ISLANDERS 3, LIGHTNING 1: One loss at home to a weaker team is followed by another as Tampa Bay again squanders a 1-0 lead.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published March 17, 2004
[Times photo: Dirk Shadd]
Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk, middle, gets sandwiched between Islanders Alexei Yashin, left, and Alexander Karpovstev.
TAMPA - So what are we looking at when we view the Lightning: a contender or pretender?
The point was up for debate, in a rhetorical sort of way, after Tampa Bay's 3-1 loss to the Islanders Tuesday night at the St. Pete Times Forum.
Against a team fighting for its playoff life, and one determined to choke off the Lightning offense - postseason hockey, in other words - Tampa Bay, defenseman Dan Boyle admitted, "We didn't do enough."
It was the second straight game that could be said of the Lightning, which lost consecutive games in regulation for the first time since Dec. 13 and 16.
But while coach John Tortorella said, "I'm not going to kick my hockey team right now," he added, "We know we have to improve. This is probably good, what's happening. Maybe it will make you guys (media) understand we're not that Stanley Cup contender everybody thinks we are right now."
Chalk some of that up to dramatic effect. The Lightning, with 95 points, is certainly a contender. It is on top of the Eastern Conference, No.2 in the league and on a 26-5-2-4 run since Jan. 3.
But Tortorella did not pretend there was no concern. His team wanted redemption after Saturday's bad 5-1 loss to the Hurricanes. Instead, it allowed three third-period goals that wiped out a 1-0 lead, and made goaltending and coverage blunders on the first two.
Then there was the balky 0-for-3 power play. The dump-ins that were supposed to set up the forecheck but seemed invariably cut off by goalie Rick DiPietro. And the prime scoring chances missed by Vinny Lecavalier and Dan Boyle after Fredrik Modin gave the Lightning a 1-0 first-period lead.
Converting those were crucial because shots (23-20 for New York) and scoring chances (9-7 for the Lightning by Tortorella's count) were rare.
"That's the way these games are going to be played," Tortorella said. "It's not going to be free-wheeling, getting 17 or 18 scoring chances. We need to learn to win these kinds of games. We didn't tonight."
Justin Papineau scored the winner with 6:54 left, somehow getting past three Lightning players as he skated unimpeded to the front of the net.
Not what Tortorella wanted to see after Mattias Weinhandl scored 1:30 into the third on a shot from such a sharp angle, the coach called it "awful" and said goalie Nikolai Khabibulin blew the save.
That morphed into a general critique of Tampa Bay's recent goaltending, which Tortorella called "a major concern of mine going into the playoffs."
Jason Blake got an empty-net goal with 45.7 seconds left.
It was an important win for the Islanders, who cling to the East's eighth and final playoff spot. In fact, if the season ended today, the Lightning and Islanders would meet in the first round.
"Any of the teams we play in the first round are going to be top-notch teams with a lot of weapons," said DiPietro, who had 19 saves. "But I think physically we match up pretty well with these guys."
DiPietro was more than a match for Tampa Bay. He stopped Lecavalier in the second period on a two-on-one. He got lucky when Boyle missed a partially open net midway through the third.
A Lecavalier goal would have put Tampa Bay ahead 2-0. But he said he hesitated on the shot because Martin St. Louis' pass was tipped and slightly behind him.
Boyle made an outstanding play holding the puck to draw a delayed tripping penalty on Arron Asham. Boyle shot as DiPietro scrambled to get back in position. The puck hit the post 9:27 into the third and the score remained 1-1.
"I had half the net, but there was a guy in front of me so I had to shoot beside him," Boyle said.
"Those are the kinds of breaks you get when you work hard," DiPietro said.
The kind the Lightning had been getting.
"We need to get on the right track," defenseman Jassen Cullimore said. "It just might be a little blip right now, but we have to change it around."
