Burns: 3 Things we learned from a loss out of the break

The Tampa Bay Lightning returned to action in Pittsburgh on Wednesday following a 10-day break in the schedule, a product of the Bolts' bye week and All-Star weekend combining.
Truth be told, the Lightning didn't play all that poorly against the Penguins despite a 4-2 loss.

The rust that's expected to accumulate after a long layoff wasn't really an issue. The Lightning showed a strong forecheck to start the game. They hit the Penguins - including a pair of punishing hits early on Kris Letang by Cedric Paquette and Evgeni Malkin courtesy of Dan Girardi - at a feverish pace. The Bolts ended up dishing out 59 hits on the night. They controlled the puck in the offensive zone for decent stretches and created some really good scoring opportunities.
Pittsburgh, however, capitalized on their limited chances to open up an insurmountable lead and force the Bolts to play catchup the rest of the way.
The Lightning have lost consecutive games just once this season and will look to avoid doing so a second time when they travel to Long Island Friday to take on the New York Islanders at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, an Islanders team that thoroughly outplayed the Bolts the last time they met up, a 5-1 Isles victory.
"The biggest thing we talked about after the game," Ryan McDonagh said, "is not letting this snowball here, realize this is our one game now back from break and there's no more excuses with that and we've got a really tough test of a team that put a good thumping to us last time."
Before we skip ahead to Friday's tough test, let's examine how the result against the Penguins may not have reflected the play on the ice.

1. UNLUCKY START
If you outshoot a team 16-5, survive over a minute-and-a-half of a 5-on-3 power play and keep possession of the puck for a majority of the period, you certainly don't expect to find yourself trailing 3-0 entering the first intermission.
But that's the spot Tampa Bay found itself in after a pretty good start to the game.
The Lightning dug themselves a formidable hole in the first period they could never quite climb out of.
"It was a weird game in terms of when you come off a break like that and have a first period where you did a lot of good things but the score didn't indicate that. What are you going to do? We had some looks," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "We had some offensive zone time for sure in the first. It would have been nice to get one. It's not the start that we wanted. We knew we would have to try to keep it pretty simple early on, and they made some plays and we turned some pucks over and just to the wrong people and they capitalized."
Had they gotten a goal back in the first period, perhaps the Lightning could have made a run. After all, they trailed 2-0 in Pittsburgh the first time they played the Penguins on November 15 and came back to win that contest 4-3.
But the Bolts misfired on several quality scoring chances, their timing and finishing not quite where it was prior to the bye week.
"Your reads are a little off sometimes," Brayden Point said. "It's not an excuse, but it is a little more difficult for sure. We just had some turnovers, and they capitalized."
Pittsburgh registered five shots in the first period and scored on three of them, thanks largely to the Lightning gift wrapping them the puck in prime positions with sloppy turnovers.
"It's tough when you're coming out of a long break like that and you're in a NHL game and playing against a really good team," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "I thought we actually had a really good first. We made three mistakes, and they all end up in our net. It's tough to come back from that hole."
2. TOUGH SPOT FOR VASY
Wednesday's game was one of those situations that's awfully difficult for a goaltender to overcome.
Lightning starting netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy didn't see a whole lot of shots in Pittsburgh. As stated above, the Penguins only put up five in the first period yet scored on three.
Despite registering just a handful of shots, the Pens got quite a few Grade-A looks in the opening 20 minutes, more quality chances than the Lightning, because the Bolts were putting the puck on a platter for them.
Costly turnovers led to big-time opportunities for the Penguins, and they made the Lightning pay for their mistakes.
"Tough turnovers, the first three (goals)," Point said. "Obviously mine was a bit of a backbreaker early…I thought we skated decently well for coming out of the break. I think just timing's a little bit off, puck skills are just a little bit off, so hopefully we get that out of our system."
Vasilevskiy didn't see a shot for over 16 minutes between the first period and the second. The first shot he saw out of that drought came from Kris Letang in the right circle and ended up in the back of the net.
Goalies often say they don't mind facing a ton of shots in a game because it gets them into the action and they feel engaged.
In Pittsburgh, Vasilevskiy had long stretches where he didn't have any action. And then when he did, his net was under siege as the Pens pounced on the Bolts' mistakes.
"I think that's an important lesson as we get down to the wire here as the season goes on, you've got to be really sharp for all 60 minutes," McDonagh said, referring to the team's play in front of Vasilevskiy.
3. LATE PUSH A POSITIVE TO BUILD ON
Tampa Bay wouldn't go down without a fight in Pittsburgh.
Literally.
His team down 4-0, Stamkos got tangled up with Evgeni Malkin in the neutral zone and dropped the gloves against the Penguins center, the two trading right hands to the head from in close before Malkin fell on top of Stamkos as both players tumbled to the ice.
Stamkos said the encounter was "just hockey."
"I thought he gave me a little whack there, I gave him one back and we fought," he said.
But the fight served notice the Lightning weren't going to lay down and accept their fate over the final period. The Bolts continued to push and were finally rewarded when J.T. Miller one-timed a shot from the high slot into the back of the net with 4:10 remaining to prevent the shutout.
The Lightning have yet to be shut out this season.
"I thought we lost our legs a little bit in the second, gamed it out in the third, clawed back a little bit," Cooper said. "But you're down four, it's tough."
After the Lightning were awarded a late power play, Stamkos buried a shot from the left circle under Pens goalie Matt Murray's right shoulder to pull the Bolts to within two with 2:04 to go. Tampa Bay then emptied the net to try to get closer, but the Penguins clamped down and secured the two points.
"I mean, it's a 4-0 game, it's probably over right? We're never going to quit here," Stamkos said. "It was a tough start for us tonight and just too much to overcome, especially when up until that last we only had one power play the whole game. Some games where you get down, you get a couple and you can get some looks. But we only had one up until the last couple minutes."
The Lightning seemed to regain their scoring touch over the final five minutes of the Pittsburgh loss when earlier in the game the timing wasn't there to finish off chances.
Hopefully, that carries over Friday against the Islanders.