Shellshocked Lightning Struck Down Again

Welcome to the Ice Palace; plenty of good seats still available. Come inside and watch the pitiful Tampa Bay Lightning get thumped again.

About 11,000 souls with nowhere better to go stopped by Friday night to see the Mighty Ducks score four goals on their first nine shots en route to a ho-hum, 5-3 victory over the Lightning.

Funny thing, too.

It could have been worse for Tampa Bay.

Left wing Paul Kariya scored two goals--his 22nd and 23rd this season--whistled another shot off a goal post and had plenty of other good chances with a game-high six shots on net.

Center Travis Green assisted on the Ducks’ first goal, then was robbed twice on point-blank shots by beleaguered Tampa Bay goaltender Bill Ranford.

Defenseman Kevin Haller scored on a breakaway, but what would have been his first goal of the season was disallowed because Duck enforcer Stu Grimson was busy fighting Sandy McCarthy of Tampa Bay well behind the play.

OK, so referee Blaine Angus might have been a bit hasty with his whistle since Grimson and McCarthy had merely squared off at center ice. They didn’t trade blows until after Haller scored.

At any rate, forgive the Ducks if their attention also wandered a bit as they won their second game this season over the Lightning by a 5-3 score. Tampa Bay will do that to a team.

“At times, we controlled the game,” Haller said. “Then came the odd lapse and then we’d go back to controlling the game again.”

Matt Cullen, Kariya, Steve Rucchin and Fredrik Olausson scored goals on the Ducks’ first nine shots and they built a 4-1 lead after only 15:35.

Olausson’s goal was the 499th point of his career. He needs one more point to become only the second European-born defenseman to reach 500 points. Borje Salming, a fellow Swede, had 787 points while playing for Toronto and Detroit from 1973 to 1990.

A three-goal lead should have been just the thing to subdue the Lightning, which was coming off a 10-1 thrashing Wednesday against the Washington Capitals.

Except it wasn’t.

The Ducks lost their concentration for a moment, Tampa Bay rookie Vincent Lecavalier scored to cut the lead to 4-2 and the Lightning suddenly had a healthy dose of momentum at the start of the second period.

Another team might have turned that into something productive, but Tampa Bay hasn’t lost six consecutive because of bad karma. The Lightning, last in the NHL with 26 points, isn’t very talented, very experienced or very good.

Instead of rallying, the Lightning got nothing much going the rest of the way. Kariya scored the only goal of the second period and Pavel Kubina countered for Tampa Bay in the third.

“We didn’t play a great game,” Kariya said. “We can play a lot better.”

Facing Tampa Bay can pose a challenge as difficult as playing a Stanley Cup contender such as the Dallas Stars or the Philadelphia Flyers--two upcoming opponents for the Ducks.

The Ducks conceded they were fearful of the Lightning.

“It’s tough to play a wounded team,” Kariya said. “It’s not like we played much better than them. We just got a couple of power-play goals. You’ve got to be ready for them to come out hard. Nobody likes to be embarrassed.”

Said Coach Craig Hartsburg: “There’s always a fear more than a comfort when you play a team that’s lost that bad [as Tampa Bay did against Washington].”

Besides, it’s not as if the Ducks haven’t waltzed into an arena to play a less-talented team and been smacked around this season. Remember, they have been defeated twice by the expansion Nashville Predators and once by the Calgary Flames.

“We were focused and ready early, which was important for us,” Hartsburg said.

The Ducks will need the same sort of efficiency they had in the first 15 minutes Friday against Tampa Bay when they play tonight against St. Louis. The Ducks and Blues are tied for sixth place in the Western Conference with 47 points.

“From here on in it’s going to be a tight race,” Rucchin said. “The playoff race has started early for us.”