Burns: 3 Things we learned from a dramatic Game 2 win

The Tampa Bay Lightning have shown a resilience in the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs unmatched during Jon Cooper's tenure as head coach.
Earlier this postseason, the Lightning lost key defensemen Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh to injury but found a way to overcome their loss. They've been without captain Steven Stamkos for the duration but haven't let his absence slow them down.
The Bolts won a five overtime in Game 1 of the First Round, which came against the team that swept them unceremoniously from the previous playoffs in the opening round. They were down a game and a goal in Game 2 of a Second Round series against the Presidents' Trophy-winning Boston Bruins and had a tying goal taken off the board and still found a way to rally.
Wednesday's performance in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Final, however, might have been their grandest display of perseverance yet.

Trailing early after Matt Martin scored 1:24 into the game, the Lightning, already down to 11 forwards after going 11/7 for the sixth-consecutive game, lost Alex Killorn for the contest after he was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct for boarding Brock Nelson. In the second period, the Lightning lost another forward when Brayden Point, their leading scorer this postseason, went to the locker room early in the middle frame and didn't return, leaving them with just nine forwards to finish the game.
And yet, the Lightning just kept chipping away, stuck with the game plan, made the smart, simple plays and were rewarded, that coming when Nikita Kucherov scored a dramatic game-winning goal with nine seconds remaining in Game 2 to break a 1-1 tie and give the Lightning a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference Final against the New York Islanders.
"There's no quit in our group," said Ryan McDonagh, who set up Kucherov's game-winner. "We've got a lot of gutsy players, and it's fun to be a part of the group for sure."
Tampa Bay has never held a 2-0 lead in an Eastern Conference Final until now, the Lightning going 0-3 in Game 2 of the ECF when opening the series with a win.
They'll have a chance to take a 3-0 lead when the series continues Friday with Game 3, puck drop set for 8 p.m.

1. MAINTAINING EYE CONTACT
Game 2 seemed destined for overtime. Down to the final minute with the game still deadlocked 1-1, the Lightning appeared sluggish, the physical nature of the contest combined with only having nine forwards taking its toll on the group.
A late surge, however, brought the Lightning the win late in regulation.
With 23 seconds left, Yanni Gourde received a pass as he skated into the offensive zone and fired off a backhander from the slot with Ryan Pulock on his back that Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov was able to kick out.
Gourde retrieved the puck and got it to Nikita Kucherov, who spotted Ondrej Palat open in the slot and threaded the needle to get the puck on his stick. Varlamov got a piece of Palat's shot with his glove to tip it wide of the net, another good opportunity for the Bolts thwarted.
With time winding down, the Lightning were still buzzing around the net. Ryan McDonagh came down into the zone along the left wall to cut off a rim around. Seeing Kucherov on the opposite post and taking a stride back to get out of the reach of a defender, McDonagh seamed a cross-ice pass to the lower left circle and Kucherov one-timed it past Varlamov to give the Lightning the late winner.
"I saw Mac was coming down low and picking up the puck," Kucherov said post game, explaining the game-winning play. "Kind of made eye contact with him, and I knew what he's going to do and he probably knew what I was going to do. So, he made a nice pass across the ice, and all I had to do was hit the open net. Hell of a play by him."
McDonagh did know what Kucherov was going to do. But it turns out, Kucherov didn't do what McDonagh thought he would do but what McDonagh wanted him to do.
"Made a little eye contact with Kuch there and was just hoping he was going to stay a little bit closer to the back post," McDonagh said. "Sometimes he likes to fade out a little bit higher toward the hash marks. Just trying to put the puck to the net, and Kuch did a great job finishing it off. Huge win, no doubt."
On the bench, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper punched the air in front of him with his fist three times in one of the most emphatic bench celebrations of his career.
"I think I blacked out at that time. I'm not sure what I did," Cooper said. "I think I was looking up to be honest after Palat missed that chance, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, there's a good one we just missed.' And then Kuch scored. But, yeah, that was a blackout moment for me."
The reaction was justified. The Lightning gutted out a win they probably shouldn't have been able to. The Islanders played a much better game in a bounce-back effort after a poor performance in Game 1 and had to feel pretty good about their play until the end. The fact they still lost on a late goal when they'd held the Lightning to 10 shots through two periods, had a five-minute power play and then over 30 seconds of a 5-on-3 in the third period with the game tied has to be extremely demoralizing.
And on the other bench, it was extremely uplifting for the Lightning.
"That's why you play the game, as a team there all that hard work, preparation from the coaching staff down to every player, we're all working toward the same goal, the ultimate goal," McDonagh said. "Dramatic finish like that, it's a fun moment to be a part of. Our group wants to continue those good moments here, continue to gain confidence."

2. RESILIENCE TESTED YET AGAIN
Tampa Bay suffered a major blow early in Game 2 when Alex Killorn was assessed a five-minute major for boarding Brock Nelson 5:55 into the first period.
Upon review, Killorn was handed a game misconduct too and tossed from the game.
"One of your top six forwards who plays on the power play and the penalty kill misses the entire game," Cooper said.
Early in the second period, the Lightning suffered another setback, Brayden Point heading down the tunnel and into the locker room. He wouldn't play the rest of the game, the Lightning down to nine forwards for basically the final 40 minutes.
"That's a long stretch to go with just nine," Cooper said.
But the Lightning never strayed from the game plan. They went down to three lines, the forward groups jumbled from how they originally stacked up at the beginning of the game, Cooper's penchant for using different combinations of players throughout the regular season paying off in the moment as the chemistry between players didn't seem to suffer.
The Bolts tried to keep their shifts as short as possible. They leaned heavily on their seven defensemen. The Lightning ended up defending as a group more than they would like but did so smartly. They didn't make risky plays to try to generate offense, which was lacking at times with the forward group depleted.
"Just stick to our game and stick to playing the right way," Kucherov said. "It's not easy to play with nine guys. We just had to be disciplined defensively and wait for our chances. PK was huge tonight and Vasy did a hell of a job. We just waited for our chance, and we got rewarded."
The fact Point was one of the forwards lost made it an even tougher setback to overcome. He's been their best forward this postseason, maybe the best forward in the NHL in the 2020 Playoffs. He entered Game 2 on a seven-game point streak, which followed a six-game point streak to start the postseason. He scored two goals and added three assists in Game 1 to share the Lightning playoff record for most points in a game with Kucherov, who also had five points in Game 1. His ability to create was a major problem for the Islanders in the series opener.
His loss would have a two-fold effect: It gave the Islanders a jolt of confidence that the Lightning were without one of their best players, and it made the Lightning less dynamic offensively.
"As forwards, you don't want to change your game. You don't want to try to do too much just because you're missing Pointer," Blake Coleman said. "Obviously, he gives us a lot of offense and a lot of punch, but everybody's got a role on this team and you don't want to stray from it just because you're missing a guy. I thought we played real simple. We started getting pucks in and behind them. There wasn't a real secret sauce to it, it was just work hard, compete, play the right way and hope we get rewarded."
That reward came when Kucherov found the back of the net with nine seconds left.
"In the end, it was gutty. It's what that effort was, it was gutty," Cooper said."

3. THE DIFFERENCE-MAKING PENALTY KILL
One of the areas the Lightning wanted to clean up from Game 1 was the number of penalties they took, which gave the Islanders five power plays, the Isles scoring on one.
In Game 2, the Bolts put their penalty kill under even more pressure, but the unit responded with maybe its best performance of the playoffs and was the difference in the game according to McDonagh.
Already leading 1-0, the Islanders had a golden opportunity to increase their lead on the five-minute power play that was a result of Killorn's boarding penalty against Martin.
The Islanders had a few chances but not many. The penalty kill did outstanding work holding the puck up at the blue line when the Isles tried to enter the offensive zone. When New York was able to get set up, the Lightning chased the puck relentlessly and never allowed the Islanders to get comfortable.
And when things did break down and the Islanders were able to get a decent look, Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy stood tall in his net to hold them at bay.
"The first period five-minute major that we killed off definitely kind of got us some momentum and allowed us to reset there and get going on the forechecking game for us," McDonagh said.
Later in the first period with the Lightning now settled, Victor Hedman rocketed a shot from the left point that beat Varlamov and tied the game 1-1.
With the game still deadlocked by that score in the third period, the Islanders got another prime scoring opportunity when McDonagh and Cedric Paquette were whistled for back-to-back penalties, giving the Isles 38 seconds of a 5-on-3 advantage. Tampa Bay didn't give up a shot down two men, even with two of its top penalty killers sitting in the penalty box, and the Lightning were able to escape the situation unscathed.
"I think they were both key moments," McDonagh said of the two penalty kill situations.
The PK might have been the difference in the game. And Vasilevskiy was Tampa Bay's best penalty killer. His confidence in net gives the Lightning a feeling that no matter what situation they find themselves in, their goaltender is going to bail them out.
"He's the backbone and a huge part of our run so far this playoffs," McDonagh said. "…We know we're going to make mistakes, and we feel really confident back there. He's like a third defenseman too on the breakout. That's been huge for us. We want to just continue to do our best allowing him to see the puck. When he's making game-changing saves, it only makes us want to work that much harder for him."