The Philadelphia Flyers came into play as the best team in the Eastern Conference Tuesday night; the Tampa Bay Lightning didn't seem to be impressed, as they beat the Flyers for the third-straight time this year, this time 4-0, earning goaltender Dwayne Roloson his fourth shutout in 11 games. The "W" also was the Lightning's sixth consecutive win, something that the team has not accomplished since January of 2004. Something else worth celebrating happened in '04…
While Roloson was excellent in net, it didn't hurt that he got offensive support right from the beginning; Teddy Purcell got the Bolts off to a quick start with his ninth and tenth goals of the year to give the Bolts the quick lead 1:21 into the first period.
"I don't think we expected to come out that well," Purcell said. "Gagne made a nice play there to kind of catch them off guard, we had a two on one and Vinny [Lecavalier] made a great play. We kind of caught the goalie off guard and I put it in."
This article appears in Jan 27 – Feb 2, 2011.