Burns: Three Things we learned from a third-straight win

The Tampa Bay Lightning seem to have found their mojo.
After dropping six of eight games heading into the final two games of an 11-cities-in-11-games stretch, the Lightning have rebounded with three-straight victories and appear to be getting their game back in order with the playoffs a little over a month away.
Their victim Tuesday night was the Carolina Hurricanes. The Lightning rallied three times from a one-goal deficit to defeat the Canes 4-3 in overtime despite never leading on the scoreboard until the final horn.

Tampa Bay scored three of its four goals on the power play in a dominating special teams performance.
Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov each led the charge offensively with three-point games. Stamkos scored the game-winner in overtime for his third overtime goal of the season and franchise-leading 11th of his career. Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli chipped in multi-point games. And Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 16-of-19 shots, the Lightning allowing their third-fewest shots in a game this season against a team known for its shot volume, to win his 34th game of the season and pull back into sole possession of the NHL lead for wins.
Tampa Bay went to overtime for the second time in the last three games and 17th time this season, the Lightning now 9-2 this season in games decided by overtime.
Bolts players and coaches considered Tuesday's win over Carolina one of their better efforts of the season.
Here's why.

1. SPECIAL TEAMS SWITCHAROO
When the Lightning faced the Hurricanes a week ago in Carolina, special teams proved to be the difference in the game. The Canes scored a pair of goals on the power play while keeping the Bolts from capitalizing on their two opportunities to squeeze out a 3-2 win at PNC Arena.
Special teams was again a difference maker in the rematch at AMALIE Arena on Tuesday, except this time they went in favor of the Lightning.
Tampa Bay scored three of its four goals on the power play - the fourth goal came at 4-on-4 play - and netted the overtime game winner with the man-advantage to completely dominate that area of the game against a vaunted penalty kill
Additionally, the Lightning held Carolina at bay on its two power-play opportunities.
"A big part of the win tonight was the power play and the penalty kill," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "That's a really good team over there and they've got good special teams as well, so that was the difference maker tonight."
The Lightning power play has found its stride after producing just three goals over a nine-game stretch from March 6-24. The power play has connected at least once in each of the last three contests, notching multiple power-play goals in two of those games and netting six total.
The Lightning's three power-play goals against Carolina were tied for the most they've scored in a game this season.
"I think entries are a big part of it," Brayden Point said of the power play's recent success. "We're finding ways to get set up, trying different breakouts, giving us more chances and spending more time in the zone. When guys are shooting and we're just kind of not every opportunity trying to look for the perfect play, get pucks on net and converging, we have a good power play."
The fact they had so much success against a Carolina penalty kill that is the best in the NHL this season at 88.3 percent legitimizes the recent run the Bolts' power play has been on.
Carolina gave up three power-play goals in a game for just the second time this season.
"There's just a little more confidence (on the power play)," Stamkos said of the PP's recent success. "We talked about that when we were going through it a little rough patch where confidence is a real thing and it's something that when you gain some, guys start to feel the puck a little more, you start to make some plays that we're accustomed to making."

2. TOP PLAYERS MAKING TOP PLAYS
Much was made of the scoring drought some of the Lightning's best players have been experiencing of late, contributing to their slide as they went through a difficult stretch where 10 of 11 games were played away from AMALIE Arena.
But in the win Tuesday over Carolina, the Bolts' scoring leaders led the charge.
Steven Stamkos tallied a pair of assists before netting the game-winner 52 seconds into overtime to provide the Lightning the 4-3 win and score his 30th goal of the season.
Stamkos now has seven 30-goal seasons for his career, passing Martin St. Louis (6) for the most in franchise history.
Stamkos also scored his 11th career overtime goal to push in front of St. Louis (10) for the franchise lead for overtime goals.
"It's something that we've been working on is the 4-on-3, so I think the mindset was just to get some more pucks on net," Stamkos said about his game-winner. "That creates some scrambles. Pointer made a great play, a couple nice moves in the slot. He sticks with it, got it to me and had some time. I saw Kuch. I thought he was going to shoot it. He gave it right back to me, and I knew I was in a good position to shoot, so just tried to fire one quick before the goalie could set. Nice to see that one go in."
Nikita Kucherov assisted on all three power-play goals for his second three-assist game of the season and third game of three or more points.
Kucherov now has 27 assists in 31 games this season.
Brayden Point recorded his ninth multi-point game of the season with a second period assist and a critical goal in the third period, backhanding a rebound into the net on a scramble play to bring the Bolts back from a goal down for the third and final time in the contest.
Point recorded his 360th and 361st career points to pull into a tie with Tyler Johnson for 10th place among Tampa Bay's all-time scoring leaders.
And Victor Hedman, who hasn't been in a scoring slump of late, continued what's turning out to be a career season for him. He netted his 19th goal, adding to his personal career high total. He's one goal away from registering just the second 20-goal season by a defenseman in Lightning history and joining Dan Boyle's 20-goal season from 2006-07.

3. HAVING AN ANSWER
Three separate times Carolina scored to put itself ahead by a goal Tuesday night against Tampa Bay.
And three separate times, the Lightning had an answer to level the score and eventually pull out the hard-fought victory.
For a team that's had its confidence shaken a bit over the last month, being able to rally on three occasions against one of the top teams in the NHL is a very positive sign for the Bolts heading into the final month of the regular season.
"We responded well," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "We were down pretty much the whole game until the end. You keep fighting your way back and not getting frustrated, and I thought we did that, especially coming into the third period. We didn't really give them anything in the third and the power play came up big for us and did again in overtime."
The Lightning liked a lot about their game throughout but had little to show for it on the scoreboard. Once Seth Jarvis tipped a shot from the front of the net past Andrei Vasilevskiy 8:41 into the second period, the Lightning took over the game from that point on.
Still, they trailed 3-2 heading into the final frame because of a fluky goal Sebastian Aho was able to score and were in real jeopardy of falling to the Hurricanes for the third time this season.
Point's goal was a big turning point in the game, the Lightning seeing their hard work pay off with the tying score six minutes into the third period. The Bolts clamped defensively on Carolina throughout the remainder of the period to secure at least a point.
They carried that momentum into overtime when Jordan Staal was called for holding Stamkos 26 seconds in, and then the captain sniped a shot from the slot 26 seconds later to win it for the Lightning.
"The effort was there," Stamkos said. "That's first and foremost with this team. When we have the compete, usually things fall into line after that. Execution is a big one too that we've been talking about. We didn't spend much time in our own end. That's a great recipe, especially against a good hockey team. When you can get out of the zone and dictate the play in the neutral zone and the offensive zone, I think halfway through the second period they have five or six shots on net. It was definitely one of our most complete games in a while."