Lightning 5, Hurricanes 1

Martin St. Louis had a goal and an assist to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning past the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-1 on Friday night in their season opener. Vincent Lecavalier scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period. Steve Downie, Adam Hall and Ryan Malone scored during a 4:36 span in the third. Steven Stamkos had with two assists to help the Lightning win their opener for the second straight year. Jeff Skinner scored and Cam Ward made 29 saves for the Hurricanes. They began the season the same way they ended the last one - with a loss to the Lightning. Dwayne Roloson stopped 32 shots for Tampa Bay, which took the lead during a 5-on-3 situation in the final minutes of the second. Carolina's Justin Faulk, a 19-year-old defenseman making his NHL debut, was whistled for interference with 2:29 left when Jussi Jokinen backhanded the puck in apparent frustration toward an official - earning him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. That gave the Lightning a full 2 minutes with the two-man advantage. They only needed 19 seconds to take the lead, with Lecavalier batting an airborne puck past Ward. That goal came roughly 12 minutes after St. Louis tied it. After he took the puck from Skinner near center ice, he made his way near the right post, took a pretty feed from Stamkos and stuffed the puck past Ward. Downie stretched the lead to 3-1 with a power-play goal with 7:38 left, Hall made it a three-goal game 10 seconds later and Malone polished off the rout with a goal with 3:02 remaining. This certainly wasn't how the Hurricanes wanted to start the season. They were looking forward to this one for several reasons - not only to get a new season started, but to try to exact some revenge for the way the last one ended. Carolina entered its regular-season finale needing only to beat the Lightning on home ice to clinch their second playoff spot since they won the Stanley Cup in 2006. Instead, Tampa Bay routed the Hurricanes 6-2 to start a postseason roll that carried them to the Eastern Conference final. The Lightning kept the nucleus of that team intact, a big reason why they enter this season as a top contender in the Southeast Division. And Skinner, who won the Calder Trophy last season as the rookie of the year, also picked up where he left off, starting and finishing the sequence that put Carolina up 1-0. His takeaway near center ice led to a series of attempts against Roloson, with Skinner scooping up the rebound of Tim Gleason's blast and flinging it high over the Lightning goalie's stick at 11:53. NOTES: The Hurricanes have lost five of six conventional home openers, with the only win coming in 2008. They beat Minnesota in their first game as a home team last year, but that was played in Finland. ... Carolina D Ryan Murphy, an 18-year-old who was their first-round draft pick in June, was a healthy scratch. ... Tampa Bay went 4-2 against Carolina last year. ... Lightning D Brett Clark skated in his 600th career game. ... Before the game, the Hurricanes held a moment of silence to honor popular former player Josef Vasicek, a member of the `06 Stanley Cup team who was among the 44 killed in the plane crash last month that decimated Russian club Lokomotiv.