NEW YORK, 12 May 2004 — John LeClair scored two minutes into the contest and the Philadelphia Flyers went on to register a 6-2 romp over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game Two of the Eastern Conference final in St. Petersburg, Florida on Monday.
The best-of-seven series is tied 1-1 and now heads to Philadelphia for Games Three and Four tomorrow and Saturday.
After dropping the opener 3-1, the Flyers wasted little time jumping on the Lightning, scoring three goals in the first 11:17 of the opening period en route to the easy win.
“Well, we needed a win and that’s the bottom line,” Philadelphia captain Keith Primeau said.
“We got fortunate on our chances in the first period, we buried them. We’ll take it.”
Robert Esche made 29 saves in goal for the Flyers, but he had a relatively easy night after Philadelphia roared to a 6-0 lead by the four-minute mark of the third period.
Nikolai Khabibulin, who entered the game with the best goals against average in the playoffs, had a rough night for Tampa Bay.
The Russian allowed four goals on just eight shots and was lifted after the fourth Flyer goal by Vladimir Malakhov at 6:02 of the second period. John Grahame finished up for the Lightning in goal, allowing two goals on 17 shots.
Sami Kapanen, Michal Handzus, Mark Recchi and Mattias Timander all had a goal and an assist for the Flyers, who led 3-0 after one period and 5-0 after 40 minutes.
Marcus Ragnarsson added three assists for the Flyers.
Ruslan Fedotenko and Martin St. Louis scored the goals for the Lightning, but both came in the third period when the game was already out of reach.
An ugly final period featured 120 minutes in penalties, two fights and seven misconducts, including a double misconduct to Flyers tough left winger Donald Brashear with just 55 seconds left in the game.
