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TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Fortunately for the Tampa Bay Lightning , Nikolai Khabibulin picked up where he left off. Unfortunately for the Montreal Canadiens , Vincent Lecavalier didn't.

Khabibulin hardly broke a sweat in recording his league-leading fourth playoff shutout and Lecavalier registered two goals and an assist, powering the Lightning to a 4-0 rout of the Canadiens in Game One of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

"This was mostly a team shutout," said Khabibulin, who went 8 1/2 minutes before facing his first shot. "We had a good, all-around game and they didn't give up much in front of me."

Khabibulin posted a microscopic 0.79 goals-against average in the first round, when top-seeded Tampa Bay disposed of the New York Islanders in five games. He stopped 21 shots against Montreal to lower that mark to 0.66 and improve his save percentage to .975.

"Everyone contributed, including Nik," Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. "We played well defensively. I thought we played well, I expected more rust."

A Quebec native, Lecavalier was held without a point by the Islanders but broke out against the Canadiens. Just under 14 minutes after setting up Ruslan Fedotenko 's goal, he tipped a shot past Jose Theodore at 16:43 of the second period to make it 2-0.

Lecavalier increased the lead 3:49 into the third, beating Theodore between the pads from the bottom of the right faceoff circle.

"I think everybody was surprised," Theodore said. "We had the puck and then all of a sudden, we lost the puck. ... It happened so quick, I thought a lot of guys were caught by surprise."

"I just wanted to get it on net," said Lecavalier, who turned 24 on Wednesday. "It's a good way to start a series."

Lecavalier ended a 12-game playoff drought and his assist was his first point in eight postseason contests.

"If you don't want the pressure at this time of the year, you're in the wrong business," said Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis, who had three assists. "You want to be called upon, you want to make the difference. That's what Vinny did."

Dmitry Afanasenkov capped the scoring 3 1/2 minutes after Lecavlier's second goal. Afanasenkov's first career playoff goal chased Theodore, who stopped 97 of 100 shots in the final three games of the conference quarterfinals to help Montreal overcome a three games to one deficit for the first time in team history.

"What hurt us the most was unforced errors," Montreal coach Claude Julien said. "The scoring chances they got early in the game were gifts that we gave them, and those are things you can't be doing at this stage of the season."

The four-goal victory was the most lopsided in postseason history for Tampa Bay, which hosts Game Two on Sunday afternoon.

"Montreal came off a tough seven-game series," Lightning center Tim Taylor said. "It was such an emotional series against Boston. They were a little flat-footed and we were well-rested."

The Canadiens compared this loss to their 3-0 defeat in the series opener at Boston.

"It was like deja vu," Julien said. "Hopefully, we can learn from our mistakes."