Any win is sweet, but allowing two late goals leaves a bad taste in John Tortorella's mouth.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published November 21, 2003
[Times photo: Dan McDuffie]
Fredrik Modin spins and slides the puck past the Islanders' Alexei Yashin and goalie Rick DiPietro for the Lightning's first goal.
TAMPA - A tough, explicit video session awaits the Lightning at today's practice.
Good thing Tampa Bay held on for a 3-2 victory over the Islanders at the St. Pete Times Forum, because that will act as a buffer. Well, maybe not.
"This gives us a great opportunity to teach," said coach John Tortorella, who added with emphasis, "and they are going to watch it."
Provided for the players' viewing pleasure will be two New York goals in the final 5:41 that turned a three-goal, feel-good victory into one that required survival mode.
"They have to learn, and we're going to beat them until they understand," Tortorella said. "That's what's frustrating to me. But it's two points. You never look away from two points in this league."
There was no reason to look away from much of Tampa Bay's game, especially considering the five-day layoff through which it tried to stay sharp.
Fredrik Modin and Brad Richards scored first-period goals, and Cory Stillman scored his team-high 10th in the third as the Lightning improved to 7-1-1-1 at home and took back first place from the Thrashers in the Southeast.
It was Modin's fifth goal and third in two games. Richards' third goal was his first in nine games. Their line, with Martin St. Louis, continued to click, its three points giving it five goals and four assists in two games.
And after the early stages of the first period, when Tampa Bay had trouble getting its legs, the Lightning took control. So what happened?
"Our situational hockey stinks at the end of the game," Tortorella said.
Arron Asham scored on a wraparound with 5:41 left after Nolan Pratt and Ben Clymer blew coverages.
Mark Parrish scored with 1:24 left after Ruslan Fedotenko was slow getting back on defense. And though Nikolai Khabibulin made 26 saves, including a dazzler on Adrian Aucoin with 7:54 left, for his eighth victory, he probably wants Parrish's goal back.
"It should have been over," Islanders coach Steve Stirling said. "But we played a little desperate. Too little too late, but at least we had a crack at it at the end."
There were other things at which to pick. Tampa Bay's power play looked confused at times, failed on five opportunities and has converted three of its past 34 chances. That would have changed had Stillman buried two second-period gimmies off perfect passes from Dan Boyle and Vinny Lecavalier, respectively.
"Those were two shots that you can't miss," said Stillman, who snuck the winner through goalie Rick DiPietro's legs 4:27 into the third period. "It's unacceptable."
Unacceptable to Tortorella were the failures at the end, when he said he purposely did not use the defensive line of Tim Taylor, Dave Andreychuk and Chris Dingman.
"Do I have to play Tim Taylor's line for five minutes?" Tortorella said.
"You try to give people an opportunity in those situations to try to help our team grow a little bit, and we failed. We're going to have to wean ourselves away from a Dave Andreychuk all the time, a Tim Taylor. The other guys have to learn to play in certain situations of the game and understand what situational hockey is. We certainly didn't do it in those five minutes there."
Still, Tortorella said positives outweighed negatives.
"Other than that, I thought we played a very good hockey game. We played very well defensively and did a lot of the little things."
But he couldn't get away from the late breakdowns.
"As a coach, the last five minutes leave a sour taste in your mouth," he said.
