It was a good night for the Eastern Conference's last two No. 1 seeds.

The same can't be said for the Stanley Cup champions.

The Tampa Bay Lightning, who earned a conference-best 106 points this season, opened their first-round playoff series with a 3-0 home victory over the eighth-seeded New York Islanders Thursday night.

And they can thank Nikolai Khabibulin for that. The Lightning were kept in the game by their goaltender, who made 30 saves. Tampa Bay got two goals from Fredrik Modin and another from Andre Roy to grab the series lead.

"We've got to be honest with ourselves. This wasn't our best game. Khabby was the difference," forward Martin St. Louis said. "We can definitely improve. Hopefully we're on top of our game on Saturday. We don't want to put that pressure on Khabby every night."

Up north, the No. 5 Ottawa Senators - last year's Presidents' Cup winners - surprised the host Toronto Maple Leafs with a 4-2 win. If the Senators felt uncomfortable by starting on the road, they didn't show it.

They were the only visiting team to win Game 1 of this year's first round.

"We said that we wanted to win one game here and we did," said Marian Hossa, who scored twice. "It's huge."

But the New Jersey Devils, who won the Cup in 2003, lost 3-2 to the Flyers in Philadelphia in the opener of that series.

New Jersey, as the No. 2 seed, knocked the Senators out of the playoffs last year by winning Game 7 of the conference finals away from home. However, they finished sixth in the East this season after they were edged out by Philadelphia for the Atlantic Division title on the final day of the regular season.

That's why this series started in Philadelphia.

"I'm certainly not disappointed in the way we played," Devils coach Pat Burns said. "I'm satisfied. I thought we pressured pretty well. The chances we got proved that."

Robert Esche made 37 saves in his first postseason start and Simon Gagne, Jeremy Roenick and Keith Primeau scored for the Flyers, who will host Game 2 Saturday.

In the only other game Thursday night, the San Jose Sharks outlasted the St. Louis Blues 1-0 when rookie Niko Dimitrakos scored 9:16 into overtime of that series opener.

The Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche and Vancouver Canucks, who all won Wednesday night, resume their series Friday. Montreal, Dallas and Calgary will try to return home tied 1-1.

At San Jose, Calif., Evgeni Nabokov stopped 26 shots to lead the Sharks.Nabokov earned the second playoff shutout of his career, playing flawlessly behind the Sharks' sturdy defense. He also won a duel with Blues goalie Chris Osgood, a former Stanley Cup winner who stopped 28 shots.Game 2 is Saturday, followed by back-to-back games in St. Louis Monday and Tuesday.