Late in the game, and the man in the net continues to grow.
He is 10 feet tall, 800 pounds. He is larger, wider than he was a few moments ago. Another trip down the ice by the Islanders and he will be 12 feet, 1,000 pounds. He measures higher, heavier than you have seen him.
He is Nikolai Khabibulin.
Never has he stood taller.
After the search, after the absences, he showed up Thursday night. You would have known him anywhere. This, finally, is the goaltender the Lightning expected him to be, paid him to be, needed him to be. This is the guy they traded for, the guy they built around, the guy they waited on.
This was Khabibulin, picking the Islanders' pockets.
When it comes to goaltenders, that's the way the NHL keeps score. The great goaltenders are the dreamcatchers of the league, expected to snatch the hopes of the opponent out of midair. They stand in front of the net, wrapped in pads and pressure, and occasionally they are expected to out-and-out steal one.
This time, Khabibulin was a burglar. On a night the Lightning struggled to get shots, on a night the Islanders showed enough to pull an upset, Khabibulin made certain it would not happen. If he had stolen this game any more cleanly, he also would have ended up with Michael Peca's watch and Alexei Yashin's wallet.
"It was the best he's played in the three years I've played with him," center Vinny Lecavalier said.
Funny how this game goes. You start off the night being Achilles' heel, and you end up being Hercules' biceps. Or, perhaps there is another part of the anatomy that is more important. The Lightning won, said coach John Tortorella, "because of the backbone of Nikolai Khabibulin."
As for Khabibulin, he wasn't saying anything except he had nothing to say. If you want to read into that, you might believe that Khabibulin is a bit annoyed over the shredding of his reputation. And perhaps he realizes the final arguments are not in. One game doesn't erase the blackboard. It is, on the other hand, a good place to start.
Before the game, you could find doubts about Khabibulin everywhere. His legacy was that of a goaltender who would shrink in proportion to the size of the moment. Only once had Khabibulin won an NHL playoff series (in six attempts), and he was promptly benched the series following that one.
When the playoffs came, everyone seemed to agree, the Bulin Wall was a few bricks shy of a load. Even the national media noticed. One prediction called for an Islanders win in this series based upon the belief New York goaltender Rick DePietro was more solid.
And so it was, as the game began, Khabibulin stood in front of a net that looked very, very large. It was sort of like seeing a toy soldier posed in front of a playpen.
Then he started to grow, stealing this puck, stopping that one. By the end of the third period, the fans were chanting his name, and Khabibulin looked very much like King Kong. The goal mouth? The Islanders might as well have been trying to shoot into a garden hose.
By the end of the night, Khabibulin was as big as, well, as big as the pressure placed upon him.
It had been a year since he sat on the end of the bench, watching as the Lightning finished its season. The rest of his team finished the season as charming overachievers; he finished it with questions about his heart.
This time, Khabibulin was the most promising sight of all for the Lightning. For all of their scoring, they will not make a serious run if he doesn't hold up.
For most of the series opener, the Islanders were all over him. He stopped Yashin from point-blank range. He stopped Mattias Weinhandl on a breakaway. He made an incredible glove save on Mark Parrish, almost snatching the puck off Parrish's stick.
From that point on, it was Khabibulin's game. Oh, the Lightning defenders made some nice plays in front of him, particularly Dan Boyle in the second period. Khabibulin was splayed to his right, and Peca came swooping in from the other side. Boyle left his skates to block the shot - with his cup. It might have been the finest display of taking one for the team since Kevin Costner jumped in front of Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard.
For the most part, though, it was Khabibulin's night. He saved 30 shots, and on some of them he was Dr. Octopus. He blocked shots from all sorts of angles, including lying on his back.
Most important, Khabibulin left every player in his locker room grinning when they looked back over their shoulders.
"That's the way we need Nik to play," Martin St. Louis said.
For the Lightning, Khabibulin is the difference between trouble and being in trouble. If his game was the start of something big, you have to like the Lightning's chances in this series and beyond.
Saturday, the Lightning will need Khabibulin to be large all over again. Also, wide. The rest of us will bring scopes and scales. We will estimate his height and approximate his weight.
For if we know nothing else around here, we know the guy who has to measure up.
