OTTAWA -- Ben Bishop never misses a chance to remind the Ottawa Senators they made a mistake in trading him.

At least, not in regulation time.

The Lightning goalie made 33 saves as Tampa Bay tied a franchise record with its eighth consecutive victory, a 4-1 decision Thursday night over the Senators at Canadian Tire Centre.

Bishop, who played 23 games over two seasons with the Senators before being dealt to Tampa on April 3, 2013, for Cory Conacher and a fourth round pick, improved his career record against his former team to 9-0-3.

"You know some of the guys, you grow up kind of playing with them for a couple of years and you know some of their tendencies, but they're getting new guys it seems every time," Bishop said in an attempt to explain his success against the Senators. "Right now, I don't know the reason why but I'll take them while they're coming."

The victory moved Tampa Bay (38-22-4) into a tie with the Florida Panthers for first place in the Atlantic Division and equaled a winning streak set in 2003-04, the Lightning's Cup winning season.

Six of the victories have come on the road.

Second-period goals by Cedric Paquette and Ondrej Palat were all the Lightning would need. Marc Methot broke Bishop's bid for a shutout at 5:24 of the third, but Nikita Kucherov restored the two-goal lead at the 18:46 mark and Steven Stamkos iced the victory with an empty netter.

Andrew Hammond made 24 saves in the Ottawa goal.

"It's a huge confidence boost," Lightning defensemen Victor Hedman said of the win. "We're very happy with the way we've been playing, especially on the road. We've been able to kill games off which wasn't happening at the beginning of the year. We usually put ourselves behind the 8-ball, but to get the lead, extend the lead and protect the lead has been huge for us as of late."

The Senators (30-28-7) played most of the game with five defensemen when Mark Borowiecki left with a right knee injury following a collision on his first shift.

"It's going to be at least week-to-week," said Ottawa coach Dave Cameron. "It's going to be awhile."

Palat's winner was off a rush that started when newly signed Senator Scott Gomez coughed up the puck in the Tampa zone. Hammond stopped Tyler Johnson's wrap around attempt, but Palat poked home the rebound with Senators winger Mike Hoffman on top of his goalie.

"He's doing the right thing," Hammond said of Hoffman. "He's coming back hard. It's one of those things that, more often than not, he's making the right play. You can't fault the guy. Even on the third goal, you're making the right play ... just a little bit of bad luck. Unfortunately for us, tonight they ended up in the back of our net."

In his Senators debut, Gomez played 12:54, including 3:05 on the power play that went 0-for-3.

"Missed the puck there in the second, they took a 2-1 lead... against those guys, there's a reason they went to the finals," said Gomez, who had been playing with the St. Louis Blues AHL affiliate before being signed by Ottawa on Wednesday. "For a first game back in a while, go up from there."

The loss left the Senators seven points back in the race for a wild card playoff spot.

"I liked a lot of things, but we've said all along it's about results. We did a lot of real good things, but didn't get the result we wanted.

"I thought we had a real good team game. I didn't think we had any passengers tonight at all. We knew coming in against Tampa Bay, the reason they're a good team is they play fast and they're going to make us play fast.

"I thought we responded well. I thought that was one of the fastest games we've played and we're doing it with 5 D, obviously they were on their game too."

Tampa coach Jon Cooper put no extra stock in his team's winning streak.

"It just means that much closer to hopefully making the playoffs and that's our goal," said Cooper. "You've got to get into the dance. When you can go on a run like this at this time of the season, you're sure putting on a lot of pressure on a lot of other teams to try and catch you. We're worrying about ourselves and that's it. We've got to just keep munching points and that's what we've been doing as of late."

NOTES: Senators C Scott Gomez debuted with his seventh NHL team and started the game between rookie LW Ryan Dzingel and struggling RW Alex Chiasson. The game was the 1,067th of Gomez's career. ... To make room for Gomez, Senators LW Matt Puempel was scratched. ... Senators G Chris Driedger was recalled from Binghamton of the AHL and served as backup to G Andrew Hammond while G Craig Anderson missed his first game with a lower-body injury. ... Senators D Patrick Wiercioch was scratched for the fifth consecutive game. ... Lightning D Andrej Sustr missed the game with an undisclosed injury that isn't expected to keep him out long. ... Lightning W Erik Condra, a former Senator, returned to the lineup after being scratched the previous three games. ... Lightning C Jonathan Marchessault was scratched for the second game in a row.