Burns: 3 Things we learned from a third-straight loss

The Tampa Bay Lightning are at a bit of a crossroads with 21 games left to play in the regular season.
Tampa Bay entered Tuesday's contest against the Columbus Blue Jackets still leading the Central Division and tied with Washington atop the NHL standings on points.
The Lightning, however, had dropped two-straight games, and in dubious fashion, blowing two-goal leads and allowing a late tiebreaking goal in each.
The Bolts losing streak now stands at three games following a 3-1 loss to the Blue Jackets.

Tampa Bay was better Tuesday. There was a lot to like about the Lightning's game. They didn't turn the puck over with near the regularity they did in losses Thursday at Dallas and Saturday at Carolina. They didn't have to go on the penalty kill once, penalties being their Achilles heel of late, although David Savard scored what would prove to be the game-winner with 32 seconds left in the second period on a delayed call. They outshot Columbus 38-21, including a 20-11 advantage in the second period, the 20 shots the most by the Lightning in a period this season.
Still, it wasn't enough.
Tampa Bay has dropped three in a row for the first time this season.
"We haven't had to fight through a ton this year, and now it's time," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "So, we'll see who steps up."
Here's what we learned following another defeat.
1. VICTOR HEDMAN IS SUPERHUMAN
The 3,800 Lightning fans in attendance at AMALIE Arena combined with all of Bolts Nation watching on TV or listening on the radio held their collective breath with the sight of Victor Hedman writhing in pain on the ice and unable to get to his skates.
Hedman was leading an odd-man rush down the ice midway through the second period and wrapped a centering feed around outstretched Columbus defenseman Mikko Lehtonen, who went down to the ice to try to break up the scoring opportunity.
As Lehtonen got back up, he undercut Hedman, sending the elite defenseman flying hard into the boards behind the Columbus goal.
Hedman immediately looked in discomfort. His teammates standing around him waved for Lightning head athletic trainer Tom Mulligan to come to his aid. After lying on his stomach for a while and then getting to his knees, Hedman needed the aid of Mulligan and Steven Stamkos to rise to his skates and get off the ice, unable to put much if any weight on his right leg.
He immediately went down the tunnel to the locker room with the assistance of teammates.
The scene did not look good. Fresh off the gruesome injury suffered by Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad a couple nights earlier, one that left him with a left leg fracture that will force him to miss the next 12 weeks, there was considerable concern Hedman might have suffered a similar fate.
Remarkably, Hedman only missed a couple shifts. Minutes after going into the locker room, he came out for a twirl during a stoppage in play to test his leg. A couple more minutes passed, and Hedman skated during a media timeout, staying on the ice once play resumed.
Hedman ended up playing 24:03 and taking 10 shots, setting a Lightning season high and a new career high for shots in a game.
The Lightning dodged a major bullet with Hedman's ability to return. The Lightning were already without Jan Rutta, who sustained a lower-body injury earlier in the second period and could not return. And Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak remain sidelined with lower-body injuries.
"No doubt you don't want to see anybody go down ever, especially somebody of Victor's (caliber), what he means to our team, and especially the fact we'd already lost Rutta and we've got McDonagh and Cernak sitting in the stands," Cooper said. "I didn't like the fact that we might be going down to four D for at least half of the game.
"It ended up being a scare. Thank goodness it was just that."
2. SEEING IS BELIEVING
Jon Cooper liked a lot about his team's game Tuesday against Columbus.
One area where they could have been better, however, was their ability to take the eyes away from Columbus goaltender Elvis Merzlikins, who stopped 37-of-38 shots to stem the Blue Jackets' four-game losing skid.
Had the Lightning done a better job getting in front of Merzlikins and bothering him with their presence, they might have scored more than just one goal.
"We let the goalie see everything," Cooper lamented. "And now you're doing a lot of good things, the process was fine, we had our legs, we just didn't take eyes away. And probably who knows if that cost us or not. We had our looks, just tonight they didn't go in."
The lone goal the Lightning scored came as a result of their ability to get to the front of the net and create chaos as they pushed to get back in the game in the third period. After a missed shot rimmed all the way around the back of the net and to the right point, Luke Schenn settled the puck and blasted a shot that deflected off the skate of Mathieu Joseph and then the back of Vladislav Gavrikov before depositing into the back of the net.
Joseph scored his 10th goal of the season, becoming the sixth different Lightning player to reach double figures for goals.
Tampa Bay got to within a goal at 2-1 with nearly 16 minutes remaining in the contest.
The Lightning couldn't replicate that same formula though to produce the tying goal.
"I look at the last couple games we didn't win, probably didn't deserve to win them," Cooper said. "I can't sit here and say we deserved to win tonight but probably deserved to score more than one. I liked our effort. We did a lot of good things, but when it got down to the dirty areas, we weren't quite dirty enough. You go through this during a year, we just have to work our way out of it."
3. BEST PLAYERS SLUMPING, LIGHTNING LOSING
Tampa Bay's top producers haven't been producing of late.
And that's been one of the main reasons the Lightning haven't been winning.
Tampa Bay's lone goal Tuesday came off the skate of Mathieu Joseph. A pair of defensemen in Luke Schenn and Andreas Borgman were credited with the assists. Schenn's assist was just his second this season. Borgman notched his first helper as a member of the Bolts in his fifth game with the team.
No other Lightning skaters registered on the scoresheet.
Hedman, Tampa Bay's leading scorer and the top scoring defenseman in the NHL, was held without a point for the third-straight game, despite his career-high 10 shots. Ditto Steven Stamkos, who paces the Bolts for goals. Brayden Point hasn't tallied a point in four-straight games.
Cooper mixed up his lines throughout the contest to try to create a spark. At one point, he had Tyler Johnson, who started on the top line, playing alongside Patrick Maroon and Ross Colton on the fourth line. Joseph moved up to the top line for a spell. The top two lines were jumbled throughout.
The Lightning got plenty of shots, just not enough goals.
"I think there's some guys that are used to scoring that aren't, so there's probably a little frustration setting in there because everybody wants to contribute and it's tough to lose just this one because I thought we had a lot of good things going," Cooper said. "But you can't let frustration set in. We've been around the block before. You've got to fight through it. And this happens."
Hedman was asked if guys are gripping their sticks a little bit tighter, trying to make something happen when nothing has been going their way over the last couple of games.
"No, we've created a lot of opportunities today," he responded. "It's frustrating when you don't score, but at the same time you're going to go through spurts when things aren't going your way. We've got to pick one another up. Today, we had a lot of chances, but the puck didn't go in. Their goalie made some good saves, and they made some nice plays there in the second and got two goals and that was enough today. For us, we can't get too down on ourselves and we've just got to be ready for the next game."
The scoring slump for the Lightning leaders isn't going to last forever.
And when they do break out, the wins will likely come back too.