Sound bites

Thoughts and observations from Wednesday's broadcast:

By JOHN C. COTEY, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 17, 2003

Play-by-play man Rick Peckham mentioned it in passing, but the growing confidence of Nikolai Khabibulin is becoming more and more a factor in the series.

"Khabi looks like he's getting his game back," analyst Bobby "Chief" Taylor added at the end of the broadcast.

It was hard to tell how good Khabibulin was because replays of his saves were remarkably sparse. Was there not a camera trained on Khabibulin, or at least one in position to get those kinds of shots? To be fair, Sunshine doesn't get first choice of camera placement on road games, so maybe the shot just wasn't available.

That also would explain the lack of camera angles provided. Not great work.

Taylor noted the blood stain on Jaromir Jagr's jersey at the start, hinting that maybe it was a message to the referees that he had been unfairly muscled in Game3.

Sideline reporter Mike Nabors told Jassen Cullimore he and his teammates looked unaffected by back-to-back games. Cullimore said: "I'm glad it doesn't look like it; I feel a little sluggish out there."

Almost immediately after Martin St. Louis' first goal, Taylor gave credit to Cory Sarich's pass that set it in motion. Unfortunately, there was no replay of the goal until intermission. Taylor made up for it with his fine work on the telestrator.

Taylor practically called Tampa Bay's second goal, praising Dave Andreychuk for poking the puck at the blue line and out of the zone. A split second later, Andreychuk did it again and broke out before assisting on St. Louis' second goal.

It so impressed Taylor that he let out a "Boy oh boy" twice.

Jagr was such a non-factor, it was surprising Taylor and Peckham didn't talk about it more.