CAPS 4, LIGHTNING 3 (SO): For a while Tampa Bay continues to build on its momentum, then it falls flat.
By TOM JONES, Times Staff Writer
Published November 16, 2005
[Getty Images]
Goalie Sean Burke, stopping Jeff Halpern, said, "I think you could tell which team played (Monday) night and which one didn't."
WASHINGTON - The Lightning isn't looking for excuses, but on Tuesday night, it had a good one.
It simply ran out of gas in a 4-3 shootout loss to the Capitals.
Okay, on the surface, it looks like a crushing defeat. And it was. Less than 24 hours after snapping out of its six-game losing streak with an emotional victory against the red-hot Flyers, the Lightning gave a good chunk of that good feeling back with loss to a team that had lost three in a row and was sitting dead last in the Eastern Conference.
Making matters worse, the Lightning blew a 3-1 lead it held early in the third period and watched in utter disappointment when Washington's young star, Alex Ovechkin, scored with 1:15 left in the third to send the game to overtime.
Okay, close your eyes, it gets even worse, Washington won it in a shootout when Lightning shooters Vinny Lecavalier, Vinny Prospal and Pavel Kubina failed to score and Ovechkin scored again.
"Yep," Lightning forward Fredrik Modin said, "this was a tough one to swallow."
But dig a little deeper. This might have been the Lightning's best point of the season.
"I'm looking at it with the glass half-full," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "In the previous six games, we got no points. Now we have three out of a possible four points in the last two games. Absolutely (it was a good point)."
It wasn't the type of game the Lightning will frame on a wall, but it was the type of game that suggests the Lightning has found its fire again.
Less than an hour after Monday night's emotional home victory in front of a full house against Philadelphia, the Lightning was on an airplane headed to Baltimore. After arriving, the Lightning crammed into a bus for an hour's drive and didn't check into its Washington hotel until 2 a.m.
After a snooze and a bite to eat, it was back at it in a half-empty arena against a well-rested Washington team that seemed intent on hitting anything that wasn't nailed down.
In easily the most physical game shown by an opponent, the Lightning brushed off the checks, took awhile to find its bearings and then put together a methodical game.
"But we can't use the excuse we were tired," forward Fredrik Modin said.
Despite looking anywhere from sluggish to downright dog-tired at times, the Lightning carried a 2-0 lead into the final two minutes of the second period and that's when it happened. That's when the needle hit E and the Lightning sputtered to a stop.
"I think you could tell which team played (Monday) night and which one didn't," goalie Sean Burke said. "But you get what you deserve. "Deserve' has nothing to do with it in this game. We lost, so I guess we deserved to lose. But there is a positive in picking up a point."
Modin, who recorded his third two-goal game of the season, and Ruslan Fedotenko scored two minutes apart early in the second to stake the Lightning to a 2-0 lead.
Former Lightning forward Ben Clymer cut the Lightning lead to 2-1 with 1:51 left in the second. Modin scored again early in the third to make it 3-1 before another former Lightning player, defenseman Bryan Muir, scored with 10:51 left. Victory was snatched away on Ovechkin's late tying goal when he cut down the wing and lifted a shot over Burke's shoulder.
"We need a save there on Ovechkin," Tortorella said. "I thought we had that played well. We simply need a save."
The Lightning didn't get it. But Tortorella was okay with the night.
"Am I pleased with the way the team played and getting a point? Yes," he said. "I'm not going to beat my team up. For a good part of that game, we played like we needed to. We're trying to get points and, tonight, we got one."
