Lightning beat Flyers 3-1 in playoffs
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from May 2004.
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Game 2 is Monday in Tampa.
"I'm definitely not discouraged," Philadelphia goaltender Robert Esche said. ``We didn't come in here by no stretch of the imagination assuming it would go four games, and I don't think they did either." One of the biggest questions before the opener was how Tampa Bay would respond after having more than a week off following its four-game sweep of Montreal in the second round.
``I think, overall, if you ask a lot of guys, I don't think they felt as good as they thought they might," Richards said. ``But at the same time, as the game went on, I think our game kind of calmed down and we played a little bit better." The Lightning finished off the Montreal Canadiens on April 29 and bided time by trying to simulate game-like situations in practice until Philadelphia clinched its second-round victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday.
``I thought our guys handled themselves very well in getting themselves settled," Lightning coach John Tortorella said.
With just three days between series, the Flyers were the sharper team early. Nevertheless, they failed to take advantage of a couple of scoring chances against Khabibulin in the first period and fell behind 1-0 on Andreychuk's goal just over two minutes into the second period.
``One thing we try to focus on as a team is stay levelheaded, not to get too emotionally high or low," Philadelphia's Jeremy Roenick said.
``We thought we had a really good first period. We had some quality chances and they weathered the storm-pretty well." Philadelphia, which had an apparent goal by Sami Kapanen wiped out by a goaltender interference call against Keith Primeau in the first period, tied it less than five minutes later when Michal Handzus knocked in a rebound after Danny Markov's pass glanced off the center's skate and ricocheted off Khabibulin's pad.
