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Special teams and unlikely scorers add up to a 5-0 victory for Florida.
By DAMIAN CRISTODERO
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 8, 2001
TAMPA -- The boos started with about 20 seconds remaining and got louder as the clock counted to zero.
The punctuation mark came from the top corner of the Ice Palace: "You guys," a voice shouted, "are bad."
The Lightning offered no rebuttal Sunday night after an atrocious 5-0 loss to the Panthers in front of an announced 12,658 at the Ice Palace.
"We were f------ terrible," right wing Matthew Barnaby said. "We were s---. We were awful out there."
So bad the team had a 10-minute closed-door meeting after the game without the coaches.
So bad, coach John Tortorella needed little prompting to rail against an effort in which his players basically handed the ice to Florida at the start and did nothing to get it back.
"I'm not trying to exclude myself. I'm not putting myself against the team," Tortorella said. "This is the whole damn organization. Something has to change with our mind-set before something happens on the ice, and that's playing with a little g-- d--- jam in every area of the ice.
"When I say that, it's not just the body checking. It's wanting the puck at certain times. It's wanting to check at certain times. It's wanting to block a g-- d--- shot at certain times."
It was a bad scene.
Florida outshot the Lightning 37-28, Tampa Bay's defense was as loose as a cable-stitch sweater -- defenseman Grant Ledyard was a team-worst minus-3 -- the power play again was a non-issue and the Panthers were 2-for-4 on the power play after starting the season 0-for-14.
Cover your eyes, it gets worse.
The Lightning was outshot 16-7 in the first period. It didn't battle for the puck.
The solid body check that might have energized the team never materialized. It blocked just three shots and gave away the puck 18 times. Center Brad Richards did it a team-high four times.
The Lightning also allowed two Florida players not known for scoring to look like Gretzky and Lemieux.
Okay, that's a stretch, but when former Lightning forward Jason Wiemer (122 points and 900 penalty minutes) gets two goals and an assist and Paul Laus (67 points and 1,549 penalty minutes) gets two assists in the same game, planets are out of alignment.
Roberto Luongo made 28 saves, 13 in the third period when the game was already put away, for his seventh career shutout.
"We were afraid to make a play," Tortorella said. "If you keep flipping (the puck) and giving your problem to someone else, they're going to have the puck. In the first period we couldn't make a pass, and it's not just the young guys. I don't think it's focus. It's like they're uptight. ... The first 10 minutes were ridiculous."
That particularly aggravated Tortorella because the Panthers are the closest thing the Lightning has to a rival. Even more curious, the Lightning lost its opener to the Islanders on Friday and played with even less urgency in watching its record fall to 0-2.
"We have to start playing with a little more intensity and a little bit more caring for one another," Tortorella said. "Do we want to p--- it away right now at the beginning of the year when we don't have a chance to play some meaningful games in December?"
He used the Panthers' first goal, by Valeri Bure 3:35 into the game, as a catch-all for the team's problems.
Bure charged the net and wasn't picked up until defenseman Jassen Cullimore fell behind by a half-step, as Bure banged in a pinpoint pass from Viktor Kozlov. Goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin had no chance.
Tortorella said five Lightning skaters were in the defensive zone, "and the puck goes in the net because everybody is watching the puck carrier. That is not taking charge. That is watching.
"I think our team cares. But they have to start being able to say we care (and) translate that onto our actions on the ice. I don't think we do that."