Burns: 3 Things we learned from a series-clinching win

Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper reminded his team the day prior to Game 5 of the First Round versus Columbus that the fourth and final win in a playoff series is always the toughest one to get.

Boy was it ever.

Tampa Bay fell behind 4-2 by the midpoint of the third period and seemed headed for a Game 6 against the Blue Jackets. But the Lightning rediscovered the game that got them a 3-1 series lead heading into Game 5 late in the third period, Kevin Shattenkirk driving a blast from the top of the right circle to cut the deficit to a goal and Anthony Cirelli redirecting a puck past Columbus goalie Joonas Korpisalo with the Lightning net empty and 1:38 remaining to force overtime.

It didn't take five overtimes to produce a winner like Game 1, just five minutes. Nikita Kucherov intercepted a pass deep in the offensive zone and swung the puck to a wide-open Brayden Point in the slot.

Forehand, backhand, ballgame.

"The guys just stayed positive all the way through, and it ended up working out for us," Cooper said postgame.

For just the second time in franchise history, the Lightning rallied from a multiple goal deficit in the third period to win a playoff game.

The other?

Game 4 in the 2015 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals at Detroit, when Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat rescued the Lightning in the dying minutes and Johnson won it in overtime when it looked like the Lightning were going to go down 3-1 in the series.

The Lightning certainly didn't play their best hockey in Game 5 versus Columbus. But they found a way to win the game, and, really, that's all that matters.

"Even once we went down by two, I still think that we kept our attitude in the right frame of mind and we were resilient," Lightning defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. "We just waited for our chances and knew they would come."

1. EXORCISING THE DEMONS
The Lightning reiterated throughout the First Round series that last year's playoff sweep to Columbus was last year and had no bearing on this year's series.

Two totally different teams would be facing each other in 2020.

But after Point netted the game-winner, sparking a celebration on the ice very similar to the once seen from the epic Game 1 win in the series, after the teams went through the customary handshake line, Cooper turned around and pumped an exultant fist in the air.

Cooper was asked after the game how much pent-up frustration was behind that fist pump.

"More than you'll know," he answered. "I guess if you saw that, you'll pretty much know how I felt."

The Lightning had waited all season to rectify the wrongs from their stunning four-game sweep at the hands of the Blue Jackets a year earlier, a historic regular season when they tied the NHL record for wins wasted in less than a week.

"We had 422 days to think about it, but who's counting?" Cooper said.

The Lightning said all the right things before their rematch with Columbus. But deep down, there had to be a wide array of emotions facing the Blue Jackets again. Trepidation that what happened before against Columbus could certainly happen again. Optimism that this year the Lightning were truly a different team, and this would be a perfect opportunity to prove it.

But more than anything, it was this feeling that the Lightning would get a chance at redemption to atone for last year's playoff failures.

"It's funny how the hockey gods work," Cooper said. "To go through what we did last year, just second guessing a lot of things we did, then go through the season and have the pause and everything that's happened and then to end up during reseeding and new rules and all those things and still end up playing the same team, it's easy to sit up here and say you wanted this now but it was good to get them and good to get this result. But a lot of learning went into last year. We had to grow as a team. And we didn't necessarily tweak how we played the game. I don't know if it was as much our structure as it was between the ears. All of us collectively from the coaching staff all the way down had to be a little harder. We had to be better. And we had to train ourselves to play a little bit of a different way. And we did."

The Lightning slayed the dragon that ended their season so abruptly last postseason.

Now that they no longer have last year's playoffs hanging over their head, they can get around to writing their own ending to the 2020 season.

2. HITTING RESET
The second period was by far the worst period the Lightning have played during the 2020 Playoffs.

It might have been the worst period they played all season.

The Lightning played a near-perfect 10 minutes of Game 5 to jump out to an important lead and were still comfortably in front heading into the second up 2-1.

But their game started to show cracks toward the end of the opening period.

When the second started, the dam breached and the Lightning were nearly washed away completely.

Columbus was relentless on its forecheck and didn't allow the Lightning out of their own end. The Blue Jackets had the puck nearly the entire period. What Tampa Bay did to Columbus at the end of Game 3, holding the Blue Jackets to seven shots over the final two periods and maintain possession to keep the puck away from their opponent, the Blue Jackets were able to do to Tampa Bay in the second. Columbus held a 24-8 advantage for shots in the period.

The numerous penalties against the Lightning didn't help either - Columbus had six power plays in the game, the Bolts zero - but Columbus took complete control of the game, scoring twice, including Alexander Wennberg's goal with 16 seconds left in the period, to take a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.

The Lightning were lucky to get out of the second period only down a goal, thanks to the heroics of Andrei Vasilevskiy, who played arguably his best game of the First Round despite giving up a series-high four goals.

The break could not have come quick enough for the Lightning, who needed a reset.

"We were playing on our heels a bit," Shattenkirk said. "You have to also realize that they're playing for their lives out there, playing for their season. That's the Columbus team that everyone knows so well. But we got out of there with luckily only a one-goal deficit. We were able to come back in between the second and third and regroup and get our heads back together."

