Flyers Beat Lightning With Speed and Primeau

The Flyers tied up their conference finals series with Tampa 2-2. The main reason is the man who is the heart and soul of the team, Kieth Primeau. The man was a one person wrecking crew, flying from one end of the rink to the other:

This is rapidly becoming the year of Keith Primeau. With each passing game, the Philadelphia Flyers captain becomes increasingly dominant, almost singlehandedly dragging his team toward the ultimate post-season success.

Again yesterday, it was Primeau who took charge and led the Flyers to a 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning to even the Eastern Conference final at 2-2.

Late in the first period, the Flyers were trailing 1-0 as the result of a power-play goal by Freddy Modin when Primeau shook off a couple of would-be checkers, drove to the middle of the ice and teed up a soft pass for John LeClair.

LeClair blasted the puck past Nikolai Khabibulin from the deep slot and the Flyers were on their way.

His goal, which proved to be the eventual game-winner, was epic:

Dave Andreychuk bobbled the puck at the point and Primeau pounced on it, then charged up ice on a two-on-one break with Simon Gagne.

"I didn't think it was coming back that quickly," Andreychuk said.

"It kind of caught me by surprise. I was going to one-time it, but I was in the wrong spot and he came out pretty hard. It bounced and I tried to take a whack at it but those things happen. Bounces happen."

Using Gagne as a decoy, Primeau unleashed a wicked wrist shot into the upper corner to put the Flyers up 3-1.

Game five is going to be a grudge match. Also in Philly sports news, Smarty Jones put the wood to the field at Pimlico:

BALTIMORE - He rumbled down the stretch like rolling thunder, running on air and running all alone, the others already having abjectly surrendered, thoroughly cowed by this mighty machine, and the only remaining question was how much would he win by.

The answer was as jaw-droppingly stunning as the performance itself - 111/2 lengths. No one in the previous 128 years of the Preakness had won with such ease and so convincingly.

And so on a sun-streaked, sticky day in mid-May, on a Pimlico track manicured and groomed for speed, with nine opponents each itching to take a shot at him, Smarty Jones, the newly minted Philadelphia folk hero, was asked to come back on only two weeks' rest and win another Triple Crown race.

He responded by obliterating the field.

This horse has Triple Crown written all over him. The whooping he put on those horses down the stretch was unlike anything I've seen in a while.