Bolts' Future Is Now

TAMPA - The potential future owners of the Lightning got an up-close look at the team's goaltender of the future Thursday night.

With Oren Koules and Mark Burg, who were granted exclusive rights to negotiate to purchase the team a day earlier, watching from the stands, rookie goaltender Karri Ramo put on a show worthy of a Hollywood script.

The 21-year-old Finnish goaltender stopped 31 of the 32 shots he faced in his first NHL start, giving Vinny Lecavalier the chance to score the game-winner with 41.6 seconds left, lifting Tampa Bay to a 2-1 win against Toronto. Ramo became the sixth goaltender in team history to win his first start with the team and the first rookie to do so.

The victory snapped a three-game losing streak for Tampa Bay and a six-game losing streak to the Maple Leafs. The Lightning also moved to within six points of division-leading Carolina in what has become a tightly contested Southeast Division race.

But had it not been for the solid performance of Ramo, Tampa Bay would have stayed closer to the cellar in the Eastern Conference than to a playoff position.

"I wasn't real nervous, I was kind of surprised," Ramo said of his first career NHL start. "Wednesday night I got really good sleep and I didn't stay up long, like it was kind of different than my first pro game in Finland. A couple of the first shots came and I started to feel pretty good. The first save is the hardest to make in a game, especially here, first game and guys are so much faster here so I feel that there was ... just kept going, kept going and doing what I can."

What he did was keep Tampa Bay in the game when Toronto started pressing and pressuring. As his countrymate, Vesa Toskala, was making the highlight saves early in the game at the other end, Ramo matched him at his end.

Not even a goal at 16:36 of the second period when Matt Stajan threw a puck at the net that deflected in off the skate of Lightning defenseman Doug Janiki could rattle Ramo.

"You just have to splash some water in your face, collect yourself and make sure you are ready for the next shot," Ramo said.

Before Toronto could build some momentum off the goal, Jason Ward trailed on a 3-on-2 and collected a Lecavalier pass in the slot and beat Toskala over the glove 2:05 after Stajan scored.

In the third, the Leafs started mounting a relentless attack. But Ramo was tall to the task turning aside 12 shots in the third and allowing Lecavalier to find the net for the winner late on Tampa Bay's fourth shot of the period.

"That was a key time for us, where he made some key saves for us that allows us to stay in the hockey game," said associate coach Mike Sullivan, standing in for head coach John Tortorella. Tortorella was in an undisclosed meeting with general manager Jay Feaster after the game. "This game is so much about momentum and it goes back and forth. Toronto had it for a stretch of time there in the third period, when we get a timely save or two and our guys get it done when they get their opportunity at the other end."

With the microscope the Lightning goaltending has been under since the team won the Stanley Cup in 2004, it's hard not to perceive Ramo as some kind of a savior to solve the situation. At least for one night, he was the solution to the problem.

"I don't think anyone is going to get ahead of themselves," Sullivan said. "It was a solid effort from everyone and it was a solid effort from Ramo, and it's two points that I think this team needed and we need to move forward and look to the next game. I think everyone, at least from our standpoint, certainly has it in perspective and is seeing this for what it is. It was a solid effort, I think, on everyone's part, and we've got to move forward."