Blake Coleman said Cooper gave a "composed" speech to the team during the break, reminding them of how they built a 3-1 lead in the series and reassuring them they were down only a goal with 20 minutes left to play. Coleman also said Shattenkirk was instrumental stepping up in the room and providing a veteran voice to calm the team when it needed it.

"We were pretty frustrated, but I have to give Shatty a lot of credit. We needed someone to step up and say something. He did," Johnson said. "Kind of got the guys rallying, kind of got us to reset. And then he went out there and got a big goal for us too."

Cooper said Shattenkirk's leadership was one of the many reasons he was brought to the team in the offseason.

In a pivotal moment, he was the voice the Lightning leaned on to lead them to their comeback win.

"You build guys up in these situations for times like this," Cooper said. "And then you see the guys that rise up to the occasion. I wasn't in there. I'm only in (the locker room) for a few minutes in between periods, but there's a reason some of these guys were brought in. And there's a reason we've done some of the things we've done with guys that have kind of pushed our team and helped our team in experience and leadership-wise. And Shatty is definitely one of them. He's invaluable when it comes to being inside the room."

3. THE COMEBACK
Even with Cooper reassuring the team and Shattenkirk reinvigorating their spirit, the Lightning were still on the back foot for the start of the third period and found themselves trailing by two goals when Oliver Bjorkstrand scored his third goal of the series at 9:33 of the final frame.

With half of the third elapsed, the Lightning found their deficit growing, not shrinking.

"Some things have got to stay in the room," Cooper said when asked what he said to his team in the second intermission. "I guess the only thing I'll say is we had to refocus. It's my job to get them to do that. In the end we went down 4-2, so I don't know how much it worked."

The Lightning challenged the Bjorkstrand goal, hoping that maybe Pierre-Luc Dubois had tripped Vasilevskiy with his skate, causing the Lightning goalie to fall.

It was more of a hopeful challenge than anything. Mikhail Sergachev's skate actually pushed Dubois into Vasilevskiy, and Columbus went on a power play after the challenge was unsuccessful.

The Blue Jackets had a chance to put the game out of reach.

Instead, they ended up giving the Lightning life.

"As that period started to grow, it's funny, we did a goalie challenge, it's unsuccessful. But we had a great kill," Cooper said. "…Funny how it works, we got a little bit of energy from that kill and the guys just stayed positive all the way through, and it ended up working out for us."

In addition to leadership, Shattenkirk provided an enormous goal for the Lightning, blasting a shot from the top of the right circle past Korpisalo with 7:59 remaining to cut the deficit to a goal. It was a similar scoring play to the one he produced for the game-winner in Game 4 when he shot from nearly an identical spot and Yanni Gourde got a tip on it for the score.

This time Shattenkirk did it all on his own, and suddenly the Lightning had a little bit of jump in them.

"I was trying to make up for pressing a little too hard on their fourth goal and looking for a little offense early," Shattenkirk said. "I think the entire play in general was just us finally cashing in and making the right reads and sticking to our game plan. You get a goal like that and you close the lead to just one goal with still a fair amount of time left, it certainly gives the team a little bit of life. That could have come from anyone. It could have been anyone on the ice or anyone on the bench to get it. That was all we were thinking there was just get one and keep going."

The Lightning were running out of time though. With under two minutes remaining in regulation, Vasilevskiy sprinted for the bench, giving the Lightning the extra attacker but leaving the net empty. The puck never left the zone once the Bolts got it past the blue line. With 1:38 remaining, Point got the puck on the side of the net with traffic in front. He threw a puck toward the front, and the puck bounced off the skate of Anthony Cirelli and redirected into the open net to tie the game 4-4.

At that point, Columbus was stunned. The Blue Jackets had played by far their best game of the series, were in complete control with less than 10 minutes to go and yet surrendered the lead and had to play another overtime. A Lightning win in the extra session seemed inevitable.

"We felt really good about ourselves in that last seven minutes and then when we came within one and then when we tied it," Cooper said. "I think the one shot that Palat took with about 30 seconds left from distance that went through their goalie, I think the guys, we were rolling. We were budding with confidence. I look at that game, and let's be honest, that first 10 minutes we were all over them and things are looking pretty good, like we can end this thing, and probably for the next 45 (minutes) it's all Columbus. And we're trying to put out fires and we can't do it and we dig deep and we find a way down two goals with seven minutes to go to turn the tide and like I said off a big penalty kill on the goalie challenge, but we were feeling good when we tied it we could end this."

With one turnover by Kucherov and one well-placed backhanded shot by Point, the Lightning did finally end it, capping one of the more improbable playoff wins in franchise history.

Now they await the conclusion of the remainder of the Eastern Conference playoff series to find out their opponent in the Second Round.

"I think the main goal is we've gotten out of the First Round so far, but there's still a lot more work to be done," Johnson said. "We're feeling good about ourselves. We're feeling good about our game, but it's just going to keep getting tougher from here so everyone's going to have to dig in a little more. We're all striving for the same goal."