Lightning Still Perfectly Imperfect

Don’t say Happy New Year to anybody around the Tampa Bay Lightning.

What’s happy about it?

The Lightning has not won in 1998, and its winless streak stretched to 16 games Thursday night when Detroit’s Steve Yzerman scored on his first shift and added two assists in a 5-4 win at Tampa, Fla.

Yzerman had been out for three games because of an injury to his left leg.

Aaron Ward’s third goal in four games with 10:04 to play was the game-winner and Vyacheslav Kozlov contributed two power-play goals for the Red Wings.

“We’re fortunate Yzerman played tonight or we wouldn’t have won the game,” Red Wing Coach Scotty Bowman said. “He had a jump in his step.”

Yzerman stole a pass by Bryan Marchment and put a wrist shot between Mark Fitzpatrick’s pads 1:39 into the game. The Red Wings’ captain assisted on Anders Eriksson’s power-play goal at 6:09, giving Detroit a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes.

“I just wanted to get back playing, particularly before going over there [to the Olympics],” Yzerman said. “The leg feels fine.”

On the game-winner, Ward moved in from the left post and put a wrist shot past Fitzpatrick after taking Kirk Maltby’s pass from the right corner.

“It’s basic physics out there: if the puck is not going on net, it’s not going to go in,” Ward said. “I caught a forward [Jason Bonsignore] staring at the puck and it came behind him. I caught him flat-footed and beyond that it was just getting the puck toward the net.”

Tampa Bay had tied the game on Mikael Renberg’s third-period goal at 1:14.

“We don’t have a lot of confidence right now,” Renberg said. “We have to learn how to win hockey games. The guys are working harder now.”

The Lightning’s 0-14-2 streak matched a franchise record set earlier this season. It was the second game in two nights for the Lightning, who broke a 13-game losing streak with a 3-3 tie Wednesday night at Carolina.

Tampa Bay has the NHL’s worst record at 9-37-9.

The Red Wings improved to 7-1-1 all-time at Tampa Bay. The only Lightning home win over the Red Wings was the first meeting Nov. 11, 1992.

Philadelphia 6, Phoenix 2--John LeClair and Rod Brind’Amour each scored twice for the Flyers, who ended their losing streak at four games by winning at Phoenix.

Eric Lindros had a goal and two assists, Colin Forbes added a goal and Alexandre Daigle had three assists for Philadelphia, which has won three of its last four games against the Coyotes.

Craig Janney and Keith Tkachuk scored for the Coyotes, who have lost two in a row after four consecutive wins. The Coyotes played without injured goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, who had started 49 of the team’s 56 games.

Scott Langkow, making his second lifetime start and fourth appearance, gave up five goals on the Flyers’ first 15 shots and finished with 19 saves.

Calgary 4, San Jose 2--Theoren Fleury scored once and added an assist for the Flames, who got goals from Fleury and Hnat Domenichelli within four minutes of the second period of a win at Calgary.

Fleury will be playing for Canada in the Olympics.

Sandy McCarthy and Michael Nylander also scored for Calgary, which moved eight points behind the Sharks for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Magnus Ragnarsson and Tony Granato scored for San Jose, one point ahead of ninth-place Edmonton.

Ottawa 3, Toronto 2--Alexei Yachin scored his 24th goal and assisted on a goal by Shawn McEachern to pace the Senators, who won at Kanata, Canada.

The goals came in support of Damian Rhodes, the Ottawa goalie who had lost by scores of 2-0 and 1-0 earlier this week.

“If we play like we did tonight, we’re going to win games,” said former Toronto goaltender Rhodes (10-16-4). “We took control tonight. We were forcing their forwards in the neutral zone.”

McEachern scored Ottawa’s fourth power-play goal in 61 chances spanning more than 18 games to give the Senators a 2-1 lead with 2:17 left in the first period.

Ottawa outshot Toronto, 41-12, 18-3 in the second period.

Fredrik Modin scored first and third-period goals for the Maple Leafs, who have lost five of their last six games and are winless in five games against the Senators, dating to Dec. 5, 1995.

Bruce Gardiner also scored for Ottawa, which took over sole possession of seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings.

St. Louis 3, Boston 1--The Bruins are the NHL’s least-penalized team, so the Blues had only two power plays at Boston.

They scored on both, with Pavol Demitra and Jim Campbell getting the goals in a win.

St. Louis clinched the game on Darren Turcotte’s empty-net goal with 23 seconds remaining.

Blues’ goalie Jamie McLennan held the Bruins scoreless for more than 52 minutes, losing the shutout when rookie Joe Thornton, the first pick in the NHL draft, scored Boston’s goal with 7:51 left. Then the Bruins went on a power play with 6:11 to go but couldn’t get a shot on McLennan.

The Blues are 8-0-2 on the second night of consecutive games, in part because of backup goalie McLennan’s play behind starter Grant Fuhr.

St. Louis is 3-1-1 in its last five games, and Boston had two ties and a win in its previous three games.

Colorado 4, Chicago 2--Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg scored third-period goals for the Avalanche, which won at Denver.

Sakic broke a 1-1 tie early in the period with his team-high 24th goal, and Forsberg followed four minutes later with his 20th.

Sakic broke a five-game goal drought with a quick burst to set up a shot from the slot at 4:43. Forsberg spun adroitly around defenseman Keith Carney to get off a shot from the right circle at 8:54.

Despite the loss, the Blackhawks, in the fifth stop of a six-game trip which concludes Saturday in Dallas, are 7-4-0 in their last 11 road games.

Chicago’s Alexei Zhamnov made it 3-2 at 14:10, poking in a rebound of a shot by Tony Amonte.

The Blackhawks were without Gary Suter, who was serving the second game of a four-game suspension for cross-checking the Mighty Ducks’ Paul Kariya on Sunday.