TAMPA, Fla. - Martin St. Louis has one series left to top his performance in the first round of the playoffs. If he pulls it off, the Tampa Bay Lightning might be Stanley Cup champions for the first time in their 12-year history.

St. Louis, the NHL's regular-season points leader, has hit the goal-scoring skids. He netted four goals in the five-game series victory over the New York Islanders, but since then he's had only two.

He showed signs of breaking out Tuesday in the Lightning's 4-1 loss in the opener of the finals against the Calgary Flames. St. Louis had his first goal in six games after missing on a few earlier scoring chances.

"That's a positive, I guess," St. Louis said Wednesday. "But scoring chances mean nothing if you don't bear down and capitalize on them."

It's not as though St. Louis has been struggling. Even though he isn't putting pucks in the net at his regular-season pace, he leads playoff scorers with 19 points in 17 games. That's one more than teammate Brad Richards and Calgary captain Jarome Iginla.

"Sometimes there is not a lot out there," St. Louis said. "Playoff hockey sometimes is that way.

"To me, that's great, because we have to win games and have different guys stepping up and different heroes every night."

St. Louis was that guy in the first round. He started with two pointless games before rallying to have four goals and an assist in the final three wins over the Islanders.

His overtime goal in Game 5 clinched Tampa Bay's second series win ever. It's that kind of production the Lightning want in Game 2 against Calgary tonight.

"It has been a long playoff and my game has gone up and down," St. Louis said. "I feel my game is on the way up. I know (Tuesday) was a loss but I did something I hadn't done in a while. I am going to take that into Game 2 and hopefully capitalize on the chances I can get."

If he and the Lightning don't, they likely will be facing a big hole when the series shifts to Calgary for Games 3 and 4.

"We want to get the momentum back in the series," Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk said. "By winning a game we can do that."

The Lightning are behind in a series for the first time, but that is nothing new to Calgary opponents.

The Flames started each of their four postseason series this year on the road, and three times they skated off with a victory. By virtue of their win Tuesday, the underdogs from the West have a chance to take a commanding lead back home.

"There is a little familiarity to the situation we are in," defenseman Robyn Regehr said Wednesday after practice.

As the sixth-seeded team, the Flames had to play the first two games of their previous playoff matchups at Vancouver, Detroit and San Jose, respectively. Only Vancouver took a 1-0 lead on Calgary, but only against San Jose did the Flames return home with a 2-0 edge.

They will have a chance to grab that advantage against their fourth straight division winner that earned more than 100 points in the regular season.

Calgary is 9-2 away from home in these playoffs, the first its been a part of in eight years. The Flames hadn't won a postseason series since capturing the Cup in 1989, but they look like seasoned veterans now.

They have won five straight on the road and are one win away from tying the mark for the most victories away from home in a playoff year. When the New Jersey Devils did it in 1995 and 2000, they won the Cup.

The Lightning haven't lost two straight games anywhere since dropping a pair on the road March 20-21. Their last losing streak at home was a two-game slide a week earlier.

"A must-win is every game," Andreychuk said. "The message that we're sending out in our room is that we have to go for it now and not wait and see what happens."

In their rink that features bad, choppy ice caused by temperatures hovering around 90 degrees, the Lightning are 7-3 in the playoffs. They were 24-10-4-3 at home in the regular season.

Calgary got a lucky-bounce goal in the first period from Martin Gelinas and improved to 11-1 in the playoffs when grabbing a 1-0 lead.

The Flames really make the first goal so important in the way they shut down opponents early. Only four goals have gotten past Miikka Kiprusoff in the first period and none in a playoff-record nine consecutive games.

"We're not going to come out as an overconfident bunch thinking that's it's an easy series now," said defenseman Andrew Ference, who played a game-high 27 minutes in the opener. "We're going to come out just as fired up, if not more, because each win gets harder and harder."

The Flames are sure they will see a different team on the other bench in Game 2, and they know what to expect: a fourth consecutive opponent that is angry, desperate and not wanting to be down 2-0 with the "Red Sea" waiting for it in Calgary.

"Every game in the series as it goes on is even more important," Iginla said. "We expect it to be a harder game. We've got to match their intensity and their desperation."

AP-ES-05-27-04 0208EDT