Lightning Can’t Stop Primeau

Keith Primeau is playing his best when the games matter most.

Primeau scored one short-handed goal and set up another, leading the Philadelphia Flyers past the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-2, on Saturday to tie the Eastern Conference finals at two games apiece.

Mark Recchi and John LeClair also scored for the Flyers, who improved to 7-1 at home this postseason.

Fredrik Modin and Vincent Lecavalier had goals for the Lightning, which lost for the first time in six road playoff games.

Playing in front of a sellout crowd of 19,872, members of which were wearing T-shirts reading, “Orange Crush,” the Flyers scored two goals in 1 1/2 minutes to erase a 1-0 deficit.

Robert Esche, coming off a poor outing in which he allowed two soft goals, stopped 28 shots, helping the Flyers overcome seven power plays.

Lecavalier scored a power-play goal with 32 seconds left, but Primeau helped the Flyers control the puck the final 30 seconds.

Left off Canada’s roster announced Saturday for the World Cup of Hockey, Primeau has been perhaps the best player in the NHL playoffs, scoring seven goals and adding four assists in 15 games.

“He’s really taken charge of a lot of games,” LeClair said of Primeau. “He was the difference out there every time he was on the ice.”

Primeau, the Flyers’ captain, scored three goals in a 7-2 victory over Toronto in Game 5 of the conference semifinals, and he has been a dominant physical force in the postseason.

“There are certain stages of a critical playoff series when a captain has to step up, and he stepped up again,” Flyer Coach Ken Hitchcock said.

Just 33 seconds after Vladimir Malakhov went to the penalty box for cross-checking, Primeau gave the Flyers a 3-1 lead midway through the second period.

Catching the puck in the Flyer zone after Dave Andreychuk turned it over, Primeau broke in with Simon Gagne, forced defenseman Dan Boyle to slide toward Gagne and wristed a shot past Nikolai Khabibulin and just under the crossbar.

“The defenseman took a step toward Gags, and I had no choice but to shoot it,” Primeau said.

The Flyers lost defenseman Joni Pitkanen and forward Jeremy Roenick to “upper-body injuries,” but Hitchcock said both were expected to play in Game 5.

Pitkanen was playing for Marcus Ragnarsson, who is out for the rest of the playoffs because of a broken left index finger suffered in Game 3.