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TAMPA, Florida (Ticker) -- Vincent Lecavalier is showing why he once was the top overall draft pick.

Lecavalier scored twice for the second straight game as the Tampa Bay Lightning maintained home-ice advantage in their Eastern Conference semifinal series with a 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens .

The top pick in the 1998 draft, Lecavalier failed to record a point in a five-game first-round series win over the New York Islanders , but he has four goals in two games against the Canadiens.

"Against the Islanders, nothing went," he said. "It wasn't that I was playing bad. I'm playing the same way."

"Vinny puts a lot of pressure on himself to score points," winger Fredrik Modin added. "We need Vinny to score and play well. He's done that. Vinny wasn't playing bad, but now he's doing all the little things right."

The whole team is.

Modin also scored and Nikolai Khabibulin made 26 saves for the Lightning, who are showing why they earned the top seed in the East, taking a two games to none lead in the best-of-seven series, which resumes Tuesday in Montreal.

"We're up 2-0," Lecavalier said. "The Canadiens are not a team that gives up. We have to focus on getting a win."

The Canadiens lost the first two games for the second straight series. They overcame a similar deficit to defeat Boston in the opening round, winning the last three games.

"We're confident, we did it before," Habs winger Steve Begin said. "We've got to stay focused. It takes four wins."

The Canadiens must look to goaltender Jose Theodore for help. The former Hart Trophy winner as league MVP was brilliant at times in making 26 saves in Game Two but was victimized by a lack of discipline and some bad defense.

Lecavalier opened the scoring on the power play at 2:35 of the first period, 10 seconds after Sheldon Souray took a cross-checking penalty, giving Tampa Bay a 5-on-3 advantage.

"That 5-on-3 created momentum," Theodore said. "We've got to adjust. They have the skill to make you pay."

Theodore kept it 1-0 with a pair of remarkable saves in a 24-second span, the second of which came on a breakaway by rookie Dmitry Afanasenkov with 11:40 left in the first period.

Just 13 seconds later, Modin slipped behind a pair of defenseman and Theodore to knock home a rebound of Brad Richards ' slap shot from the right faceoff circle.

Richards was able to walk in to shooting position and Modin was allowed to creep behind three Canadiens as both took advantage of Montreal's defensive miscues.

Saku Koivu put a rebound past Khabibulin with 3:40 left in the period to halve Tampa Bay's deficit. Montreal carried the play in the second but left heartbroken when Lecavalier scored on a partial breakaway less than three seconds before intermission.

"Obviously, it was an important goal late, the last three or four seconds," Lightning coach John Tortorella said. "I don't want to speak for the Canadiens, but it is a tough time to get scored on, especially because they played a really good period."

Tortorella has been among Lecavalier's biggest critics, having limited his star center's playing time in the past for what he deemed was a lack of effort. But even the coach supports Lecavalier these days.

"Vinny has elevated his game, but not from a spectrum of playing poorly against the Islanders," Tortorella said. "I think he did some good things, but the numbers were not on the stat sheet."