THRASHERS 3, LIGHTNING 1: Southeast-leading Atlanta strikes quickly with slumping Tampa Bay unable to rally.
By BRANT JAMES
Published December 27, 2003
ATLANTA - The top team in the Southeast got it done in customary fashion. There was a nagging intensity, opportunism and a perpetual chip on its shoulder after seasons of disrespect.
The young, would-be star, left wing Ilya Kovalchuk, was a menace on both ends of the ice. Dominant goaltender Pasi Nurminen made 34 saves, several spectacular. And the role players, center Randy Robitaille and defenseman Andy Sutton, contributed in subtle and obvious ways for an energized full house (18,545).
Curse the Thrashers for stealing the formula from the defending division champion. But credit them for doing it better this season. And again on Friday 3-1. One year to the day Bob Hartley was named coach of a bottom-dwelling 8-20-1-4 team, the Thrashers ambushed the Lightning in the first period and held on for a meaningful victory at Philips Arena.
Many Lightning players refused to assign much importance to an early season game, but the Thrashers clearly did. Atlanta (19-14-3-1) opened an eight-point lead over the Lightning in the Southeast as Tampa Bay fell to 14-12-5-1.
"Tonight was a big shift," right wing Martin St. Louis said. "That's a four-point game."
Though only a win off its pace after 32 games last year, the Lightning's current trend is disturbing. After an 11-2-2-1 start, the Lightning is 3-10-3 in its past 16. And its goal-scoring malaise worsened despite outshooting Atlanta 35-23.
The Lightning did many of the things it thinks will end a stretch in which it has 26 goals in 16 games. It played with intensity, fired shots from all angles, toiled in front of the net. But except for a Brad Lukowich blast at 13:21 of the third, fired in off a Tim Taylor faceoff win, there was nothing but frustration. Afterward, there were the same blank stares from players used to their creativity yielding goals.
"It feels like a recording this past month, like we've been saying the same thing over and over," St. Louis said. "We don't want to be at Game 60 and still talking about it."
The source of the frustration Friday was easily identifiable. His name was Nurminen, and his 15th win continued to elevate a team that was among the league's worst defensively last season.
"I thought Nurminen was the difference in this game," Lightning coach John Tortorella said.
Second and third periods of solid forechecking appeared ready to pay off after Lukowich scored his third of the season, but Nurminen thought otherwise.
He stopped a backhand flip from St. Louis with 4:38 left, then toed away two lasers from Pavel Kubina in the final two minutes. His respite arrived when Shawn McEachern scored his second goal of the game on an empty-netter at 19:52.
Nikolai Khabibulin had equally strong moments against the league's second-best scoring team, making 21 saves.
Atlanta demonstrated its eagerness to follow Carolina and the Lightning as surprise winners of the Southeast, scoring at 2:27 of the first when Robitaille smashed a shot from the right faceoff circle for his fourth goal of the year.
Persistence gave Atlanta a 2-0 lead at 13:45. After Kubina made a diving poke check to stop a Patrik Stefan breakaway, Atlanta's J.P. Vigier hustled to dig the puck from the corner as the Lightning recovered and centered to the net. McEachern, one foot in the crease, tipped in the goal.
Shane Willis, active for the first time in three games, missed in close on a pass from behind the net and from the side in the same sequence in the first.
"I had the one chance and they come down the next shift to make it 2-0," he said. "Those are the kind of things that change the atmosphere of a game."
At some point, those things will have to change the atmosphere of a season.
