BRUINS 5, LIGHTNING 4: "This one hurts," Richards says after a 3-0 lead vanishes.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published March 21, 2004
BOSTON - Except for the ripping away of the adhesive tape that helps hold up their socks, Lightning players removed their equipment in near silence Saturday.
There was no music in the FleetCenter locker room, a few blank stares and minimal conversation was held in whispers.
You couldn't have asked for a more appropriate atmosphere after a distressing 5-4 loss to the Bruins in which Tampa Bay squandered a 3-0 first-period lead and allowed four consecutive goals.
"If we're going to win in the playoffs," captain Dave Andreychuk said, "that game should be over."
"Obviously," center Brad Richards said, "this one hurts."
On so many levels, not the least of which was Michael Nylander's winning breakaway goal 2:52 into the third period that broke a 4-4 tie.
Andre Roy failed to control Dan Boyle's pass at the red line - Roy said the puck took a weird bounce. Tampa Bay got caught on a line change, and goalie Nikolai Khabibulin gave Nylander way too much room at which to shoot on the long side.
It was the Lightning's third loss in four games, and with 97 points, its lead in the race for No. 1 in the East is one over the Flyers and two over the Bruins.
Tampa Bay also failed to break what seems more and more like a curse in Boston, where its winless streak reached 20 at 0-14-5-1.
But the worst part was the way the Lightning let the game slip away; with bad goaltending, bad defense and bad attention to detail. Not exactly what you want with the playoffs less than three weeks away.
How fast did things change? After Pavel Kubina, Andreychuk and Fredrik Modin gave Tampa Bay a 3-0 lead with 1:52 left in the first period, Boston scored three times in a stretch of 3:13 to tie the score 2:01 into the second.
"I don't know what to say," said Modin, whose two goals gave him 26. "We have to be smarter and not let them back."
"Unacceptable," defenseman Darryl Sydor said. "We thought it was going to be easy. With a 3-0 lead, we have to shut it down. We have to rectify this."
The starting point is playing better with a lead.
The Lightning cannot allow a goal 40 seconds after building a 3-0 lead. But that is what happened when Brian Rolston banked in the puck off Khabibulin with 1:12 left in the first. The goalie was not completely to blame. Rolston was left alone to his left when five Tampa Bay players went to the other side of the rink.
Travis Green's goal made it 3-2 31 seconds into the second period. Sergei Gonchar made it 3-3 when his wrist shot bounced out of Khabibulin's glove and into the net.
"A lousy goal," coach John Tortorella said.
Joe Thornton's power-play goal at 7:11 made it 4-3. Modin's power-play goal at 9:30 tied the score. But all that did was set up Nylander's winner.
"I don't think we felt the urgency until it was 3-0," Bruins goaltender Andrew Raycroft said. "We didn't come out the way we wanted to, but we continued to battle. It's a testament to the team and the character we have here that we can come back from any deficit."
And there is the rub. Tampa Bay created Boston's deficit with a strong first 18 minutes in which three goals came off turnovers created by a fierce forecheck.
Kubina stripped Craig MacDonald in front of the Bruins net for his 16th. Andreychuk scored his 18th after Dmitry Afanasenkov stripped Gonchar. Richards' steal from Gonchar led to a goal in which Cory Stillman's shot deflected past Raycroft from in close off Modin's chest.
Maybe it was too easy.
"That's the problem getting out to an early lead," Boyle said. "You don't want to change your style of play, but you end up sitting back."
Said center Vinny Lecavalier: "The way we came out, we should have put even more pressure on them."
No kidding.
As Tortorella said, "There are some things we need to work on."
