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Home ice beckons down the stretch

The Lightning has many chances to regain its form at the Ice Palace.

By JOANNE KORTH, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 26, 2002

TAMPA -- The way the Lightning sees it, hockey season starts today.

Those first 58 games? Nothing can be done about those. The final 24? That's when Tampa Bay hopes to reestablish itself as a tough team to play, a tough team to beat.

Especially at home.

After a two-week break for the Olympics, the Lightning season resumes tonight against the Red Wings at the Ice Palace. It will play 15 of its final 24 at home, including the next six.

"At the beginning of the season we were playing so well at home and we have to get that back," defenseman Jassen Cullimore said. "We have to get back to feeling that we're a force to be reckoned with again in our own building."

The Lightning won six in a row from Nov. 17-Dec. 21, matching the franchise record for consecutive home wins set in 1996. Since then, it has one victory in 12 games at the Ice Palace, a 3-2 win against New Jersey on Jan. 21 and has fallen to 10-12-3-1 overall.

"You don't know how it slips away, it just does," Cullimore said. "You have to step back and realize it and regroup. When you're at home you can get a little complacent because you're at home and it's a little more relaxed. That may have slipped into our game and we have to get rid of it."

Tampa Bay hoped the Olympic break would allow several players to recover from injuries, but forwards Fredrik Modin (wrist) and Vinny Lecavalier (ankle) and defenseman Nolan Pratt (broken foot) will not play against the Red Wings.

Modin's injury was believed to be a bone contusion, but it did not respond to treatment. A North Carolina doctor is scheduled to scope the wrist today to determine the nature of the injury. Lecavalier did not skate Monday after pain forced him to leave practice Sunday. That's bad news for a team with a league-low 113 goals.

Not likely to bust out of its slump with its current personnel, the Lightning will try to be more gritty. Coach John Tortorella spent much of the past week talking with players about the team's identity.

"It's not a major overhaul," Tortorella said. "It's about not allowing two goals to go in our net in a minute and 30 seconds, not allowing that goal to go in at the end of the second period. It's the ebbs and flows and momentums of the game that we have to be more cognizant of.

"Plain and simple, we have to be a harder team to play against, especially when your most talented people are out. We have to play a brand of hockey where you have to battle. We have to be a more determined team. We have to re-establish ourselves at home, starting with the Red Wings, and maybe get onto a little roll."

Earlier, teams knew they were in for a fight against the Lightning. But in its final 10 games before the break, Tampa Bay gave up four goals or more five times as goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin struggled. After a strong Olympic showing for the bronze-medal team from Russia, Khabibulin seems on top of his game again.

Perhaps the Lightning can follow his lead.

"We've been in a lot of close games at home," forward Vinny Prospal said. "We need to make ourselves comfortable at home and make the other team know it's not going to be easy to win here, that it's not, "Oh, we're playing in Tampa; we're going to pick up two points.' "'

Tampa Bay is 13 games out of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot but would like to at least put itself in contention by the closing weeks of the season. Still, no one is tossing the word "playoff" around the locker room these days.

The goal is simply to win games.

"Every time there has been the word "playoff' mentioned around here, we sort of (panic) and get on a losing streak," Prospal said. "We have 24 games left, so all you want to do is win as many games as you can. We're not thinking about anything else."

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