Tampa, Fla. ? The Calgary Flames, about the last team anybody picked to win the Stanley Cup, turned a first-shot goal and second effort from Jarome Iginla into yet another postseason surprise.

The Flames shook off a five-day layoff and any jitters about playing for hockey’s biggest prize, scoring on their first shot in the finals since 1989 and riding a superb two-way game by Iginla to a 4-1 victory over Tampa Bay in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals Tuesday night.

Martin Gelinas, who usually scores the final goal of a series, got the first one this time, and Iginla, stamping himself as hockey’s best player in the kind of playoffs usually enjoyed only by superstars, scored short-handed to make it 2-0 in the second.

“That short-handed goal was the difference for us,” coach Darryl Sutter said. “That was a huge goal, a second-effort goal. He had everything going.”

Iginla so disrupted what had been a dominating Tampa Bay power play that the Lightning began playing tentatively until Martin St. Louis scored early in the third period, with Calgary already up by three goals.

“A few of our guys were jittery at the start,” Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella said. “We got a little frustrated at times.”

The Flames, also getting a goal from Stephane Yelle only 2:47 after Iginla scored in the second, improved to a remarkable 9-2 on the road with five consecutive victories — including all three games at San Jose in the Western Conference finals.

“On the road, it seems like we’re closer, and our focus is really good,” Yelle said.

Game 2 is here Thursday night.

Calgary's Rhett Warrener, right, checks Tampa Bay's Rusian Fedotenko during the second period of Game 1 of the NHL Stanley Cup finals. The Flames won, 4-1, Tuesday in Tampa, Fla.

“It is a must-win for us,” Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk said. “We don’t want to go to Calgary down 2-0. It wouldn’t be the end of the world — but we probably could see it.”

Iginla was a game-long force on the penalty kill as the Flames killed off all but one of Tampa Bay’s five power plays. The Lightning had scored on seven of their previous 14 power plays and has at least one man-advantage goal in seven straight games.

That hesitancy carried over to even strength as the Lightning created few odd-man rushes and never developed the effective transition game they had in the first three rounds. It didn’t help that Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, a third-teamer in San Jose earlier this season, was sharp and in control from the start, or exactly what Nikolai Khabibulin wasn’t. Kiprusoff had 23 saves.

Calgary, the first Canadian team to play for the Cup in 10 years, started the finals the same way they ended the San Jose series: with key goals by Gelinas and Iginla and a determined defensive effort in which Iginla was just as good without the puck as he was with it.