The Backcheck: Lightning start fast but fall to Boston

"Two good teams," said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. "It was a good game, for the most part, but they deserved it more than we did."
The Bolts had a season-long, four-game win streak snapped on Monday night with a 5-3 loss to the Boston Bruins at AMALIE Arena.

Following an extremely strong first period that saw Tampa Bay outshoot Boston 14-7, the Lightning got outscored 3-0 in the second period, which ended up being the difference maker on the night.
"In the end, they probably weathered a little bit of our storm in the first period, and they get out of the period 1-1," said Cooper. "Then they throw us their storm, and it's 4-1, so there's the difference in the game."
After recording the first nine shots on goal of the contest, the Bolts struck first at the 8:57 mark of the opening period when Nick Paul fired home his seventh goal of the season with another quick release as Steven Stamkos and Alex Killorn picked up the assists.
As it looked like the Lightning were going to head into the first intermission with a 1-0 lead after playing one of their best periods of the season, David Krejci answered for the Bruins with a slap shot from the top of the right circle to tie the game at one with 4:24 left in the first.

From there, things went downhill for Tampa Bay.
Nick Foligno made it 2-1 with a power-play goal 5:07 into the second period and just 31 seconds later, Charlie Coyle scored again for Boston to increase the lead to 3-1. The Bruins added a fourth goal with 4:52 left in the second to take a 4-1 lead into the second intermission. It marked the first time all season that the Lightning allowed three goals against in a single period.
"I felt like, in the first, we strung a really good period together," said Pat Maroon. "I thought we could have got out of that period, but they tie it up, even though they had four shots.
"I thought we had the momentum and then we tried to just change our game for some reason and turned pucks over. Then we took some penalties again. That kills our momentum.
"Five-on-five, I thought we were very strong tonight. When you take too many penalties and then you turn pucks over into their transition, you're eventually going to get caught and that's what happened."
We've heard it time and time again throughout Cooper's tenure as head coach, it's hard to come back in this league. It's even harder to come back from a three-goal deficit with 20 minutes to play against a team that was 11-0-0 when leading after two periods this season.
The Bolts just dug themselves too big of a hole heading into the third period trailing by three. But you have to give them credit for playing until the final whistle. In fact, you could easily argue that Tampa Bay was the better team in two of the three periods on Monday. They continue to look strong at five-on-five, which is a great sign for the team moving forward.
David Pastrnak opened the third period scoring with a power-play goal 3:51 into the final frame, but the Lightning answered right back with Rudolfs Balcers getting his first goal as a member of the Bolts in just his second game with the team. Maroon picked up the lone helper when the two combined for a really well-executed give-and-go.
Tampa Bay continued to play hard and made it 5-3 when Paul scored on the power play for his second goal of the night and eighth of the season with 9:22 left. Victor Hedman had the primary assist and Maroon notched his second assist of the period with the secondary helper.
But it was just too little, too late for the Bolts, who dropped the first of four matchups this season against the Bruins 5-3.
"I loved the first," said Cooper. "We were coming out and I thought we dictated play. We had our chances. We did everything we wanted to do.

"We weren't trying to manufacture stuff that wasn't there. We weren't taking a wide array of penalties. We stayed with it and that didn't happen in the second and that's where we have to grow from that."
The Lightning's next opportunity to show that growth will come on Friday night with a matchup against the St. Louis Blues at 8 p.m. ET at AMALIE Arena.
Paul's two goals give him five over his last five contests and he now ranks third among all Lightning skaters with eight on the season. His 13 points (8G, 5A) are tied with Brandon Hagel (5G, 8A) for the sixth-most on the team.
Maroon's two-assist night was his first multi-point game of the season. He's picked up three helpers in his last five contests.
Killorn kept his hot offensive streak rolling with his one assist. He has recorded points in eight of his last 11 games with 12 points (5G, 7A) during that span. His 15 points (6G, 9A) rank fifth among all Lightning skaters, while his six goals are tied for fourth and his nine assists are tied for fifth.
Stamkos continued to rack up points with his one assist, pushing his point streak to five games with eight points (3G, 5A) during that span. He has picked up points in eight of his last 10 games with 12 points (3G, 9A) in the 10 contests. Stamkos's 21 points (10G, 11A) are the second-most on the Lightning. His 10 goals are tied with Nikita Kucherov for the team lead and his 11 assists rank fourth.
Hedman also snapped a six-game pointless streak with one assist, his ninth of the season, which is tied with Killorn for the fifth-most on the team. Hedman's 10 points (1G, 9A) are the eighth-most on the Bolts.