TAMPA, Fla. - The Philadelphia Flyers needed extra time to finally beat the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Defenseman Kimmo Timonen scored in the seventh round of the shootout and the Flyers defeated Tampa Bay 4-3 on Tuesday night in a matchup of the top two teams in the Eastern Conference.

"Sometimes you have to put D-men out there to do something else," Timonen said. "I've got one move and that's my move. I wanted to come at full speed and wait for him to make the first move."

Philadelphia, which won the shootout 2-1, got goals in regulation from James Van Riemsdyk, Scott Hartnell and Darroll Powe - on a short-handed penalty shot. The conference-leading Flyers are 18-6-3 on the road.

Dominic Moore, Vincent Lecavalier and Teddy Purcell scored for the Lightning, who took three of four in the season series with Philadelphia. Tampa Bay, which trails the Flyers by five points, is 5-3 during a 12-game homestand.

"The games, themselves, they were back and forth," Tampa Bay defenseman Randy Jones said. "A lot of chances on both ends."

Three of the games were decided by one goal.

"We had some games that could have gone either way," Flyers goalie Brian Boucher said. "For confidence purposes, it's nice to get a win against them. Had we lost to them, would it have mattered? I don't know, but it's nice to get a win."

Tampa Bay pulled even at 3 on goals by Lecavalier, with the man advantage, and Purcell just 53 seconds apart against Boucher midway through the second. Lecavalier has five goals in his past four games after scoring just one over a 16-game stretch.

"I think Vinny's found a real good place to be at," Lightning coach Guy Boucher said.

After Hartnell had a power-play goal at 7:33 of the second, Powe gave Philadelphia a 3-1 lead 1:15 later on a short-handed penalty shot that went over Dwayne Roloson's right shoulder.

The Flyers have nine short-handed goals this season, while Tampa Bay has given up 10.

Van Riemsdyk put the Flyers up 1-0 from the left circle at 12:42 of the first. Philadelphia is 27-3-2 this season when scoring the game's first goal.

"They had our number three times this year and we definitely wanted to make sure we pushed back a little bit just to prove they didn't have our number completely," Van Riemsdyk said. "We did a good job of that."

Moore tied it at 1 from the right circle 59 seconds into the second.

"It had a playoff kind of feel out there," Lightning defenseman Mike Vernace said. "The guys battled back. It's unfortunate we didn't get that extra point."

Associated Press

NOTES:

Tampa Bay is 19-4-5 in one-goal games ... Philadelphia RW Kris Versteeg, obtained from Toronto on Monday, made his Flyers debut. He had two shots and finished minus-1 for the game ... Tampa Bay recalled Vernace from Norfolk of the AHL to fill in for D Matt Smaby (illness) ... Flyers RW Claude Giroux had an assist, giving him 13 assists and 16 points over his past 13 games.

(China Daily 02/17/2011 page22)