Bolts end road trip on high note with OT win

Staring at the final stop of an eight-day, four-game road trip and a tank that looked empty the night before, the Lightning found enough octane to come away with a 4-3 overtime victory against Atlanta on Sunday.

Steven Stamkos scored the game-winner 1:52 into the extra session while Marty St. Louis finished with three assists to help Tampa Bay overcome blowing a pair of two-goal leads in the third period.

Goaltender Antero Niittymaki stopped 28 shots for his sixth win of the season to improve his all-time record against Atlanta to 14-0.

"It is pretty strange, because it's not that I always had super great games against them," Niittymaki said. "Somehow we always ended up winning."

Just like Sunday when Niittymaki was able to pick up the victory despite allowing three goals in the third period, two coming in the final five minutes to force overtime.

"I thought as a group we played well - a couple of blown assignments but that doesn't bring the whole group down," Lightning coach Rick Tocchet said. "I thought we played well."

Tampa Bay came out with jump, putting all kinds of early pressure on the Thrashers while registering 15 shots on goal in the first period, but rookie goaltender Ondrej Pavelec channeled his inner Kari Lehtonen, turning aside quality chances like he was swatting away a buzzing gnat.

"We played pretty solid, stuck to our game plan and got lots of shots," Stamkos said of Tampa Bay's 40 shots, the first time they have had 30 or more shots since Nov. 3.

It wasn't until the 5:45 mark of the second period - just after two Lightning attempts found iron while on the power play - that Stephane Veilleux found the back of the net with a shot from the slot for a 1-0 lead on his first of the season.

Niittymaki, meanwhile, was doing his part at the other end of the ice continuing his early-season strong play. With 35.7 seconds left he came up with a big save on Colby Armstrong, who found his way to the slot. On the next rush up the ice, Ryan Malone scored on a wrist shot from the left circle with 23.9 seconds left to give the Lightning a 2-0 lead heading into the third period.

Ilya Kovalchuk charged out of the gates to open the third period, getting a breakaway off the opening faceoff, but Niittymaki stopped the initial shot and was in position to get the rebound chance by Kovalchuk as well.

The Thrashers cut the Tampa Bay lead in half at the 5:29 mark as defenseman Tobias Enstrom found an open spot in the slot and found the top corner, stick-side on Niittymaki.

The Lightning regained the two-goal advantage at the 9:20 mark, however, when Kurtis Foster fired a slap shot past a stickless Pavelec while on the power play. It marked the second point of the night for Foster, who also picked up an assist on Veilleux's goal in the second period.

Atlanta roared back with two goals 1:52 apart in the final minutes of the game. The first came off a faceoff in the Lightning zone when the puck squirted past St. Louis and Slava Kozlov raced to it and lifted a quick wrist shot past Niittymaki with 4:23 left. Then with 2:32 left, Evander Kane was able to smack a rebound chance past Niittymaki, who made an incredible save, stretching out his left leg to stop Kane's initial shot.

"That second goal was a frustrating one, we take a timeout off the draw and it goes right through me and it was pretty disappointing that they scored a goal right off the draw," St. Louis said.

But despite things getting away in final period, there was a general good feeling about how the team played to end a four-game trip with a 2-1-1 record.

"We'll take the two points on the road, we'll take five out of eight points on the trip and take it back to home ice where we have been playing pretty well," Stamkos said.