My network card just fried

So, a lightning strike hit out of nowhere the other day while I was away from home, and I didn't have a chance to unplug anything... and now everything is a mess. The ports on my modem—which they actually just replaced for me recently—are totally fried, and since the card keeps flashing green, I’m pretty sure the hardware itself is toast. My motherboard is still under warranty, so I'm torn between sending the whole unit in for service or just picking up a new network card to pop into the PC slot, but the catch is I only have one single slot available... and if I use it now, I won't have any room left if I need to upgrade something else down the road, so what would you guys suggest...

Standard warranties don't typically cover lightning strikes or stuff like that—it’s just how it goes—but hey, you could always give it a shot and see what happens.

I was wondering if there's any way to actually get this fixed... I happen to know a local handyman over in Chicago who doesn't charge an arm and a leg for his work.

As Benjamin King2 suggested, try filing a warranty claim—just don't mention lightning. Claim you have no idea what happened and let them play detective regarding the cause. 😉
I've had five or six strikes land near my house, and several times everything just fried.
If they deny the claim, you might be better off just buying a new surge protector... It’s likely cheaper and safer than some amateur repair job.

Someone actually mentioned that they might try to charge me for the repair if they determine the damage was caused by a lightning strike, which isn't ideal since the nearest service center or tech shop is such a trek away that shipping my motherboard back would probably end up costing as much as just buying a brand-new network card... It seems like the hardware hasn't actually fried since the lights are still on, but it’s more like it’s just completely frozen up; I already tried toggling the LAN settings in the BIOS to see if a quick disable and enable would kickstart things, but nothing happened...