TAMPA - Two gruesome black-and-blue semicircles underline both eyes.
Seven stitches bind a nasty red cut on his right eyebrow.
A bump with a hideous scab over it sticks out from the bridge of his nose. Several nicks and scratches are sprinkled across his left cheekbone. A scraggly six-week beard buries a few more scrapes and gashes.
Lightning defenseman Cory Sarich looks like something from Dr. Frankenstein's basement.
"That's what makes it worthwhile," Sarich said. "If it was easy to go out there and do it, it would be no fun.
"This is why you play the game. This is a blast. This is what it's all about."
This is what you must suffer just to arrive at this moment:
The biggest game in the 12-year history of the Lightning franchise.
Tonight, the Lightning plays the Flyers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference final. Win and the Lightning goes up 3-2 in the best- of-seven series. Lose and the Lightning falls behind 3-2 and needs two victories, including one on the road, to reach the Stanley Cup final.
The series won't end tonight, but it could be decided.
"Yes, I think this might be the most important game ever," Lightning forward Ruslan Fedotenko said. "In the playoffs, every game is important, but (tonight) is definitely ... "
Fedotenko searched through his mental thesaurus looking for the perfect word to describe the importance of tonight's game. He finally shrugged his shoulders and came up with "huge," but even that seemed flat.
"It's crunch time of the series," Lightning forward Tim Taylor said. "Whoever wins Game 5 takes a stranglehold of the series and has momentum.
"It's a huge game for us. It's a big game for them. ... At the start of the series, I think both teams expected Game 5 to be crucial and it is."
The game is crucial for both, but perhaps a little more for the Lightning. It doesn't want to go to hostile Philadelphia for Game 6 facing elimination. Meantime, the Flyers could lose knowing they are going home for a chance to send the series to an anything-can-happen Game 7.
Like a prize fight, the teams have traded haymakers and counterpunches through four games and have spent times in their corners talking trash.
The Lightning won Games 1 and 3, the Flyers responded in Games 2 and 4. Both teams have dominated at times. Both have won in the other team's building. Both have injuries.
The Lightning, though, spent the past two days cursing the game that got away. It held the lead and control in Game 4 before crumbling under the weight of Keith Primeau and the Flyers.
"We had chances to go up 2-0 in that game and, looking back, it is discouraging to think of that," Taylor said.
"But before the series, we didn't expect to sweep. I don't think they expected to sweep. Now it comes down to a best-of-three."
As the teams turn the final corner in a dead heat, it's impossible to tell which has the edge. The Lightning has home-ice advantage with Games 5 and 7, if needed, at the St. Pete Times Forum.
But the Flyers are coming off a physically intimidating victory that might have been less of an aberration in this series and more of a trend.
After tonight, the pendulum swings heavily in the winner's favor.
"We're at a whole other level now and there is no time now to slack off," Sarich said. "You can't do it, you can't ease up at all. There's no room to slack off."
That means by the end of tonight, Sarich's cuts, scrapes and aching bones might have a few neighbors.
"Who cares about stuff like this?" Sarich said, pointing to his face. "You're playing for a Stanley Cup. Most players would almost give their left leg to do that. This is the biggest game I've ever played in. I've played in the World Junior Championships for a gold medal, but that doesn't even come close in comparison to this.
"I've played a few (minor-league) final games, but, nope, I've never played in a bigger game than this."
