Errors add to woes for Khabibulin

He says he must be better, and turnovers don't help him.

TAMPA - One shot.

Okay, one dandy shot. Created by an ugly turnover. Fired low on a breakaway, released a smidgen sooner than expected. Taken five minutes into a 60-minute game.

One tricky shot.

That needed a save.

Tampa Bay goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, still waiting to play his best four games into the East semifinal series against New Jersey, was frozen for a split second by Scott Gomez's shot from the high slot. The puck darted between Khabibulin's legs.

The Devils led 1-0. After just one shot.

"Obviously, if we're going to win I've got to do a little bit better," Khabibulin said. "But they're hard to play against. They're waiting for our mistakes and we made a couple mistakes, and they capitalized on them."

Certainly, there was plenty of blame to go around after the Lightning's mistake-riddled 3-1 loss. New Jersey's first two goals were set up by Lightning mistakes.

Gomez's breakaway was the product of a neutral-zone turnover by Dave Andreychuk, compounded by a poorly timed line change by a defenseman. Patrik Elias' goal to make it 2-1 at 16:33 of the first was set up by a bad turnover by Dan Boyle.

"It's the two errors we made," forward Brad Richards said. "You can't rely on goalies. You make a bad change and give a guy a breakaway and some of them are going to go in, it doesn't matter who the goalie is. We have full confidence in Nik."

The insurance goal, scored by Scott Stevens on a power play with just under seven minutes left in the game, was shot through a crowd of players. Khabibulin picked it up late and got a piece of it, but the puck ricocheted off the crossbar and into the goal.

If the Lightning has any hope of overcoming its 3-1 deficit - or even bringing the series back to Tampa with a win Friday in New Jersey - Khabibulin will need to do better than his 2.75 goals-against average in four games. He must return to the world-beating form he flashed late in the regular season and in Game 6 of the opening round against Washington, when he stopped 60 of 61 shots in a triple-overtime win.

It's no secret.

"He's going to have to be our first star - not only our first star, the game's first star," Martin St. Louis said. "And he knows that. He puts a lot of pressure on himself. You don't need to tell him that."

Khabibulin made 23 saves Wednesday, several spectacular. In the final five minutes, as Tampa Bay tried furiously to create scoring chances at the other end, he robbed first Jeff Friesen, then Pascal Rheaume. Both on breakaways.

All-star saves.

Just not all the time.

"I don't think it's a case of him being flat," said Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur, who stopped several Lightning shots from point-blank range. "He made some good saves and we scored some nice goals. We got a breakaway and the shot Patty made, there's not too many goalies that would stop that. I don't think you can blame him for anything. He's definitely keeping them in the games."

But not winning them.

Not stealing them.

"When you play against New Jersey it's hard to play when they have the lead," Khabibulin said. "I'd like to stop it. I'm trying to stop it. It's not like I'm letting it in on purpose."

Today's lineup

Lightning