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Bolts earn first road win of the season

The Associated Press

Lightning forward Ryan Malone scores the game-winning goal during overtime against Maple Leafs goalie Jonas Gustavsson.

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By ERIK ERLENDSSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 3, 2009

Updated: 11/04/2009 08:59 am

TORONTO - After two games in which Tampa Bay did the hockey equivalent of laying down on the job, the Lightning brought their compete level up a few floors Tuesday against Toronto.

And Ryan Malone's overtime goal in a 2-1 victory gave Tampa Bay a just reward for the effort.

Antero Niittymaki stopped 40 shots, including 16 of the 17 he faced on the penalty kill, to help the Lightning pick up their first road win of the season and snap an 11-game winless streak on the road that dated to March 14.

The overtime victory also snapped a stretch of six consecutive overtime games in which Tampa Bay failed to pick up the extra point.

And the positive result came mainly because most of the team showed up to play, something they couldn't say in the past two games.

"We really met the challenge tonight," Lightning coach Rick Tocchet said. "The body language and the urgency was a lot better tonight."

Following Monday's 6-2 loss in Philadelphia, the players held a brief postgame meeting in which challenges were issued to everybody. That a better effort was needed on a more consistent basis, that it wasn't all right simply to play hard, but to give that little bit extra effort.

"We have to give more, we have to give that little extra . . . it's kind of hard to explain," said team captain Vinny Lecavalier, who scored his second goal of the season to open the scoring with 1:26 left in the second period. "You can have a hard working team but tonight it was a little more desperation in our play, a lot more physical."

Part of that physical play came from defenseman Mattias Ohlund, who stepped up his game, and made the kind of momentum-changing hit on Toronto's Phil Kessel, who was making his Leafs' debut. In the first period, Kessel came across the Lightning blue line stick-handling with his head down, so Ohlund delivered a jarring hit that sent Kessel sprawling to the ice.

"It was one of those opportunities where you can step up," Ohlund said. "We try to play hard and sometimes you get good timing and you get big hits, I don't think it was a big deal."

What was a big deal was that Tampa Bay kept tantalizing the league's top power play unit with penalty after penalty. At one point the Lightning took four consecutive penalties and seven of eight, but Tampa Bay kept dodging the bullets until Toronto finally cashed in at 5:04 of the third to tie the game.

"I don't think the all the calls were fair, but we were able to battle through it," Malone said

Niittymaki also battled through it to come up with another solid effort in goal.

"We just kept battling and battling and that's what we wanted to do, battle hard," Niittymaki said. "The past couple of games we really haven't done that, so I think guys were blocking shots, and we just kept battling and battling and I think that's what won us the game."

Reporter Erik Erlendsson can be reached at (813) 259-7835.

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