Tampa Bay Lightning's Martin St. Louis, centre, celebrates his game-winning goal with teammates Vincent Lecavalier, Ryan Malone, and Andrej Meszaros, against the Edmonton Oilers in Winnipeg, Thursday, September 24, 2009.John Woods
Martin St. Louis scored his second goal of the game on the power play 4:53 into overtime to give the Tampa Bay Lightning a 4-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers in NHL exhibition action Thursday night.
It was the Oilers' fourth straight exhibition loss (3-4). Tampa improved its pre-season record to 3-1-2 in front of a crowd of 11,644 at MTS Centre.
The Lightning came out of the first period with a 2-0 lead as Oilers netminder Jeff Deslauriers' reflexes were tested.
Winger Ryan Malone got Tampa on the board first when he took the rebound of a Steve Stamkos shot, curled in front of the net and flipped the puck over a sprawling Deslauriers at 4:13.
With the man-advantage late in the first, Lightning winger Alex Tanguay sent a quick pass to St. Louis, who one-timed a torpedo past Deslauriers for the 2-0 edge at 17:21.
St. Louis also assisted on Malone's goal.
The Oilers picked up the pace in the middle frame and it paid off.
With Lightning defenceman Matt Walker in the penalty box for tripping, Oilers defenceman Tom Gilbert initiated a nice passing sequence, sliding the puck through traffic on to the stick of Sam Gagner.
Gagner then fed the puck across the ice to winger Robert Nilsson, who fired a high shot past Smith to close the gap 2-1 at 15:52.
Oilers centre Andrew Cogliano tied it 2-2 with 28 seconds to go in the period when he outskated Tampa defenceman Andrej Meszaros and put a backhand shot by Smith.
After being outshot 8-6 by Tampa in the opening period, Edmonton surged ahead 19-12 after 40 minutes.
Gilbert scored the go-ahead goal at 4:13 of the third period when Smith's glove wasn't fast enough to snare his shot.
But with less than two minutes to go, Tampa defenceman Kurtis Foster sent the game into overtime with a long shot that went through traffic past Deslauriers.
Edmonton returns home to host Vancouver on Sunday, while Tampa heads to Atlanta to play the Thrashers.