The first thing Nikolai Khabibulin did before Friday's morning skate at the St. Pete Times Forum was head to the Lightning offices to pick up his Stanley Cup ring.
The second was to decide with Blackhawks coach Trent Yawney to sit out the game with Tampa Bay.
Talk about a buzz kill. It would have been Khabibulin's first game against his former team since he helped lift it to the 2003-2004 title.
PHOTO: AP
But the goaltender said the emotions of getting his ring, seeing the championship banner and playing in the Times Forum for the first time since Game 7 of the final were too distracting.
"It would be hard to keep my focus," Khabibulin said. "There will probably be a lot going on in my mind, so I agree with the decision. It's no big deal."
"It was my decision," Yawney said. "I want him to enjoy where he played. He's not going to enjoy it competing against his old teammates. He'll enjoy it more as a spectator."
Khabibulin said he and Yawney first discussed his options during Thursday's plane ride from Chicago. He said they spoke again Friday.
"I told him it would be difficult to concentrate," Khabibulin said.
"I thought he would play for sure," Lightning defenseman Pavel Kubina said. "I think the whole team wanted to play against him."
Khabibulin has been one of the league's hottest goalies with a 2.22 goals-against average and .918 save percentage in his past nine games. He also has been almost perfect against his other former team.
The Russian native is 4-0 with two shutouts against the Coyotes, who in March 2001, after a two-year contract squabble, traded his rights to Tampa Bay. Could he be as tough on the Lightning?
"I just don't think I have much to prove here in this building," he said. "So I'll just come and enjoy it, look in the stands and see what's going on."
Khabibulin will play tonight against the Panthers.
"I've been doing it all year," Yawney said of splitting back-to-back games between his goalies. "It's too early in the year to tax him in two straight."
Playing a No. 1 goalie against the lesser of two teams in back-to-backs is common. The thinking is the No. 1 should beat the lesser team while the backup might steal a point or two against the better.
Still, there were boos when Craig Anderson was announced as Chicago's starter. One fan wore a Tampa Bay jersey with Khabibulin's No. 35 X'd out and the word "sellout" written across the shoulders.
But the non-confrontational atmosphere was easy for Khabibulin to soak up.
He declared the banner "pretty special," and received his ring from general manager Jay Feaster and team president Ron Campbell.
Asked why he didn't pick it up sooner, Khabibulin, who lives in the Phoenix area, said he had spent only two previous days in Tampa since the Cup final, and none since December.
"I had other things to do," he said.
Was it worth the wait?
"I really like it," he said. "All the guys in the locker room are pretty amazed. So it was good."
So was his time with Tampa Bay.
"I really liked it here," Khabibulin said. "The fans were great. I liked the guys on the team and the organization was really classy. I only have good memories about it."
Joe Thornton had two assists in his debut with San Jose, setting up Jonathan Cheechoo twice, and the Sharks snapped a 10-game losing streak Friday with a 5-0 victory over the Buffalo Sabres.
Evgeni Nabokov made 20 saves for his fourth win of the season -- and first since Oct. 15 against Chicago -- but left with 11:20 remaining. He went directly to the dressing room, and backup Nolan Schaefer finished the game.
Grant Stevenson, Milan Michalek, and Nicholas Dimitrakos also scored for the Sharks, who won for the first time since an overtime victory against Anaheim on Nov. 4.
Thornton, acquired Wednesday in a blockbuster deal with the Boston Bruins, started at center between his cousin Scott Thornton and Cheechoo.
The Sabres had their five-game winning streak snapped and lost in regulation for the first time in 10 games (8-1-1).
San Jose (9-12-4), the last place-team in the Pacific Division, scored four goals in the first 11 minutes, including three in a 2-minute span to chase goalie Mika Noronen.
Senators 5, Kings 1
At Ottawa, Dany Heatley scored twice and Dominik Hasek made 28 saves, leading Ottawa over Los Angeles in a game that featured several fights in a penalty-filled third period.
Brandon Bochenski, Antoine Vermette and Mike Fisher also scored for Eastern Conference-leading Ottawa, which was shut out for the first time this season on Thursday in a 3-0 loss in Boston.
Los Angeles, which has lost four of five, extended its season-high losing streak to three in the only meeting between the teams this season.
Heatley, who failed to record a point Thursday for the first time in 23 games this season, scored one of the Senators' two power-play goals in the first period.
Pavol Demitra got his 14th on a power play 7:02 into the second to draw the Kings within 2-1.
Lightning 3, Blackhawks 2, SO
At Tampa, Florida, Brad Richards scored the deciding goal against Chicago in the shootout and John Grahame won his seventh straight decision for Tampa Bay.
Richards gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead through two rounds of the shootout. Grahame then stopped Mark Bell to give Tampa Bay the victory.
Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier scored for the Lightning, who have won eight of 10.
