Primeau Lives Up to Promise

Keith Primeau backed up his prediction.

Primeau had three goals and Michal Handzus scored twice, leading the Philadelphia Flyers to a 7-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday in Game 5 of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series.

Philadelphia can eliminate the Leafs with a victory in Toronto on Tuesday night. If necessary, Game 7 would be Thursday. The home team has won each game in the series.

Primeau, the Flyer captain, addressed his teammates in a closed-door meeting Saturday. He responded with the best playoff effort of his 14-season career.

“He told us he would be great today and to jump on for the ride,” Flyer goaltender Sean Burke said.

Primeau shared the credit.

“I’m getting lucky right now,” Primeau said. “I had to lead with emotion and energy. There was no extra pressure. We have a lot of guys capable of leading.”

The victory was costly for the Flyers, who lost goalie Robert Esche and defenseman Vladimir Malakhov to undisclosed injuries. Burke replaced Esche after the first period and stopped eight of nine shots.

“Both guys have upper-body injuries. We’ll give you the truth tomorrow,” Flyer Coach Ken Hitchcock said.

After being outplayed in two straight losses in Toronto, the Flyers dominated the game from the start, taking a 2-0 lead in the first six minutes and holding the Leafs without a shot until the final minute of the first period.

Mark Recchi and Branko Radivojevic also scored for the Flyers, who have never lost a best-of-seven series in which they led 2-0, going 16-0.

Leaf goalie Ed Belfour gave up six goals in 18 shots, before being replaced by Trevor Kidd less than four minutes into the second period.

Joe Nieuwendyk and Gary Roberts scored for Toronto.

“We made a lot of mistakes and the whole team didn’t perform up to the level they can,” Leaf captain Mats Sundin said.

Energized by a noisy sellout crowd of 19,825, the Flyers played with more intensity and determination than they showed in the two losses at the Air Canada Centre. They outshot Toronto, 29-11.

Recchi picked up a loose puck after a turnover by Leaf defenseman Bryan McCabe, skated in and wristed a shot past Belfour for a 1-0 lead 3:51 in.

Handzus made it 2-0 only 1:52 later with his first goal of the playoffs. He took a drop pass from Simon Gagne and shot it through a screen past Belfour.

Primeau’s first goal came on a short-handed breakaway with 1:06 left in the first period. Primeau beat McCabe to a loose puck, skated in on Belfour, made a nifty move to go around defenseman Brian Leetch and one-handed a shot into the net.

His second goal came on another breakaway 44 seconds into the second period. Primeau broke in with Gagne, who made a nice centering pass to set up the easy goal.

Primeau made it 7-2 early in the third period with his fifth goal of the playoffs.