TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Ian White and Hal Gill both picked a perfect
time to stop their goal-scoring droughts.
White converted a tiebreaking power-play goal midway through the
third period and the Maple Leafs beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2
Wednesday night.
White picked up a loose puck off a deflected pass by Matt Stajan
and scored from in close to give Toronto a 3-2 lead with 8:17 left.
He hadn't scored a goal in his previous 22 games.
"A goal is a goal, and fortunately enough it happened to be at
the right time of the game to get the win," White said. "It's a
nice to get a game winner."
Gill got the Maple Leafs even at 2 at 1:51 of the third. The
goal snapped a 26-game goal-scoring drought and gave him 100 career
points. Alexei Ponikarovsky had an empty-net goal with 1:20 to
play.
"You can't feel a sense of doom being down one," Toronto coach
Paul Maurice said. "The other team gets paid too, and they do some
good things. So we're down one, big deal. Let's go try and get a
road win."
Tampa Bay had Eric Perrin's potential go-ahead goal disallowed
at 3:20 of the third because Andreas Karlsson was sent to the
penalty box for goaltender interference. Karlsson and Toronto
defenseman Bryan McCabe were battling for position when the
infraction was called.
"You've got to be able to overcome that," Lightning captain
Tim Taylor said. "I think we all knew as soon as it went in, it
was going to be no goal. We killed the penalty off. It had no
bearing on the hockey game."
Tomas Kaberle scored his fifth goal in the past three games for
Toronto, which has won three straight. The Maple Leafs are 4-1-1 on
the road.
Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier had the Lightning goals.
Lecavalier has scored a goal in five straight games.
"We've just got to realize that we're in hockey games that are
important this time of year or anytime of year," Richards said.
"We should have not got outplayed in the third period and we did.
They came right at us."
Tampa Bay has lost three in a row, and dropped to 3-5-0 at home.
The Lightning took a 2-1 lead at 6:24 of the second on
Lecavalier's rebound goal.
Richards gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead at 11:24 of the first.
Kaberle tied it at 1 with 2:25 left in the period.
The Maple Leafs, who scored three goals with the man advantage
in a 1:26 span in Monday's 4-2 win over Atlanta, had just one shot
during a 4-minute power play early in the first.
Game notes
Toronto C Mats Sundin picked up an assist. He has 29
assists and 55 points in 41 games against Tampa Bay. ... Lecavalier
also has eight points during a six-game point streak. ... Toronto D
Jay Harrison (hand) didn't play. ... Tampa Bay RW Martin St. Louis
had an assist to extend his point streak to six games. He has three
assists and nine points over the stretch. ... Kaberle's goal gave
him 300 career points.