Blackhawks goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin didn't play, but got his 2004 Stanley Cup ring before the morning skate from Tampa Bay general manager Jay Feaster.
Chicago got goals from Brent Seabrook and Bell, who has nine goals and 14 points during an eight-game point streak.
Stars 5, Hurricanes 4, SO
At Dallas, Mike Modano scored the shootout winner and added two goals in regulation, snapping a nine-game scoring drought and sending Dallas past Carolina.
Jussi Jokinen converted on Dallas' second shootout opportunity after Matt Cullen scored for the Hurricanes. Modano gave the Stars the victory on Dallas' final shot when he stuffed the puck between the post and Martin Gerber's right pad.
Dallas is 3-0 in shootouts after winning its first at home.
The Hurricanes trailed 3-1 and 4-2 but came back with third-period goals by Cory Stillman and Justin Williams.
Niko Kapanen and Brenden Morrow added goals for Dallas, which has won 11 of 13.
Finances are a key factor in every piece of NHL business these days, but the blockbuster deal pulled off this week between the Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks was one to get two struggling teams on the right path.
The Bruins and Sharks, who both made the playoffs during the 2003-04 season, didn't expect to be at the bottom of their divisions at the end of November, yet that's where Boston general manager Mike O'Connell and San Jose counterpart Doug Wilson found themselves this week.
When Wilson learned through other discussions with O'Connell that Joe Thornton was available, he couldn't pass up the chance to get the 26-year-old impact center.
"We purposely built our team this way and left some dollars available, because when you have the ability to add players in their prime ... those are the guys that certainly fit for both now and for the future," Wilson said. "I look to the future but I live in the present also."
It was hard to part with forwards Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau and young defenseman Brad Stuart, but Wilson couldn't pass up the chance.
"This was a pure hockey trade," Wilson said Friday, en route to joining his team for Saturday's game in Toronto. "We were in a position should the right player come along at the right time, we were positioned that way to move for it.
"It's been an interesting week but I have mixed feelings on it all."
The Bruins were 8-5-13 on Wednesday, and the Sharks 8-4-12 when the deal went down.
"When teams aren't meeting expectations in this business, you never know," Wilson said. "Mike was looking to do something, I was looking to do something. I don't dismiss anything without at least hearing it through.
"A player at that level and in particular being at that age, those players rarely become available. For me, that was the impetus to go get it done."
It's been so far, so good for Boston. Sturm had a goal and an assist in the first period of the Bruins' 3-0 victory over Ottawa on Thursday.
SCORING SPURTS
Dany Heatley said all along that Wayne Gretzky's streak of points in 51 straight games was not a realistic mark for him to reach.
It turns out, the Ottawa Senators forward was quite right.
Heatley burst out of the gate quickly this season, his first in Ottawa after he requested a trade this summer from the Atlanta Thrashers. The left winger posted 17 goals and 21 assists in Ottawa's first 22 games -- recording at least one point in each contest.
"I wasn't really thinking about it," Heatley said of Gretzky's mark, set in the 1983-1984 season. "That's a record that's almost impossible to break. I'm just happy to play well and help the team by contributing."
Heatley's run came to an end on Thursday when the Senators were blanked 3-0 by Boston in the first game the Bruins played after trading captain Joe Thornton to San Jose.
Had he gotten onto the score-sheet, Heatley would've tied Gretzky's record for the longest point streak with a new team.
MIXING 'EM UP
It seems more teams are mixing up their lines these days, preferring to pair wings together and use centers interchangeably.
Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire remarked recently about how well clubs such as Calgary, Detroit and Nashville play their system without worrying about who is on the ice. That's the way Lemaire has coached the Wild since he took the job five years ago.
"You can match your wingers to play against the lines on the other side," Lemaire said. "You're comfortable, then you've just got to rotate your centers."
The Detroit Red Wings are especially adept, in Lemaire's view.
"Because their system is strong," he said. "They don't vary. One man goes on the ice, they're trying the same thing. Another one goes on the ice, they're trying the same thing. But when they do get the puck, they're good with it. And that makes the difference."
NICE TO SEE YOU
This weekend marks the first full batch of interconference play.
All but one of the NHL's first 385 games this season featured matchups of East versus East and West against West. The lone exception was the Washington Capitals' 3-2 home victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on opening night Oct. 5.
Starting with Friday's four-game schedule, teams will play clubs from the other conference exclusively through games of Dec. 15 -- a span of 80 games -- except for that night's contest that pits Atlanta at New Jersey.
The schedule underwent radical changes once the NHL and the players' association ended the lockout.
Each team now plays only 10 interconference games, hosting one game each against all five clubs from a designated division and traveling for one game each against all five teams from a different division.
This season, the Northeast Division hosts the Pacific Division and visits the Northwest; the Atlantic Division welcomes the Northwest and travels to the Central; and the Southeast hosts the Central and visits the Pacific.
Division assignments will rotate annually.
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