By DAMIAN CRISTODERO and BRANT JAMES
Published May 6, 2004
Lightning goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin admitted Wednesday he is getting a bit of a chuckle at what is perceived to be his unwillingness to talk to the local media.
"Yeah, a little bit," he said with a smile.
The Lightning goaltender said he is happy to talk to reporters if they catch him after practice. Khabibulin has turned down several formal interview requests but said he is not hiding.
"I'm not trying to," he said after a workout at the St. Pete Times Forum.
"But if nobody sees me, then I'm not going to look for somebody. I'm just trying to concentrate on hockey and trying not to get distracted. That's about it."
Khabibulin leads the playoffs with a 0.99 goals-against average, four shutouts and an other-wordly .964 save percentage.
He said he does not believe Tampa Bay has seen the best from the Flyers, 0-4 against the Lightning during the regular season.
"I don't think so," Khabibulin said. "I think when we played against them, they had some injuries, and they've added a few guys since then. So I think they are a better team now."
Asked if a postseason victory over the Flyers would bring respect to the top-seeded Lightning, the goalie said, "I'm not looking at it that way. If we are able to win this series, we'll be in the Stanley Cup final. I think that's more important."
He will never forget
Jeff Reese said he understands why he was the focus of so much media attention. The Lightning's goaltender coach played for Tampa Bay and started two games during the 1996 East quarterfinal against the Flyers, including the dramatic 5-4 overtime victory in Game 3 that gave the Lightning a two games to one lead.
"It was very special," Reese said of what, at one time, was the greatest victory in Lightning history. "That win was probably one of the greatest nights in my career as far as biggest wins. It's something I will never forget."
Still, he said, "It doesn't have anything to do with what's going to happen here Saturday."
Reese's best memory of that series was the several hundred fans who showed up at the airport when Tampa Bay returned from Philly tied 1-1. And the 28,183 fans who showed up at the ThunderDome, now Tropicana Field, for Game 4.
And then there was this confrontation between the 5-foot-9 Reese and the Flyers' belligerent 6-4 goalie, Ron Hextall.
"At the end of one game, there was a big melee," Reese said. "I remember standing next to Hextall thinking, "Oh, my goodness, I'm going to need a stepladder to get after him.'
"But he wasn't interested in me. He was trying to get to everybody else."
Building block
Lightning general manager Jay Feaster took a risk, and some heat for not getting more, when he traded the No. 4 overall pick in the 2002 draft to the Flyers for second-year wing Ruslan Fedotenko and two second-round selections. Feaster said the Lightning's situation, laden with prospects but in need of immediate impact players, made it the right decision.
The Lightning got a versatile young player and filled another need by swinging one of the picks to Dallas for defenseman Brad Lukowich. The Flyers used the No. 4 pick to get a potential star in defenseman Jani Pitkanen.
"John (Tortorella, the coach) and I talked before the draft, and the one thing we thought we couldn't do was bring in another prospect," Feaster said.
"We had to bring in NHL players to complement a Vinny (Lecavalier) and Brad (Richards), and that pick had to be converted into a legitimate NHL player. John called me afterward and said, "Jay, if you had walked up to that podium and announced a pick, we were toast.' "
Fedotenko had 19 goals and six winners last season. He had 17 goals and a career-high 39 points this season. He said he doesn't think about how his career would have evolved in Philadelphia.
"I'm happy here," Fedotenko said. "If you could look and see the future, and seen how I would have played there, maybe you could evaluate it. But now I think it was for the best. We're not just a team that goes until April and then is done. We're in our second year going deep into the playoffs."
So sayeth the Flyers
Flyers wing Jeremy Roenick said he doesn't believe the eight days Tampa Bay will have off between series is necessarily a good thing.
"Yeah, let's hope they get a nice suntan and let the sun take a lot of energy out of them," he said after scoring the overtime clincher against Toronto.
"We're still going to get a couple of days of rest, and we're going to be rolling on the energy of this series."
It is an energy coach Ken Hitchcock said his team might not have had during the regular season, when injuries kept Philadelphia from having a full lineup in three of the four games against Tampa Bay.
"I don't want to write off what we did in the regular season, but there were circumstances for us in those games," Hitchcock said. "We are going to have a better account of ourselves in this series than what we did in the regular season. I believe that."
The Flyers also added defenseman Vladimir Malakhov from the Rangers and center Alexei Zhamnov from the Blackhawks.
"So throw that out the window," Tortorella said of the regular season. "Doesn't mean a thing. That's a different club now. I'm not saying you don't look at what happened during the regular season as we prepare, but I know what's going to happen. You get focused on this 4-0 record we had against them, and that means squat. It's a totally different type atmosphere. It's a whole different day when this series starts."
Ticket pickup
To encourage fans to pick up their tickets before Saturday, the Lightning is offering a free lunch from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. today and Friday on the Chrysler/Jeep Plaza at the St. Pete Times Forum. Burgers, hot dogs, soda and beer will be available.
Quotable
"We know we can beat them. We beat Montreal. We beat New York. This is the next step. If we take it game by game, we'll be fine." - Lecavalier.
