Lindros, Flyers Trick Leafs

With Eric Lindros at his dominating best, the Philadelphia Flyers muscled their way to the top of the Eastern Conference.

The Philadelphia captain scored three goals as the Flyers beat Toronto 4-2 on Thursday night to move a point ahead of the Maple Leafs in the conference standings.

"Eric was the dominating force out there," Philadelphia coach Roger Neilson said. "He was hitting, scoring a power play goal, killing penalties, taking faceoffs. He did it all tonight. So when your captain does that, it's great for the team."

John Vanbiesbrouck made 27 saves, and John LeClair added a goal for the Flyers. Philadelphia has won four straight, and is 6-0-1 in its last seven games.

"It was a good win for us, no question about that," LeClair said. "As a team we're a little disappointed the way we played that third period. We tended to play a little conservative. We were hanging back a little bit and they have some good skaters who took advantage of that."

Mats Sundin and Tie Domi scored goals early in the third period for the Maple Leafs, who entered the game 4-0-1 in their last five games. Toronto is 0-5-2 in its last seven road games.

"I like the effort we put forth," Toronto's Garry Valk said. "When you're playing a team like Philly you're not going to outmuscle them, you're not going to outbanthem, so you've got to outsmart them."

Lindros scored twice in the first period to give the Flyers a 2-0 lead. The first came when he poked in a rebound during a scramble in front of the net at 13:35.

Then at 17:37, Lindros, standing to the left of the crease on a power play, re-directed an attempt by Mark Recchi past goalie Glenn Healy.

LeClair made it 3-0 at 3:38 of the second period and narrowly missed another goal when he hit the post.

LeClair scored when he swept the puck off the left boards in Philadelphia's defensive zone, skated to the top of the left circle and ripped a slap shot that deflected off Toronto's Steve Thomas past Healy.

Sundin, who leads the Maple Leafs with 25 points and 14 goals, scored unassisted at 1:52 of the third period, slipping a wrist shot between Vanbiesbrouck's legs from left of the net.

Sundin then fed Domi, who scored his first goal of the season by flipping the puck into the net at 6:13.

But Lindros capped off the 11th regular-season hat trick of his career with 1:06 left, firing a slap shot from top of the left circle high over Healy.

Recchi, had two assists to extend his point-scoring streak to eight games. He has four goals and nine assists during that span.

Toronto was 0-for-4 on the power play to run their string of futility to 0-for-19, including 11 seconds of a two-man advantage in the first period.

The teams meet again in Saturday in Toronto.

©1999 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed