Burns: 3 Things we learned from a 2-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final

The Tampa Bay Lightning are halfway to repeating as Stanley Cup champions.
The Lightning took a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series over the Montreal Canadiens after winning 3-1 in Game 2. The Bolts scored first, surrendered a power-play goal, withstood a furious Montreal push, scored a backbreaking goal right before the second intermission and closed out the victory with a quality third period, punctuated by Ondrej Palat's banked goal off Canadiens goalie Carey Price with about four minutes to go to seal the win.
The Stanley Cup Final moves to Montreal on Friday where the Canadiens will play in front of their home Bell Centre crowd for the first time in the series.

The Lightning held serve at home though, taking both games at AMALIE Arena to grab control.
And the way the Bolts are playing, it feels like the Canadiens will have to increase their play drastically to get back in the series. Tampa Bay is playing at a championship level currently and has all the confidence having gone through last year's Cup run and knowing that if it follows the recipe the coaching staff has provided, the chances of defeat are slim.
"They came out really hot," Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy said. "They're a good team. They were pushing tonight I think the whole game. I think we handled pretty good, they beat us a few times, but in the end, I think we did a good job and our team came out big in the third. It's a great performance by everybody."
The Lightning are up 2-0 in a Stanley Cup Final for the first time in franchise history and improved to 4-0 all-time in Game 2 of a Cup Final.

1. THE MIRACLE, DIVING GOAL
The second period of Game 2, especially the second half of the period after Montreal tied the game 1-1 on Nick Suzuki's power-play goal, was one of the worst stretches the Lightning have played this postseason.
"We probably got outworked that period," McDonagh said, before correcting himself. "We did get outworked, not probably and they outchanced us, outbattled us."
The Lightning were under siege. At times, it seemed inevitable the Canadiens would take the lead. They owned a 29-13 shot advantage through two periods. Only Andrei Vasilevskiy's stellar play in net kept the Lightning from surrendering the lead for the first time in the series.
"Tonight there were peaks and valleys in our game, but Vasy stood tall when we were down," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said.
The end of the period, however, produced one of the most miraculous plays in Lightning playoff history.
It also completely swung the momentum in the game and allowed the Lightning to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
With five seconds remaining in the period, Barclay Goodrow gathered up a loose puck at center ice. He poked the puck ahead to get around Ben Chiarot and enter the offensive zone with speed.
And he had Blake Coleman coming to his left with only Shea Weber in between.
As the seconds dwindled, Goodrow had a decision: Do I shoot or do I have enough time to get the puck over to Coleman, who might have a better chance to score?
"I knew time was tight," Goodrow recalled. "I could hear our bench yelling 'Shoot.'"
He opted to pass instead.
It was the right move.
"I saw Blake driving the net, so figured if I could maybe get it over to him, it probably had a better chance of going in than me trying to shoot from where I was," Goodrow said.
Goodrow backhanded a pass around Chiarot and into a perfect spot for Coleman, who was the only player who had the chance to reach it.
Problem was, he had to dive to get there.
But that's nothing for Coleman. If you recall he scored a diving goal in a Second Round series last playoffs against Boston, taking Zach Bogosian's pass and doing a superman dive to poke the puck into the back of the net.
Coleman almost the same play in Game 2 to ignite AMALIE Arena.
"Literally in my head, I'm like 'Did he just do that again?' I know a little bit different scenarios, but it was remarkably similar," Cooper said. "Just the timing was epic."
Coleman dove forward to get on the puck, swept at it with his stick and lifted it just enough to beat Montreal goalie Carey Price to regain the lead 2-1 for the Lightning. Officially the goal came at 19:58. On replay, it looked like it crossed the line with 1.1 seconds to play in the period.
"I knew the clock was winding down, but I saw Goodie make that heads up play in the neutral zone, a little poke past their D, and I just tried to do everything I could to give him an option," Coleman said. "Incredible area pass from him. Fortunately, we beat the clock."
After that goal, the Lightning never looked back. They absorbed Montreal's pressure in the third period, applied some pressure of their own and sealed the win when Ondrej Palat intercepted a pass behind the Montreal net and banked a shot in off Price with 4:18 to go.
"Goodie couldn't have put it in a better spot," Coleman said of the momentum-shifting goal, which ended up being the game-winner too, the first of his career in the playoffs. "I don't know why these goals happen, but it was a big one for our team. I don't think any of us were very happy with our second period up to that point. Gave us a little bit of a boost going into the third."

