"For Marty St. Louis, silence was golden.

The last time he talked to the media before a potential milestone game, an injury put him on the sideline. So before his 900th NHL game, Saturday night against the Panthers, the Lightning wing declined interviews with a forceful no.

He then scored a hat trick to spark an enormous 6-3 victory at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

That was a much better result than when he missed what would have been his 500th consecutive game, Dec. 8 in New York, after taking an errant puck to the face.

"Yeah, that's right," St. Louis said, acknowledging it is better not to talk before a game and playfully adding to reporters, "now you guys are learning."

What we learned about the Lightning (23-23-5) is it has some fight in it.

The win was its sixth in seven games and pulled it to within eight points of first-place Florida in the Southeast Division. Had it lost and fallen 12 back, a divisional playoff push would have been all but impossible.

The Lightning also stayed nine points out of the playoffs in the Eastern Conference.

"We've got this path in front of us," coach Guy Boucher said. "It's very narrow, so we want to stick to what we do. … It had to do with us knowing we are playing the right way, and if we do that consistently, we're going to have success.""