Burns: 3 Things we learned from shutting out the Stars

The Tampa Bay Lightning have made a habit this season of bouncing back from poor performances.
Two nights ago in Brooklyn, the Lightning weren't ready at the opening puck drop, gave up three goals in the first five minutes to dig themselves a near-impossible hole to climb out of and failed to make much of a dent in the deficit in a 5-1 loss to the New York Islanders.
Their play in Dallas Tuesday to conclude a three-game road trip was more of what we're used to seeing from the Bolts.

Tampa Bay exited the opening period with a 1-0 lead, survived a second period where they spent most of the 20 minutes in the penalty box and relied on a sensational performance by goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to blank the Stars 2-0 at American Airlines Center and improve to 36-9-2 (74 pts.) on the season.
Remarkably, the Lightning have only lost back-to-back games once this season, that coming at the beginning of November. They've been able to squelch losing streaks before they even get off the ground.
How were they able to do so again in Dallas?
Here are Three Things we learned from the Lightning's shutout of the Stars.

1. VASY BOUNCES BACK
When Andrei Vasilevskiy loses a game, especially this season, you can almost guarantee he's going to come back with an extremely strong performance his next time out.
Tuesday was no different.
After giving up four goals on 27 shots in Brooklyn, Vasilevskiy rebounded with one of his strongest outings of the season, keeping the Stars off the scoreboard despite the Bolts spending over 10 minutes on the penalty kill.
"Our goaltender played outstanding," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "We know he's going to bounce back after an effort that isn't acceptable up to his standards in his mind and he always bounces back and finds a way. He was huge. He was first star for a reason."
Vasilevskiy is now 6-0-0 in starts this season following his loss. His combined save percentage in those six starts?
.972
He's given up a combined six goals in six starts following a loss. In all but one of those starts, he's been forced to make over 30 saves. He's recorded shutouts in each of his last two games following a loss.
More than anything, those numbers shed light on just how intense a competitor Vasilevskiy is.
"He's got that edge to him. He hates to lose. He hates to give up goals," Stamkos said. "When he has an outing, it's not even a bad outing, we just didn't play well in front of him, but he takes it personal. We know he's going to bounce back, and he had a huge effort tonight. Obviously, a big reason why we won."
In recording his third shutout of the season and 15th of his career, Vasilevskiy passed Nikolai Khabibulin for second place all-time in franchise history for most career shutouts. Ben Bishop holds the record with 17. Vasilevskiy is just two away. The record is within reach and could likely be eclipsed this season.
Let's just hope he doesn't have to lose a couple games in order to do so.

2. KILLING TIME
If Vasilevskiy was the game's first star, the entire Lightning penalty kill could have been collectively star 1A.
Without their 6-for-6 performance, the Bolts likely lose in Dallas.
For nearly 30 minutes, Tuesday's contest was penalty free.
That ended when Victor Hedman was whistled for holding and given an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on top, forcing the Lightning to the penalty kill for four-consecutive minutes.
The Bolts got out of that jam, Anton Stralman making perhaps the save of the night when he got his stick on an open back post one-timer that would have been an easy goal if not for the defenseman's reactionary stick work to knock the puck over the net and out of play.
What followed was a succession of Lightning players to the penalty box. Tampa Bay took seven penalties in all and was forced to kill off six of them, the majority coming in the second period when the Lightning would kill off a penalty and then were forced to go right back on the kill.
"You generate energy (on a killed penalty) until you take another penalty and then you're back on the PK," Stamkos said. "We were counterintuitive in that regard where you should be able to build momentum off a big kill but then when you go out the next shift and take another penalty, it kind of defeats the purpose. We were in the box far too much tonight, and we got away with one I think in them not generating probably what they wanted out there on their power play with how many opportunities they had."
Dallas entered the game against the Lightning owning the NHL's 14th-best power-play unit with a conversion percentage of 20.5 percent.
It was zero percent against the Lightning, who frustrated the Stars' power play all night with their ability to get in shooting lanes and disrupt shots with instinctive stick work. And when shots did get through, Vasilevskiy was in position to make the save.
"We made it a little bit hard for ourselves with all the penalties but did a great job killing them off," Stralman said. "Overall, I think defensively, even though they had a lot of zone time, we didn't give up a tremendous amount of chances."

3. A BETTER START
Tampa Bay emphasized the start in Dallas after it failed to show up at the opening face-off in Brooklyn. Poor starts had been a troubling trend in fact over the last few games for the Lightning.
The beginning to the game against the Stars still wasn't exactly what the Bolts would like to see. There were too many odd-man rushes given up and turnovers were a little too frequent.
Still, when you exit the first period with a 1-0 lead, it beats the three-goal deficit the Lightning faced two nights earlier.
"Maybe they had the upper hand but overall (the start) was much better," Stralman said. "We kept it a little more simple. We got pucks deep when we could. So that was an improvement as well."
Tampa Bay's top line opened the game with a couple positive shifts, and their hard work was rewarded with the game's opening goal nearly eight minutes into the contest.
From his own end, Braydon Coburn banked a perfect pass off the boards and onto the stick of Yanni Gourde, who was waiting at the opposite blue line.
Gourde one-touched a pass across the blue line into the path of Steven Stamkos, who was able to enter the zone with plenty of speed. As three Stars converged on the Lightning captain, Ondrej Palat entered the voided area just off to Stamkos' right. Stamkos acted like he was going to take the puck to goal all by himself but backhanded a pass over for Palat to one-time into the back of the net.
That goal gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead going into the first intermission, ending a stretch of three-straight games where they were tied or trailing after one.
"It was better, but it still wasn't great," Stamkos said of the start. "It took us a couple minutes to wake up, but obviously when you're up 1-0 instead of down 2- or 3-0 like were last game, it's a positive."