NEW YORK, 22 May 2004 — Keith Primeau scored with 1:49 left in regulation and assisted on Simon Gagne’s overtime goal to lead the Philadelphia Flyers to a 5-4 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game Six of the Eastern Conference finals Thursday.
Gagne’s goal at 18:18 of the extra period sends the teams back to Tampa for a deciding Game Seven Saturday, with the prize awaiting the winner a Stanley Cup finals meeting with the upstart Calgary Flames.
Flyers captain Primeau and Gagne grabbed first-period goals, Primeau assisting on his teammate’s effort to record a four-point game as the best-of-seven series was tied at 3-3.
“We’ll take the win but we’ve got to come down because we have Game Seven in two days,” Primeau told reporters.
Vincent Lecavalier put visiting Tampa on the board 1 1/2 minutes into the contest before Gagne and Primeau replied for the hosts.
Lecavalier tallied again less than a minute into the second period to knot the score at 2-2. After Sami Kapanen put Philadelphia up 3-2, Ruslan Fedotenko netted at 15:15 and again two minutes later to make it 4-3 to the Lightning after two periods.
The Flyers dominated the third session, peppering Tampa netminder Nikolai Khabibulin with 17 shots, and they finally received their reward when Primeau found the net.
Flyers coach Ken Hitchcock tipped his hat to Tampa while at the same time praising his squad.
“They (Tampa) played a hard second period,” he said. “We threw everything we had at them in the third period and overtime, we did not sit back. It’s a big lesson I learned a long time ago.
“Primeau led the charge but we had a lot of really good players.”
