps out is the fact Tampa Bay snapped a 33-game winless streak when failing to score three or more goals in a game. The last time the Lightning picked up a victory in such a low-scoring affair came April 8, 2006, when Sean Burke shut out Pittsburgh in a 1-0 victory. The Lightning were 0-30-1 last year when scoring two or fewer goals.

Holmqvist, who is 3-0 with a 1.33 goals-against average and .945 save percentage while stopping 69 of 73 shots to start the season, was a big part of snapping that winless streak.

'Homer was very good,' Lightning coach John Tortorella said. 'All three games, Homer looks very confident and he has played very well.'

Holmqvist wasn't going to get carried away with his performance Wednesday against a team that lit him up last season for 18 goals and a 4.89 goals-against average in six appearances.

'It's just another game, you just take one day at a time,' said Holmqvist, who had a pair of five-game winning streaks last season. 'I felt good. I was lucky a couple of times in the beginning, too, and that's what I need.'

There were plenty of foiled chances, including a couple of key stops on Florida captain Olli Jokinen, who came up empty on a game-high seven shots, twice in the third period on odd-man rushes.

'We have to give credit to them,' Jokinen said. 'They did a pretty good job boxing us out, like not getting second and third chances.'

Certainly if Holmqvist was the thief Wednesday, he had plenty of accomplices as Jokinen noted. Tampa Bay seemed to jump on just about every rebound around the net and prevented the Panthers from jumping on loose pucks for secondary scoring chances. The Lightning were also credited with blocking 13 shots.

'I thought Homer was great and maybe stole one for us, Homer is that good of a goalie that he is going to do that some nights; we can't rely on him to do that every night,' defenseman Shane O'Brien said. 'We may have got away with one tonight, but for the most part we battled.

'Every night it's not going to be easy so if you can battle and get what I like to call those greasy wins, do whatever it takes to get it done. They are not all going to be pretty, but they are two standings points.'

And on a night when the Lightning's biggest thunder was held off the scoresheet, Gratton stepped up with his 14th career multigoal game, first since Feb. 24 of last season against Boston.

'It's always satisfying when you win, but they battled us right to the end and that game could have gone either way,' Gratton said. 'Homer made some big saves for us and really kept us in it. It's a good win.'

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

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