Payback Gives Devils 3-2 Victory--and 3-2 Lead

Claude Lemieux got even. The New Jersey Devils did better than that.

Lemieux, knocked down by Philadelphia’s Eric Lindros, who then scored the winning goal in Game 3, returned the favor Sunday. Lemieux checked Lindros to the ice, then scored on a long slapshot with 44.2 seconds left to give New Jersey a 3-2 victory in Game 5 and a 3-2 lead in the series.

With Lindros out of the way, Lemieux skated up the right wing unimpeded. When he got just over the blue line, he beat Flyer goaltender Ron Hextall with a 58-foot slapshot inside the post.

“I got [Lindros] beat and I just went up the ice,” Lemieux said. “You get breaks in the end of the game like this.”

The New Jersey victory tied an NHL record held by five other teams for most playoff victories on the road in a season with eight--the last by the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. It meant that the visiting team has won all five games of the series, which resumes with Game 6 Tuesday night at the Meadowlands Arena.

“Home is not home anymore, so we have to make it home,” said Devil goaltender Martin Brodeur, who made 16 saves.

Brodeur defended Hextall, who most believed should have stopped Lemieux’s long shot from off the boards. “He looked a little weak on it, but from my view, it wasn’t a weak goal,” Brodeur said.

Hextall, who faced 32 shots, wasn’t having any of that.

“At first, I thought it must have hit our stick,” he said. “It’s a shot I should have had. There’s no excuse. It was a funny shot. I thought it dipped.”

Flyer Coach Terry Murray and Hextall’s teammates stood up for him.

“He made some fantastic saves,” Murray said. “When a goal ends up winning the game like that, you’d like to think if he had 10 of those shots back again, he’d stop all 10.”

“It was definitely a great shot by [Lemieux],” Philadelphia’s Craig MacTavish said. “He got a lot on it and put it in a perfect spot.”

Lemieux said defenseman Petr Svoboda backed off him as he hit the blue line, and that cinched his decision to shoot.

“I just tried to put the puck on the net,” he said. “I just tried to get it off quick.”

It was Lemieux’s 10th goal in 15 playoff games; he scored six in 45 regular-season games.

The Flyers tied the game, 2-2, on Kevin Dineen’s second goal of the game, also on a 50-foot-plus slapshot, at 3:13 of the third period.

Lindros didn’t have any excuses after the game. He had only one shot on goal and was dumped by Lemieux on the winning goal.

“All it means is we have to go into New Jersey again and win one,” he said. “I thought we were going to win it before it got to overtime. I thought we had a lot of chances, and the bounces were going our way.”