Burns: 3 Things we learned from leveling the serires 2-2

Following his team's 4-2 victory over the Washington Capitals to head back to Tampa with the Eastern Conference Final tied 2-2, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said his team didn't have "it's A game" in Game 4.
Fortunately for the Lightning, they had their A goaltender, Andrei Vasilevskiy.

The Vezina Trophy finalist stopped all but two of the shots he faced Thursday night and came up with brilliant save after brilliant save when the Lightning were reeling and in danger of falling behind in the second period.
Vasilevskiiy kept the Lightning in Game 4, giving the Bolts time to find their rhythm again in the third period, Alex Killorn netting the game-winner with 8:03 to play to stun the disbelieving Capital One Arena crowd and get the Bolts back even in the series.
No team has won at home through the first four games of the Conference Final series.
The Lightning will attempt to become the first when they host the Capitals Saturday in Game 5 (7:15 p.m. puck drop).
The Bolts have all the momentum now having won two-straight in the series after dropping the opening two games. How'd they get there?
We'll examine in Three Things we learned from leveling the series.

1. BIG CAT RESCUE
Andrei Vasilevskiy has had plenty of First Star performances throughout his career both in the regular season and the playoffs.
None, however, may top his thievery Thursday night.
Quite simply, the Lightning likely get blown out in Game 4 without Vasilevskiy in net.
When asked if Vasilevskiy's 36-of-38 save night was his finest as a member of the Lightning, Tyler Johnson said: "I don't know about that. There's too many to count to be honest with you. It's got to be up there though."
The second period was a nightmare for the Lightning. After entering the second with a 2-1 lead, the Bolts quickly lost it. Evgeny Kuznetsov got loose down the left wing with speed and was able to beat Vasilevskiy five hole to level the score 2-2 a little over five minutes into the middle frame.
The rest of the period was spent mostly in the Bolts' defensive end, with the Caps firing away at the Lightning net and Vasilevskiy standing on his head to keep all the shots out.
Numerous times, the Caps must have thought they scored the go-ahead goal. Tom Wilson carried the puck into the zone on the right wing on a 3-on-2 and had a good look at the net.
Vasilevskiy denied him.
Chandler Stephenson had an unreal chance on an open one-timer in front of the goal.
Vasilevskiy stretched the left leg to deny him.
"Vasy was able to bail us out," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "That's why he's one of the best goalies in the world. He's given us a chance throughout the year when we haven't had our best, and tonight was another example of that."
In the third, the game still tied 2-2, Brett Connolly was wide open in front to bat a bouncing puck out of the air.
Vasilevskiy snatched it out of the air with a swipe of his glove.
"You love your games when you don't really need your goaltender and your teams playing well in front of you, but when you don't have your A game, you need your goalie to have his A game," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said.
"And he sure did."

2. SURVIVING THE SECOND
The second period was all about survival for the Lightning. Nothing went right for them in the period. A lot of the issues that plagued them in losses in Games 1 and 2 reappeared in the second period, and the Capitals controlled the action throughout the middle 20 minutes.
As mentioned earlier, Vasilevekiy bailed the Lightning out of the second, only giving up the one goal when his net was under siege the entire period.
Part of the Bolts' poor effort in the second stemmed from the number of penalties they had to kill in the first - three to be exact.
That constant pressure of killing late in the first took its toll in the second, and the Lightning looked gassed for the duration.
"That's a lot of stress, mental stress," Cooper said. "The same guys are on the ice the whole time. Other guys aren't playing. You lose your rhythm. I look at Brayden Point's ice time, I don't know if he had three minutes after the first period. All the guys, they just weren't getting on the ice. I think that affected our second. Give Washington a ton of credit, they pushed, they pushed. We were holding on."
A funny thing happened in that disastrous second period, however, a glimmer of hope for the Lightning. Despite getting completely outplayed, the fact they only gave up one goal and entered the locker room for the second intermission still tied 2-2 gave the team a lift heading into the third.
All they had to do was win one period, the final period, and the misfortunes of the second period wouldn't even matter.
"We're not kidding ourselves, we knew we had a lot better than that second period," Stamkos said. "We got behind the eight ball with three or four penalties in a row. It just sucks the life right out of you, gives them a ton of momentum. But I think our penalty kill was outstanding tonight. Again, special teams is critical for us and it gave us a chance. We knew going into the third, we just had a chance. Forget what happened in the first and the second and just go out and hope for the best and it worked. We got it."

3. A QUICK RESPONSE
Entering Game 4, the team that scored first in the Eastern Conference Final series went on to win the game.
So when Dmitry Orlov blasted a shot past Vasilevskiy from the left circle just 4:28 into the game, the odds were against a Lightning comeback.
The Bolts, however, didn't have to hang their heads for long.
Just 1:10 after Orlov opened scoring, Brayden Point got the Lightning right back in the game, converting a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing sequence between Johnson to Yanni Gourde and Gourde to Point to tap into the net for his third-straight game in the series with a marker and a 1-1 game.
The quick answer kept the crowd from getting too energized from the opening goal, and it kept the Lightning from having to test the boundaries of their structure to try to get back in the game.
A couple minutes later, the Bolts were awarded the game's first power play when Lars Eller was whistled for holding Nikita Kucherov at center ice.
The Lightning power play went to work, J.T. Miller finding Point in the slot, and Point sliding a puck over to Stamkos on the back post to hammer home.
"You're more just kind of to relieve pressure," Point said. "Sometimes when you have Kuch and Stammer taking one-timers, that kind of opens you up a little bit. I think on that play, that's what happened. I think Miller found me there, the first pass I tried hits the guys skate. Lucky enough, it just bounces back to me, I push it over to Stammer and he makes a great shot."
Stamkos became Tampa Bay's all-time leading playoff power-play goal scorer, registering No. 11 of his career, passing Martin St. Louis.
The Lightning went in front 2-1, holding that advantage into the second period.
Tampa Bay's power play has connected at least once in nine-straight games, establishing a new franchise mark for most consecutive games scoring a power-play goal, bettering the mark of eight from the 2004 Stanley Cup run.
"It's tough to score 5-on-5, especially in the playoffs. Guys are playing really tight defense and not giving you a ton of space, so when you get those opportunities, you never know how many you're going to get," Point said. "It's important to make them count. Lucky enough, throughout the playoffs and the series, we've done that. Hopefully it just continues that way."