TAMPA, Fla. -- The Tampa Bay Lightning are having success even without their starting goalie. Kristers Gudlevskis made 36 saves to win his NHL debut, Eric Brewer scored two goals, and the Lightning beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-2 on Friday night. Ondrej Palat also scored for the Lightning, who took a one-point lead over Montreal for second place in the Atlantic Division. A runner-up finish would give Tampa Bay home-ice advantage in its first-round playoff series with the Canadiens. "Wed love to have home-ice," Brewer said. "Clearly its something that you never want to use, but youd love to have. The other thing is, you just want to play well going into the playoffs." Boone Jenner and David Savard had goals for Columbus. The playoff-bound Blue Jackets are tied with Philadelphia -- which has one game at hand -- for third place in the Metropolitan Division. "We just have to regroup," Blue Jackets right wing Corey Troop said. "We just need to take care of business on our end." The Blue Jackets are also tied with Detroit, which will be one of the two Eastern Conference wild-card teams. Gudlevskis had played in the ECHL and AHL, and for Lativa in the Sochi Olympics this season. Anders Lindback started in place of the injured Ben Bishop in the Lightnings 4-2 win Thursday night over Philadelphia. "Its my biggest dream come true," Gudlevskis said. Bishop, 37-14-7 this season, might not be ready for the start of the playoffs due to an upper-body injury. Bishop left early in the first period of Tuesdays game against Toronto with what appeared to be a left elbow injury. "If something were to happen and Gudie had to go in, I did not want his first game to be a playoff game," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. After Jenner scored a power-play goal at 13:46 of the second, Brewer gave Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead when he beat backup goalie Curtis McElhinney 1:08 later. The Lightning took a 3-1 advantage on Brewers second of the game and fourth this season with 1:54 left in the second. All four of the defencemans goals have been scored in the last 12 games. Savard pulled Columbus within 3-2 with 3:23 to go in the third. Palat put the Lightning up 1-0 with a power-play goal at 3:55 of the second. The rookie has four goals and eight points during a six-game point streak. The Blue Jackets took three penalties in the opening 4:42 of the second. "Thats something that you cant do going forward," Columbus coach Todd Richards said. "I looked down the bench and I think I used four or five forwards, six forwards, for the first five, six minutes of the second period." NOTES: Palat left in the third after taking a hard check. ... Tampa Bay C Valtteri Filppula (lower-body injury) and RW Teddy Purcell (flu) were late scratches. D Victor Hedman left after three shifts in the first period because of a lower-body injury. ... Blue Jackets RW Nathan Horton had surgery Friday for an abdominal injury and is expected to be out for six weeks. ... Tampa Bay D Sami Salo (upper-body injury) missed his second consecutive game. ... Columbus reassigned D Tim Erixon to Springfield of the AHL. ... The Lightning recalled C Cedric Paquette from Syracuse of the AHL. He had an assist in his first NHL game. ... Columbus C Ryan Johansen had an assist, giving him a five-game point streak (four assists, six points).
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Ian Desmond Jersey . "This isnt really the week you want to lose Chris Greaves," fellow lineman Glenn January said Wednesday after practice. Greaves is expected to miss several weeks after suffering a knee injury in last weeks 36-28 win over the Ottawa Redblacks.
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Todd Helton Jersey . -- Matt Rupert scored once in regulation and again in the shootout as the London Knights extended their win streak to nine games by defeating the Owen Sound Attack 4-3 on Friday in Ontario Hockey League action.NEW YORK – The Blue Jays entered Thursdays series finale at Yankee Stadium losers of eight of their last 11 games. Theyd dropped 15 in a row in the Bronx dating back to 2012 and had seen their lead over their pinstriped rivals in the American League East dwindle to two and a half games. This is a slump. Its lasted for about two weeks. The downturn comes on the heels of a terrific May, when Toronto won 21 of 30 games and Edwin Encarnacion captured the imagination of fans with his 16-home run month. This is not is the end of the world, nor does this slump suggest a long-term trend. This is on the offence and thats a good thing because theres too much talent in the Blue Jays lineup for the widespread malaise to continue. To wit: The starting pitching has been fine. You could say its been good and you wouldnt be wrong. In the last 11 games, Jays starters have allowed four or more earned runs only twice and have pitched to a staff ERA of 3.71. The starting pitching was supposed to be the weakness. So far it has held up. The Jays have hit only four home runs in their last 11 games. Not surprisingly, three of the home runs came in two of the three victories. Toronto continues to lead baseball with 93 team home runs, which is crucial to the clubs attack. Of the 338 runs the Jays have scored this season, 147 (43.4 per cent) have come via the long ball. Jose Bautista hasnt hit a home run in 11 games, his longest power drought of the season. Hes still hitting for a respectable average, .275 with five of his 11 hits going for doubles, but the Jays miss his power bat as the club struggles, having scored three or fewer runs eight times in the span. This is a phase, both for the individual and for the ballclub, Bautista said, that was bound to happen. "If you can execute every single day for 162, youd probably win 140 games," said Bautista. "We dont expect to execute every single day. But we do have to pick it up. Its one thing, were running into some St. Louis good pitching, soome other pitching staffs.dddddddddddd I dont want to speak badly or worse about the Yankees or the Orioles but its not the same. We faced much better pitching at home during the last homestand than we have on this road trip, except for Tanaka, who did a tremendous job. So we shouldve won some of these games that we lost." It hasnt helped, either, that Edwin Encarnacion has hit only one home run in the last 11 games. "Weve lacked some timely hitting," said Bautista. "Our pitching has been there enough, I think, that we shouldve won some of these games that weve lost. We just need to keep going on offence. We got really hot at one point and kind of hitting a little cold spurt now. Weve just got to overcome it and not get 10 hits a day but get them when you get the baserunners on." Bautista has repeatedly acknowledged hes bought in to hitting coach Kevin Seitzers philosophy of using all fields. The slugger has become a better all round hitter. His 1,000th career big league hit, achieved in the eighth inning of Wednesday nights loss, was a double to right field. That alone would have been a story last season. This year its commonplace. "I think Im more aware of some situations where people are going to keep challenging me inside, especially when Im behind in the count or theres the right situation when theres a defensive shift," said Bautista. "Why not try to go over there and it ended up working out again? But the previous at bat I tried going that way and I hit into a force out, when Melky got forced out at second. So it works sometimes, sometimes it doesnt." Its difficult to watch a team go into a funk, especially when it had become customary for fans to watch Toronto out-slug and, often, out-pitch opponents. Despite the recent struggles, the Jays offence remains top 10 in important statistical categories: Home runs – 93 (1st)On-base percentage - .329 (5th)On-base plus slugging percentage - .760 (2nd)Walks – 243 (9th)
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