from Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times,

As much resilience as the Lightning has shown recently, this looked pretty darn bleak.

Like season-over bad.

With any loss potentially crippling Tampa Bay's perilous playoff hopes, it fell behind 4-1 midway through Monday's showdown with the Blackhawks. The Lightning's No. 1 goalie, Andrei Vasilevskiy, had already been pulled and re-inserted into the game. The large portion of red-clad Chicago fans drowned out the sellout crowd of 19,092 at Amalie Arena.

Cooper summed up the feeling perfectly: "This (stinks).'"

But the Lightning didn't sink. It surprised — again —roaring back for a thrilling 5-4 overtime win over Chicago. Tampa Bay's third consecutive come-from-behind victory was a significant swing in the standings. It pulled the Lightning one point ahead of the Islanders and within one point of Boston for the final wild-card spot with seven games to go.

"We didn't quit," Cooper said. "We just kept hanging around, hanging around, hanging around."

Said wing Yanni Gourde: "We knew we could come back. We've got the firepower."

Gourde, a rookie who was in the ECHL just a few years ago, was the unlikely hero, scoring the overtime winner on a breakaway with just under a minute to go.

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