Lightning Has All the Power

One more victory and the Tampa Bay Lightning will be bound for the Stanley Cup finals.

With Brad Richards scoring twice on the power play and Nikolai Khabibulin stopping 28 shots, the Lightning beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-2, Tuesday night to move to the brink of winning the Eastern Conference title.

“The whole team really came out exceptionally hard and relentless in the first period. We played with a lot more desperation and passion,” Richards said. “That got everybody going. It so happened I scored two goals, but it was a big effort by everybody.”

Ruslan Fedotenko scored a third power-play goal, and Tim Taylor added an empty-net goal off a pass from NHL scoring champion Martin St. Louis to ensure Tampa Bay would take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Game 6 is Thursday night in Philadelphia, where the Flyers are 7-1 in the playoffs after splitting Games 3 and 4. Game 7, if necessary, will be Saturday night in Tampa.

“Of course we want to try to finish it, but I think some other people over there in Philly have some other idea about it,” Coach John Tortorella said. “I think it’s just been a fantastic series.”

Neither team has been able to put together consecutive victories. The Flyers were dominant in victories in Games 2 and 4, and the Lightning was equally impressive in taking the first, third and fifth games.

“We stress all the time how resilient our group is and we’ll dig deep again,” Philadelphia captain Keith Primeau said. “We’ll rally together and find a way. What makes our team special is we’re going to push until there’s no more pushing.”

Khabibulin recovered from a shaky stretch in which he gave up two goals within 38 seconds to stand tall for Tampa Bay down the stretch. He stopped 15 shots -- half the number the Flyers tried all game -- in the third period.

Feeding off the energy of a sellout crowd of 21,517, Tampa Bay outshot the Flyers, 18-8, in the first period.