Reality sets in for Lightning

By TIM BUCKLEY

©St. Petersburg Times, published January 12, 1998

Was Sunday night's airing of the Lighting vs. the Philadelphia Flyers a Classic Sports Network replay of their 1996 playoff series, or live action between the NHL's last-place team and one of the league's best?

The first period seemed like the former.

But the final two proved it was indeed the latter, as the Flyers pulled away for a 5-2 victory in front of 13,355 at the Ice Palace.

With that, the Lightning was exposed to a national-TV audience for what it really is -- a 9-27-8 team now winless in its past five games and still nine points behind its next-closest Eastern Conference opponent.

For a period, though, it seemed like old times: Igor Ulanov trading shots with Eric Lindros, Rob Zamuner and Mikael Andersson showing they are among the league's top tandems of penalty-killing forwards and Ron Hextall being Ron Hextall.

Then reality sunk in.

Derek Wilkinson, not Daren Puppa, was in goal for the Lightning. Chris Gratton was playing for Philadelphia, not Tampa Bay. And Lindros is still Lindros, Hextall is still Hextall and Trent Klatt is still a pain in the Lightning's behind.

By the time Steve Kelly scored his first goal of the season (and first since coming to Tampa Bay from Edmonton in the recent five-player Roman Hamrlik trade) midway through the third period, it seemed only appropriate that he be sentenced to four minutes in the penalty box for attempting to spear Hextall moments after backhanding a loose puck over the fallen Flyers goalie.

Philadelphia, after all, frustrated Tampa Bay time and again.

Klatt had two goals (the eighth and ninth of his career against the Lightning) and Gratton had one goal and assists on both of Klatt's goals for Philadelphia, which moves into a points tie with New Jersey for first place in the Eastern Conference.

Klatt's second came 52 seconds after he assisted on Rod Brind'Amour's tie-breaking goal at 12:07 of the second period.

Brind'Amour tipped a Klatt pass past Wilkinson, the Lightning No. 3 goalie, who is playing because regulars Puppa and Corey Schwab are hurt.

Klatt did most of the work, avoiding a Bryan Marchment check and passing before Ulanov crunched him into the boards.

Ulanov's hit was one of many in yet another bone-crushing game, the tone of which was set when Patrick Poulin fought Philadelphia's Luke Richardson in the fourth minute.

Two and a half minutes after Lindros picked up an interference minor for yanking Dino Ciccarelli, Marchment took a shot at Lindros. Lindros responded with a run at his old friend Ulanov, and Ulanov came back with a cross-check to the back of Lindros' head.

Two minutes after Ulanov went to the box, David Shaw followed for high sticking John LeClair. That produced a power-play goal by Klatt, who swatted in his own rebound after Wilkinson stopped Danius Zubrus. The Lightning answered with a short-handed goal from Andersson, who put in the rebound of Hextall's save on a Zamuner breakaway. Zamuner prompted the play by breaking up a pass by Chris Therien at the blue line, and Andersson sent him in alone on Hextall.

The period ended with some heavy hitting, including one sequence in which Ulanov popped Lindros, Richardson got in a shot on Ciccarelli, and Ciccarelli went after Lindros.

With the Flyers up 3-1 after two periods, Gratton scored his 12th goal of the season -- and first against the Lightning since leaving Tampa Bay for Philadelphia's five-year, $16.5-million contract offer. Chris Therien closed with an empty-netter.