Burns: 3 Things we learned from a blowout loss to Ottawa

It's likely the Tampa Bay Lightning would rather just turn the page on Tuesday's ugly 7-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators at AMALIE Arena and move on to the next game.

The Lightning suffered their worst defeat since getting waxed 6-2 in Edmonton on February 5. The fact both of those blowout losses have come at the hands of two of the worst teams record-wise in the NHL probably says a little something about how seriously the Bolts took their opponent in both of those games.
Tampa Bay wasted J.T. Miller's first career hat trick and Ryan McDonagh's first goal as a member of the Lightning in defeat. Andrei Vasilevskiy, who was hoping to set the Bolts' all-time franchise record for wins in a season with a victory Tuesday, was instead chased from the game to start the third period after giving up six goals. The seven total goals put up by Ottawa were the most the Lightning have allowed since giving up seven to the Philadelphia Flyers on January 12, 2015.
Tampa Bay will get three days to reflect on and recover from the loss to the Senators before a pivotal Atlantic Division showdown with the Boston Bruins, who rallied from three goals down in the third period in Carolina to win 6-4 and cut the Lightning's lead in the division to four points.
1. IT'S MILLER TIME
Let's go ahead and get the lone positive from Tuesday's game out of the way.

J.T. Miller has proven to be a magnificent pickup for the Lightning for a guy who was an afterthought to the trade deadline deal for Ryan McDonagh.
Coming into the Ottawa contest, Miller had scored in four of his six games with the Lightning and was rewarded with a spot at left wing on the Bolts' top line with Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.
Against the Senators, those three connected seamlessly to form a line that was a danger to score every time they were on the ice.
A little over four minutes into the game, the Lightning struck first, Stamkos spotting Miller on the far post and setting up the newly-acquired forward for a one-timer he could bury in the back of the net for his first goal of the game and a 1-0 Tampa Bay lead.
In the second period with the Lightning down 3-1, Miller connected on a power play, gathering the rebound from Nikita Kucherov's shot and waiting a tick to pick his spot before firing past Ottawa goalie Mike Condon to cut the Bolts' deficit to a goal.
Later in the period on another power play, Stamkos centered a pass from the left circle into the blue paint where Miller was waiting with his stick on the ice to simply redirect the puck past Condon and bring the Lightning to within 5-3.
Miller's hat trick was the first of his career and the second one this season for the Lightning, joining Tyler Johnson (Jan. 9 vs. Carolina).
Since coming over to the Lightning, Miller has posted five goals and four assists through seven games and is averaging over a point a game.
Not bad for a player who wasn't even the primary target of the Lightning in their trade deadline deal with the New York Rangers.
2. INCONSISTENT PENALTY KILL CONTINUES
Ottawa entered Tuesday's game ranked 27th in the NHL on the power play, but that dubious ranking didn't prevent the Senators from scoring on both of their power-play opportunities against the Lightning.
Both goals were killers for the Bolts to give up too.

After Magnus Paajarvi tied the game 1-1 at 7:47 of the opening period, Ryan Dzingel converted Ottawa's first power-play chance three minutes later to give the Senators a lead they wouldn't relinquish the rest of the game.
On the scoring play, Dzingel snapped a shot from the left dot over the left shoulder of Andrei Vasilevskiy, picking out the far upper corner and blistering a shot into that spot.
"It's just getting the job done," Lightning forward Chris Kunitz said following the loss. "It doesn't matter how it happens or why it happens. You go through stretches where you've got a lot of blocks and the puck goes in the corner and for whatever reason lately, we're just not working hard enough to get the bounces to help our way. If they go the other way, that's something that we have to be more committed to doing everything we can. We've got to outwork that power play and make it tough for them to put pucks to the net."
Ottawa's second power-play goal was a real backbreaker, Marian Gaborik scoring roughly five minutes after Miller's second goal got the Lightning to within 3-2 early in the second period. Ottawa moved the puck effectively to make the Lightning penalty kill scramble, and Gaborik found himself open in the left circle to shoot past Vasilevskiy and push the Senators' lead back to two goals.
"Maybe I could have blocked that first one," Bolts defenseman Anton Stralman said about the two power-play goals allowed. "The second one is a little scramble up top that they find the puck and execute a nice play, they go across seam a couple times. Stuff like that's going to happen. I think we're doing a lot of good things on the PK, maybe not always getting rewarded for it. That just comes down to the small details."
The Lightning have given up a power-play goal in 10 of their last 11 games, a stat they'll need to correct in time for a potential playoff run.
3. GOALS AGAINST BALLOONING
Through the first half of the season and into the start of the second half, the Lightning were one of the best defensive teams in the NHL, their goals against ranking in the top five for most of that timeframe.
A look at their goals against presently compared to the rest of the league shows the Bolts outside the top 10 and tied with Minnesota for 11th place.
What was once a strength for Tampa Bay has turned into a concern.
Particularly after giving up seven goals to an Ottawa team ranked in the bottom third of the league for goals per game.
"It was disappointing," Stralman said. "Playing a team coming off the back-to-back, allowing seven goals is unacceptable. It's hard to win games letting up that many goals. You just can't do it."
In the last six games, the Lightning have allowed three or more goals in five. That they won all of them prior to tonight's game masked some of the deficiencies the Bolts had been showing in their defensive game of late.
Not any more.
Tampa Bay's inability to keep pucks out of its own net is a growing concern and one it will have to address in earnest during the next three days of practice before a critical divisional matchup with the surging Bruins.
"Anytime you give up seven goals, we've got to look within," Kunitz said. "We've got to dig deeper and commit to being a better, sound team…We just can't have our goalies bail us out like we were earlier in the year. And we're paying for it now. We have to become a better group, a better 60-minute team, and it's something that's going to take some work."
That work begins Wednesday at practice when the Lightning try to figure out what went wrong against Ottawa and correct those mistakes.