Lightning blank Penguins, win first-round series

Dwayne Roloson pitched perfection and the Tampa Bay Lightning are moving on.

Roloson stopped all 36 shots he faced and Sean Bergenheim scored the only goal of the game as Tampa Bay knocked off Pittsburgh 1-0 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals to become just the 24th team in NHL history to complete a comeback from down 3-1 in a series to advance. The Lightning advanced past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2004, and won a playoff round that started on the road for the first time in franchise history.

The Lightning will open play in the conference semifinal round on Friday against their division rival Washington Capitals at Verizon Center at 7 p.m.

The 41-year-old Roloson, acquired from the New York Islanders on a New Year's Day trade, was the biggest factor for Tampa Bay in the series stopping 230 of 243 shots in the series for a save percentage of .947 in the seven games. Needless to say, it was a trade that has paid tremendous dividends for rookie general manager Steve Yzerman and rookie head coach Guy Boucher, settling into a position that was inconsistent throughout most of the first half of the season and bring a sense of stability.

"I'm not even surprised at the way he played in the series. He's amazing, he's a tremendous competitor, he never quits on anything, he battles to find shots and is so calm in the net and he bounces back from anything," center Steven Stamkos said. "He was our MVP in this series and he showed it."

After giving up a goal off his glove in the early stages of a double-overtime loss in Game 4, Roloson was tremendous, allowing four goals in the final three games to send Tampa Bay on to the next round. But when asked if he could ever anticipate throwing a shutout in a Game 7, he was just as quick with an answer as he was with his pads in the series.

"Do you ever go in to write an article figuring to win a Nobel Prize?," he joked. "No, it's just one of those things that never really had anything to do with me, it was all about our guys that did everything humanly possible to prevent them from getting anything real quality, and if the rebound was there they were able to get things away from me."

Roloson was at his best while the team was killing penalties throughout the series as the Lightning killed off 34 of 35 Pittsburgh power play chances in the series, including all five on Wednesday. Tampa Bay also had to kill off the final 1:33 of the game down a man after Nate Thompson was called for slashing after breaking the stick of Chris Kunitz.

But instead of crumbling, Tampa Bay made Bergenheim's third goal of the series hold up, and it was almost a carbon copy of his goal in Game 6. With Dominic Moore behind the net, Bergenheim crept near the post where he received a back pass from Moore to find the open side of the net with March-Andre Fleury at the opposite post at 5:41 of the second period.

"We've been practicing that play a little bit for this series, but Dom made just two great passes on both those goals that I scored," Bergenheim said. "It feels good (to score the goal) but this has been a team effort, us coming back from being down 3-1, and it does feel good personally but the win feels better because it could have been anybody, but the win is unbelievable."

With the penalty kill such a big factor in throughout the series, instead of handing the game puck from the victory over to Roloson or Bergenheim, Lightning coach Guy Boucher said the puck was going to be given to assistant coach Wayne Fleming, who is responsible for the penalty kill units. Fleming was diagnosed with a brain tumor just before the end of the regular season, but has continued to work with the coaching staff while the team was in Tampa and remained in constant contact with the entire staff despite undergoing treatment for the tumor.

"I thought the Pittsburgh Penguins showed a lot of class, giving us the puck right after the game and we are going to give that puck to Mr. Fleming, and we all know what he is battling," Boucher said.