Flyers Rol'd on in Tampa

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Well that wasn't the best start to the post-All-Star season. The Flyers were drubbed by the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-0, shut out by Dwayne Roloson while their own starting goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky was chased from the net after letting up three goals in the first period. 

Aside from the first two minutes of the game, the Flyers were right there with the Lightning all night. But most of their opportunities weren't all that strong, and when they were, Roloson was there. Yes, Dwayne Roloson... Rolo has now pitched four shutouts in 11 starts since being traded to the Lightning by the Islanders. Think he wanted off of the Island? 

Video highlights and more, below.

The Flyers were burned by the Ghosts of Flyers Past once again. This time it was Simon Gagne and Steve Downie. Gagne has come alive lately, posting good numbers in January, and he had a stick on both of the Lightning's first two goals. The second of the two looked like Gags had scored it, but the official scorer later changed it to Teddy Purcell, giving him two for the night. Gagne had a nice pass to spring the play that led to the first goal, and then drove the play forward and got a lucky bounce off the end boards to lead to the second. 

Downie made an athletic play to skate the puck ahead to score the third, finding the net through a screen set up by Steven Stamkos flying toward Bobrovsky's net. Not an amazing shot, but pretty hard for Bob to pick it up through all the action in front of him. Bob didn't look great necessarily, but there wasn't a lot he could have done on at least two of those three. It was still good to see him get the hook though, no need to leave him out there when things aren't going well for whatever reason. There was still plenty of time for the Flyers to get back in it, though of course they never did. 

Brian Boucher looked solid in net for two periods, allowing just one goal on a gorgeous shot by one of the league's best scorers in Stamkos. The Flyers got caught in a change, and Boosh was hung out to dry. Overall Roloson had a very good night, but didn't have to do anything too crazy to shut out the Flyers despite the high shot total. They had trouble putting sustained pressure on him and lacked one of their key strengths this season—the ability to put traffic in front of the net and own that area around the crease. 

Game Highlights

Notes:
• Tampa Bay is the only team to have beaten the Flyers three times this season, and the only Eastern Conference team they haven't beaten. They play only once more, in two weeks. 

•Roloson, 41 years old, had lost seven of his previous 10 career starts against the Flyers with a GAA of 3.14. He made 38 saves for the shutout on Tuesday night.

•Claude Giroux led all Flyers in ice time by a wide margin, logging a career-high 25:27. It's rare a forward leads the Flyers in ice time, and the next highest time was 21:56. Welcome back from the break, Claude. 

•The Flyers went 0/4 on the powerplay, with trouble getting pucks even when they were able to move it around in the zone. 

Credit the Lightning with coming out of the break ready and taking advantage of the breaks and bounces they got early. The Flyers weren't terrible in this one, but they just couldn't get much going or finish on Roloson. The top of the East gets a little tighter after the day's action, with both the Lightning, Bruins, and Penguins winning tonight, plus the Rangers also getting a point by virtue of losing to the Pens in the shootout. The Flyers host Nashville Thursday night at 7. 

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