Burns: Three Things we learned from a bounce-back win in Buffalo

Three days after playing one of its worst games of the season, the Tampa Bay Lightning bounced back with one of their best, dominating the Buffalo Sabres in a 6-1 rout at KeyBank Center for their third win in the last four contests.

Nikita Kucherov recorded a hat trick in just his fifth game of the season to pace the Lightning attack. In addition to Kucherov's three-goal effort, Steven Stamkos (goal, 2 assists), Alex Killorn (3 assists), Anthony Cirelli (goal, assist) and Victor Hedman (2 assists) all had multi-point games in Buffalo.
Andrei Vasilevskiy had a relatively quiet night, facing only 18 shots, and stopped 17 of them to become the first goalie this season in the NHL to reach 20 wins on the season. Vasilevskiy has now posted 20 or more wins in six-consecutive seasons.
Very little went wrong Tuesday night for the Lightning in Buffalo.
Vinnie Hinostroza scored on a power play a little over five minutes into the third period to break up Vasilevskiy's shutout bid. And Ondrej Palat, after scoring the game-opening goal 2:16 into the contest to extend his goal streak to four games, matching the longest this season on the Lightning, didn't play beyond the midpoint of the game, Bolts head coach Jon Cooper saying after the game he's been dealing with something and the coaching staff decided to hold him out from the rest of the contest.
That's it for negatives for the Bolts in this one.
Here were the positives from a convincing effort in Buffalo.

1. NIKITA KUCHEROV IS ALL THE WAY BACK
After recording his fourth career hat trick and first since March 23, 2017, Nikita Kucherov was asked what's the toughest thing about coming back from a major injury like he did three games ago when he returned after a 32-game absence following a lower-body injury suffered in the third game of the season.
Is it timing? Rust?
Does the speed of the game take time to get used to?
"I think it's everything," Kucherov replied. "You don't play for so long, and then you jump in right away in a game. It's everything. You need a little time to get used to it."
Safe to say, Kucherov is used to it.
After posting two assists in his first game back January 6 versus Calgary, Kucherov continued to make up for lost time Tuesday night in Buffalo, scoring three times to pace the Lightning attack.
His first goal came 27 seconds into the second period and with one second remaining on a power play that carried over from the first. With Malcolm Subban in net to begin the second after Sabres starter Ukko Pekka-Luukkonen was pulled after 20 minutes due to injury, Kucherov sensed a cold goalie between the pipes and fired a shot on frame from above the right circle that eluded Subban and pushed the Lightning advantage to 3-0.
About 10 minutes later, after Kucherov exited the penalty box from a hooking infraction he committed, Corey Perry gathered a stretch pass at the blue line and entered the zone with Kucherov off to his left. Perry bided his time, waited for Henri Jokiharju to commit, then slipped a pass around Jokiharju for Kucherov to one-time into the net from the back post for his second goal of the game and a 4-0 Lightning lead.
"I was just trying to get open and see what he was doing," Kucherov explained on the play. "He made a nice move. I just waited until the end, and he made a nice move and passed it back door."
In the third period, Kucherov ripped a shot from the high slot to complete his hat trick and tally the final goal in the Bolts' 6-1 victory.
With his fourth career hat trick, Kucherov tied Tyler Johnson for the fourth most in Lightning history behind Steven Stamkos (9), Martin St. Louis (8) and Vincent Lecavalier (6).
"You give him time and space, that's what he's going to do," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "That's why he's one of the best in the world."

2. FAST START SETS THE TONE
In a 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday, the Lightning were a step behind to start the game, a committed Bruins team pushing the pace from the outset and keeping the Bolts on their heels.
Boston took control early as a result, building a 2-0 lead by the end of the first period they would extend to 4-0 in the second.
The Lightning tried to rally in the third, but it was a case of too little, too late.
In Buffalo, the Lightning were determined to have a better start and essentially did to the Sabres what the Bruins did to them three nights earlier.
Tampa Bay got back to the fast pace that served it well in wins last week at Columbus and over Calgary and overwhelmed the Sabres from the start. And Ondrej Palat gave the Lightning an early lead when he deftly settled Victor Hedman's sauced pass in the slot and calmly beat Luukkonen over the glove to put Tampa Bay in front 1-0 just 2:16 into the contest.
"We knew we didn't play our best last game, so we wanted to come out, get a good start and I thought we did," Stamkos said.
The Lightning continued to control the puck after netting the opening goal and extended the lead to 2-0 midway through the first period when Anthony Cirelli ripped a shot past Luukkonen from nearly the same spot as Palat.
"You've got to take advantage of games like tonight," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "They're missing a bunch of guys. We wanted to jump on them early and take control of the game and we did. You've got to take advantage of teams that are shorthanded."
Meanwhile, the Lightning thwarted pretty much everything Buffalo wanted to do offensively to start the game. But the Sabres were still able to get a couple of breakaway chances, one coming shorthanded.
Andrei Vasilevskiy wasn't called on very often in Tuesday's win, facing just 18 shots, but he made two critical breakaway stops, first on Victor Olofsson after Victor Hedman tripped at his own blue line and turned the puck over and then later in the period on Mark Jankowski after a pass lifted up in the air sprung him alone on goal on a Lightning power play.
Those stops plus the Lightning's control of play in the offensive zone equaled a long night at the rink for the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday night.

3. THE GANG'S NEARLY ALL HERE
Tampa Bay has yet to play a game this season with its full complement of players available.
The Lightning have dealt with long-term injuries to superstars Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point. They've had players like Erik Cernak and Zach Bogosian injured multiple times this season. Around the holiday break, they were affected by a COVID outbreak that saw nine different players and three coaches, including head coach Jon Cooper, enter the NHL's COVID protocol list.
Tuesday in Buffalo, though, the Lightning nearly had their entire squad available.
Zach Bogosian returned from a lower-body injury that robbed him of the previous five games and was able to face his former team for the first time since they placed him on unconditional waivers for the purposes of terminating his contract in February of 2020.
"I thought he had a really good game, skated really well, was physical," Stamkos said.
Ross Colton returned too. Colton was the last Lightning player to go on the COVID protocol list on January 4. He skated 13:45 time on ice and took three shots after being cleared to return to play earlier in the day.
The only player unavailable to the Lightning Tuesday night was defenseman Ryan McDonagh, who was a game-time decision according to Cooper. That's good news considering McDonagh appeared to get injured in the Calgary win blocking a shot. The fact he was close to playing Tuesday signals his injury shouldn't be long term.
In the win in Buffalo, however, the Lightning appeared to suffer another injury when Ondrej Palat didn't take a shift past the midpoint of the contest and skated just 8:12 total, long enough to extend his goal streak to four games, matching a Lightning season long for a goal run.
Following the game, Cooper said he and his staff held Palat out more for precautionary reasons than anything.
"Pally's working through some things," Cooper said. "We just thought anytime you can get him some rest, we're going to get him some rest, and that's what we did tonight."
It's remarkable the Lightning continue to pace the NHL standings for points despite not icing a completely healthy lineup at any point this season.
"That's the story of the year unfortunately for every team between COVID and injuries," Stamkos said. "There's probably a lot of teams that haven't had a chance to get their full lineups in. We realize that's part of what this year entails. We want to get everyone back in the lineup. We know what we can do when we have that, but you've got to weather the storm a little bit."