Steven Stamkos scored the game-winner at the 2:56 mark of overtime to help the Tampa Bay Lightning take a 4-3 win over the Atlanta Thrashers at Philips Arena.

On a 2-on-1 break, Martin St. Louis skated down the center and slipped a pass over to the right side where Stamkos flipped it past Ondrej Pavelec for the win.

Stamkos had an assist, Kurtis Foster had a goal and an assist while St. Louis added three assists for the Lightning, who had dropped three of four coming into the game.

"Obviously we'll take the win," said Stamkos. "We'll take two points any way we can get it. From a team perspective I thought we played pretty solid and stuck with the game plan. We got lots of shots on net and were forechecking and hard-hitting."

Antero Niittymaki made 28 saves to improve to 14-0-0 all-time against Atlanta in his career.

Slava Kozlov and Tobias Enstrom each had a goal and an assist while Evander Kane added a goal for the Thrashers, who have dropped three straight after a four-game winning streak. Pavelec made 36 saves in the loss.

"We were lucky to get out of the first," said Pavelec. "They hit the post four times today. We stole a point today. That's is key, but if we would have played a full 60 minutes we might have gotten two points. They wanted it more than we did."

After a scoreless first period which saw Niittymaki make eight saves and Pavelec 15, the Lightning got on the board twice in the second period.

At the 5:45 mark, Stephane Veilleux got his first goal of the season on a wrister while Ryan Malone notched his 14th marker of the campaign with just 24 seconds left in the frame.

Niittymaki made eight stops in the middle stanza to keep Atlanta off the board.

Enstrom made it a one-goal game at the 5:29 mark of the third period with his third goal of the season, but Foster's power-play goal less than four minutes later gave Tampa its two-goal lead back.

Atlanta made it a one-goal game with 4:23 to play in regulation on a Kozlov wrister that beat Niittymaki, and with just 2:31 to play Kane tied the game on a wrist shot for his seventh goal of the season.

Game Notes