"There is no such thing as a moral victory in the seventh game of a series, no nice try. It's good, or bad, with no ambiguity. The Lightning either will win the playoff series tonight in Pittsburgh against the Penguins or see their season end.

"Now it's a best-of-one. There's no momentum, there's no anything," Lightning wonder child Steven Stamkos said. "All that is forgotten now."

That's how players have to think. The rest of us, though, aren't bound by the restriction of living strictly in the moment.

With that in mind, we look for edges and things that might tip a game — and a season — one way or the other. I think the Lightning have the biggest edge right now with goalie Dwayne Roloson.

An exhausted Marty St. Louis was asked after Roloson's outstanding performance Monday in a 4-2 win if it was valid to compare the Roloson we see today with the Nik Khabibulin of the 2004 Stanley Cup run.

"Absolutely," he said. "(Roloson) is playing like the goalie you need if you want to go far in the playoffs. "Roly has been unbelievable. That position is magnified in the playoffs. He is everything we're expecting and more. When he plays like that, it gives us a chance every night."

Students of Boltology will recall a warm spring night at the Forum in June 2004.

Fewer than five minutes remained in regulation between the Lightning and a drink from Lord Stanley's goblet when Calgary's Marcus Nilson sent a rocket on net toward Khabibulin, who deflected the puck.

Flames defenseman Jordan Leopold was on it quickly and fired low to the near post, but Khabibulin stopped it once again. And then he stopped another one.

The Bolts won 2-1.

You think back to Roloson's work in the third period of Monday's game. In one huge sequence, he stopped a barrage of three close-range Pittsburgh shots to keep the score tied. Seconds later, the Bolts scored and never lost the lead.

"He has done it all year. It's not surprising for us," Stamkos said. "We see it every day in practice.""