2. VASILEVSKIY'S VEZINA SNUB
The evening before Game 2, the National Hockey League announced its major award winners for the 2020-21 regular season.
Victor Hedman lost out in his bid for a second Norris Trophy, the New York Rangers' Adam Fox earning the hardware after an incredible 47-point season in his rookie year, an understandable outcome.
What was hard to stomach, however, was watching Andrei Vasilevskiy overlooked for the Vezina Trophy in favor of Marc-Andre Fleury, despite Vasilevskiy finishing with five more wins than the Vegas goalie. The vote was close. Fleury finished with 108 points in voting compared to Vasilevskiy's 99. Fleury earned 14 first-place votes to Vasilevskiy's 12. Inexplicably, three NHL GMs didn't even have Vasilevskiy on their ballot, deeming him unworthy of a first, second or third-place vote.
The Vezina is a regular season award but wonder how many of those GMs wanted a redo after watching Vasilevskiy's performance in Game 2 Wednesday night?
Vasilevskiy made 42-of-43 saves to backstop the Lightning to their third-straight win. The Bolts have won five in a row at home now behind Vasilevskiy for their longest playoff home win streak in the same postseason.
Vasilevskiy recorded his sixth career playoff outing with 40-plus saves, already the most by a Lightning goaltender in franchise history. His four performances with 40 or more saves over the last two postseasons are also the most among all goaltenders, ahead of Darcy Kuemper and Semyon Varlamov (both with 3).
"Backbone of this team," Ryan McDonagh said of Vasilevskiy and his Game 2 performance. "Can't say enough good things about him. We certainly want to make it a little bit easier of a night than we had to for him. Man, he's an absolute warrior and competitor and was probably the biggest piece of our win here tonight."
Vasilevskiy made an early save on Nick Suzuki on a partial break, poking the puck away as Suzuki neared and before he could get his shot off, signaling how difficult he was going to be to beat. He was particularly needed in the second period when the Lightning were reeling after giving up the tying goal. The Canadiens continued to pressure the Lightning net and had numerous great scoring chances.
But Vasilevskiy was there to deny them all. Maybe most impressive was how calm he looked in net doing so.
Certainly had to be unnerving for Montreal to put some much pressure on the opposing net and come up empty.
"There were some remarkable individual performances tonight, one by Vasy and Coleman and a couple other guys," Cooper said. "But it definitely was an unremarkable team game we had going on. Vasy, we're used to seeing this from him. He definitely gave us a chance to win tonight."
He's given the Lightning a chance to win every game this postseason. The Lightning have allowed just 13 combined goals over the last 10 games. Vasilevskiy has given up two or fewer goals in eight of his last 10 starts.
Fleury may have won the Vezina.
But Vasilevskiy's team is still playing. And is beating the team Fleury's team couldn't overcome in the Semifinal Round.
You tell me who's the best goalie in the NHL.

3. AN UNREMARKABLE TEAM GAME, BUT A REMARKABLE WIN
Jon Cooper said the Lightning had some great individual performances in the Game 2 victory but, collectively, his team had better in it.
So what must Montreal be feeling to dominate a second period the way it did, play much better than it did in Game 1 and still end up with the same result?
"Montreal had a vote in why we didn't play great," Cooper said. "It wasn't just on us. They had a plan and they stuck to it, so that's part of what goes on here. It's two really good hockey teams out there. You're just fighting to who can win four first. Even in our run last year and our run this year, I can circle periods and I can circle games where it's just like, the other team's running your show or you're feeling on your heels. It hasn't happened often, but it does happen."
The first period was evenly played, although the Canadiens outshot the Lightning 13-6. Montreal had a four-minute power play after Ryan McDonagh was called for a double minor high-sticking penalty, part of which was played at 4-on-3. The Canadiens were a bit too lackadaisical in their approach, however, and the Lightning were able to get through what could have been a potentially game-changing sequence unscathed, killing off the final minute-and-a-half of the penalty to start the second period.
The Bolts scored the opening goal at 6:40 of the second, Anthony Cirelli ripping a shot from the point that Price couldn't find until the last moment, the puck going off his blocker pad and into the back of the net to put the Lightning ahead 1-0, the second time in two games this series they've netted the first goal.
Tampa Bay has been near unbeatable when scoring first this postseason, improving to 14-2 when doing so.
But Montreal tied the game 1-1 on Suzuki's power-play goal about four minutes later. McDonagh looked to have the shot in his sights to block away, but he missed it with his stick and Vasilevskiy was caught off guard, allowing the puck to slip in.
Montreal has scored two goals through two games in the series, both coming on fluky plays.
After the Lightning survived the Canadiens push to close the second and regained the lead, they controlled play in the third. The Canadiens finished with a 43-23 shot advantage, but none of those chances were all too troubling for Vasilevskiy. And the defense did a remarkable job blocking shots down low, clearing pucks away and not giving the Canadiens second-chance opportunities.
Make no mistake, the Lightning didn't play their best in Game 2. They were better in Game 1.
But the result was the same, a victory that has them up 2-0 as the series shifts to Montreal for Game 3 on Friday.
"We're fortunate right now that we're up two," Cooper said. "This series has got a lot of runway left on it. We know we've got better in us. I'm sure Montreal's thinking the same thing. Let's move on and go to Game 3."