Martin St. Louis kept Tampa Bay from wasting another strong performance by Antero Niittymaki.
St. Louis scored two third-period goals, Niittymaki stopped 39 shots and the Lightning beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-1 on Tuesday night.
``He kept us in the game,'' St. Louis said. ``Niitty made some big saves for us and I thought we came out strong and played some pretty good minutes in the third. We got some goals and we've been doing a good job playing with the lead in the third. Niitty, obviously, is the backbone of that.''
Steven Stamkos added a goal and an assist for the Lightning, who have won four in a row for the first time since November 2007. Niittymaki improved to 7-0-1 over his last eight starts.
``He's definitely earning his keep,'' Tampa Bay coach Rich Tocchet said of Niittymaki. ``We just keep getting great play from him.''
St. Louis also had an assist and has a seven-game points streak (seven goals, four assists).
Vancouver got a goal from Ryan Kesler. The Canucks are 2-3 on the first leg of an NHL-record 14-game road trip.
``We played a pretty good game,'' Canucks left wing Daniel Sedin said. ``It was a step in the right direction. When you're in a tough stretch like this, you've got to play good defensively and make the simple play.''
Daniel and Henrik Sedin both have gone four games without scoring a goal, and have combined for just one assist over the stretch. Henrik Sedin had a shot hit the post in the first.
Tampa Bay took a 2-1 lead on St. Louis' short-handed goal from the slot at 2:52 of the third. It was just the second short-handed goal by the Lightning this season.
St. Louis scored his 20th goal to make it 3-1 with 4:20 remaining.
Stamkos put the Lightning up 1-0 with a power-play goal eight minutes into the first. The center has eight goals and eight assists during a 10-game points streak.
``We're playing great as a team right now,'' Stamkos said. ``It feels good to contribute, especially this time of the year.''
Kesler tied it at 1 during a power play with 6.3 seconds left in the second.
Niittymaki stopped a short-handed breakaway by Alexandre Burrows midway through the second.
``It took us close to 40 minutes to solve him and he shut the door in the third,'' Kesler said. ``We had some real good chances. We just couldn't find a way to beat him.''
Vancouver's Roberto Luongo made a lunging glove save along the goal-line on Vincent Lecavalier with 11:35 to play in the third that was upheld by a video review.
``I thought that might have been a little turning point and we could come back and tie it,'' said Luongo, who made 16 saves.
NOTES: The Canucks entered outscoring their opponents 71-40 in the third this season. ... The Lightning have won eight of 11. ... Vancouver RW Pavol Demitra has left the team to tend to a personal matter. ... Lightning C Jeff Halpern played in his 700th NHL game. ... Tampa Bay signed RW Mark Parrish to a one-year contract and assigned him to Norfolk of the AHL.
