Palat has 2 goals, Lightning beat Detroit 4-2 in Red Wings' 6,000th regular season game

Saturday, 02.08.2014 / 9:55 PM The Canadian Press

TAMPA, Fla. - Alex Killorn scored a tiebreaking goal late in the third period, Ondrej Palat had two goals and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat Detroit 4-2 Saturday night in the Red Wings' 6,000th regular-season game.

Killorn beat Jimmy Howard from just outside the crease to give the Lightning a 3-2 lead with 3:11 to play. Palat added an empty-net goal with 63 seconds left.

Tampa Bay also got a goal from Tom Pyatt. The Lightning, who had lost four of five, are second in the Atlantic Division, one-point ahead of Montreal and Toronto.

Daniel Alfredsson and Tomas Jurco scored for Detroit, which has record of 2,761-2,320-815-104.

The Red Wings went ahead 2-1 on Jurco's nifty backhander at 11:19 of the second. The rookie stopped a 14-game goal drought.

Pyatt got his first goal in 18 games, dating to back to April 4, when he got a backhander past Howard that pulled the Lightning even at 2 with 2:46 left in the second.

Alfredsson put the Red Wings up 1-0 from the low right circle off a pass from Pavel Datsyuk 17:18 into the first. The goal gave Alfredsson 1,143 NHL points, which moved him Nicklas Lidstrom to become the second-highest scoring player from Sweden. Mats Sundin tops the list with 1,349.

Datsyuk got his 800th point on Alfredsson's goal.

Palat tied it at 1 with a rebound power-play goal 1:44 into the second. Tampa Bay had failed to score with the man advantage in its previous seven games.

This was the final game for both teams before the Olympic break, which could help the Lightning, who are without injured centres Steven Stamkos (broken leg) and Valtteri Filppula (broken ankle). Goalie Ben Bishop, who left Thursday night's game with Toronto after the second period due to an upper body injury, started against the Red Wings.

NOTES: It was 17 years ago Saturday that Chicago senior adviser Scotty Bowman won his 1,000th NHL regular-season game as a coach when the Red Wings beat Pittsburgh 6-5 in overtime. Bowman, a regular at Lightning home games, had right knee replacement surgery on Jan. 24 and is rehabbing the knee at his Florida home. ... Alfredsson has 27 goals and 72 points in 63 games against the Lightning. ... Tampa Bay reassigned D Jean-Philippe Cote to Syracuse of the AHL.

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