TAMPA BAY MONTREAL

MONTREAL — Tampa Bay struck four times on the power play and star centre Steven Stamkos ended his playoff scoring drought as the Lightning downed the Montreal Canadiens 6-2 in Game 2 of their second-round playoff series on Sunday night.

After winning twice at the Bell Centre, the Lightning take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series back home to Amalie Arena for Game 3 on Wednesday and Game 4 on Thursday.

Nikita Kucherov, with two, Valtteri Filppula and Victor Hedman all scored with a man advantage as Tampa Bay got its first power-play goals since Game 2 of the opening round against Detroit. J.T. Brown added an even-strength goal late in the third period.

Jeff Petry and Tom Gilbert scored for Montreal, which outshot the Bolts 29-24 but went 0 for 3 on the power play. The Habs are now 1 for 26 with the man advantage in the playoffs. The Canadiens scored the first goal of a game for only the second time in eight post-season contests when Petry took a pass from Torrey Mitchell and scored on a wrist shot from the blue-line at 7:20.

Montreal was in control but then let it slip away with undisciplined penalties, as Brandon Prust got an extra two minutes for yapping at a referee and then P.K. Subban was sent off for cross-checking. Filppula scored on the power play at 19:36 to tie the game 1-1.

Stamkos used a fortunate bounce to go in on a breakaway and deke Carey Price for a goal 8:06 into the second frame. It was the Lightning captain’s first goal in nine post-season games this year. He also had two assists. Prust got a game misconduct with 3:55 left for bumping goaltender Ben Bishop, which started a fight with Braydon Coburn.