Lightning   Team Page   Schedule   Stats

Flyers   Team Page   Schedule   Stats

PHILADELPHIA (Ticker) -- The Tampa Bay Lightning did the talking for their coach.

Vincent Lecavalier beat a shaky Robert Esche on a breakaway early in the third period to turn the momentum as the Lightning regained home-ice advantage in the Eastern Conference finals with a 4-1 triumph over the Philadelphia Flyers in Game Three.

In the three days since Philadelphia evened the series with a 6-2 rout, Lightning coach John Tortorella sparred verbally with Flyers counterpart Ken Hitchcock. But Tortorella's players did more to shut Hitchcock's "yap" than anything their coach said.

Keith Primeau trimmed Philadelphia's deficit to 2-1 just 36 seconds into the third period, but Lecavalier permanently shifted the momentum to Tampa Bay 43 seconds later.

"The building right there, once they score that first goal, that was obviously a pretty important goal," Tortorella said. "For us to answer right away, it was a great play by Marty (St. Louis). ... Your best players make big plays at key times and I thought that was a very important one."

An outlet pass by St. Louis trapped Flyers defenseman Danny Markov and sprung Lecavalier on a breakaway. The Lightning's former captain snapped a shot past Esche's glove for his sixth playoff goal and first of this series.

"It was definitely very important," Lecavalier said. "They came out in the third and got a goal. They were all over us, they were hitting us and playing (in) our zone. After they got that goal, to score that third goal was huge for us."

Brad Richards capped the scoring at 8:20 off another feed from St. Louis, the Hart Trophy finalist who was held to a single goal in the first two games of the series.

"I think our line obviously had to come out and score tonight," Lecavalier said. "I think the guys like (Fredrik) Modin, (Cory) Stillman, everybody has been contributing the whole series."

Stillman and former Flyer Ruslan Fedotenko tallied in the first period and Nikolai Khabibulin made 24 saves for Tampa Bay, which improved to 5-0 on the road in the postseason and handed Philadelphia its first home playoff loss.

"You have to go on the road to win games if you want to go far in the playoffs," St. Louis said. "You just can't count on your home-ice wins. We have done that. ... You have to go on the road and perform, and we have."

Game Four is Saturday afternoon at Philadelphia.

"We have to be better than what we were tonight, especially myself," Flyers center Jeremy Roenick said. "It is one game and we can't sit here and feel bad for ourselves."

Stillman opened the scoring 12:56 into the game when his wrist shot from above the right faceoff circle beat Esche to the glove side.

"It was just a bad goal by me," Esche said. "It's something I'm not happy with, but I thought I did a good job of battling back and trying to stay in it as long as I could."

The Flyers saw their first first-period deficit of the postseason double less than three minutes later. During a power play, Fedotenko wristed a shot from the left circle that hit Esche's left arm and found the net.

"It's new ground for him," Hitchcock said of his goaltender. "He's a really competitive guy. I'm sure he's like the rest of us. He's disappointed, but this is a new challenge in his competitive life and I think knowing his character and knowing the way that he competes, he'll step up."

The second period belonged to Khabibulin, who made 13 saves, including key stops on Alex Zhamnov and Mark Recchi . He also caught a couple of breaks when Branko Radivojevic 's rebound grazed the crossbar with 8 1/2 minutes left and Radovan Somik put a shot off the left goalpost.

"I thought the most important thing was handling their surge in the second period," Tortorella said. "I thought our bench was composed, I thought Nik was composed."

"We knew Khabibulin was going to have a big game," Roenick said. "He is a world-class goaltender. I am sure he didn't accept what happened the other night. He came back and had a big night for them."