Burns: 3 Things we learned from taking three of four from Carolina

Tampa Bay's 3-1 win Thursday over Carolina wasn't pretty.
The Lightning made a ton of mistakes. They surrendered more odd-man rushes in one game than they probably did for the entire series. They hung goalie Curtis McElhinney out to dry on more than one occasion.
But a win is a win. And at this stage of the season where munching points is critical and could mean the difference between sitting comfortably in a playoff position down the stretch or sweating it out, the Lightning won't apologize for taking two points from the Hurricanes.
"Clearly, Carolina had a step on us," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said.
"But we'll take it."

After beginning the four-game series with a humbling 4-0 shutout loss to the Hurricanes, the Lightning rebounded to take the final three games and six points to leapfrog the Canes in the Central Division standings. Tampa Bay sits one point behind Florida for the top spot but leads the division on point percentage.
The Lightning swept the back-to-back set versus Carolina, the Bolts second back-to-back sweep in as many tries this season. They were shorthanded Thursday night too. Erik Cernak sustained a lower-body injury midway through the second period and didn't return to the game. Cooper didn't have an update on his status in his post-game media session.
The Lightning close out their three-game homestand Saturday when they host the Dallas Stars, the fifth time this season the teams have attempted to reprise their Stanley Cup Final from September. The first four games were postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the Stars' training camp and then inclement weather throughout the state of Texas last week.

1. MAC IS BACK
Backup goaltender Curtis McElhinney had a rough go of it his last start 10 days ago versus Florida, surrendering six goals in a 6-4 defeat to the Panthers. The loss wasn't totally on McElhinney, the team in front of him did little to help him out in the turnover-plagued contest, but the 37 year old had to stew on that loss for over a week while waiting his turn to get back in.
The Lightning weren't much better in front of him Thursday, although not quite as poor as they were against Florida. They seemed a step slow, Carolina no doubt pushing to gain a split and salvage something from the series after dropping two in a row. They gave up a plenty of odd-man rushes. And their power play was abysmal, Cooper saying after the game the players would admit they would be more inclined to deny a power play toward the end of Thursday's game after so many previous ones did nothing more than take momentum away from the team.
McElhinney, however, was outstanding, producing a confidence-boosting bounce-back performance where he made 31-of-32 saves and was the main reason the Lightning escaped Thursday night with a victory and two points.
"He was unbelievable," Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev said. "You can even see in practice, he never lets anybody score on him. He tries so hard, and you can see it in the game too. He made some saves today that were like 'whoa.' It was really nice to see him perform well, and I was really happy for him."
Carolina scored the opening goal - the fourth time in five meetings with the Lightning this season the Canes have scored first - when Brett Pesce converted one of those numerous two-on-ones a little over 14 minutes into the opening period. The way the game was trending at that point, it seemed it might be a long night for McElhinney and the Lightning.
But McElhinney calmed the team down by making some big stops when things broke down in front of him. And that allowed the Lightning to start to gain a foothold into the game and mount their comeback.
"He competes. He competes every single day. That's what makes him such a pro," Bolts center Yanni Gourde said. "He's such a great guy in the locker room, brings tons of leadership. Unfortunately, we weren't really solid in front of him tonight, but he was phenomenal for us. That was really one of the keys tonight for us to win the game was his play behind us."
Sergachev carried the puck in the offensive zone down to the goal line and snuck a shot past Carolina goalie James Reimer at 12:39 of the second period to level the score. Gourde unleashed an absolute rocket from the right circle on a rush, beating Reimer to the far upper corner of the net to put the Lightning in front at 6:22 of the third. And then McElhinney continued to shut the Canes down to preserve the victory, his biggest save coming late in the third when Jesper Fast had the puck below the goal line and spotted a wide-open Brady Skjei in the lower left circle, McElhinney making the stop on Skjei's quick one-timer while not giving up a rebound.
"I don't know if we gave out three stars, but he should have been star one, two and three," Cooper said.
McElhinney improved to 2-1-0 on the season. No doubt, the waiting period between starts will be much more pleasant this go round with his performance Thursday fresh on his mind.
"That's kind of the backup goalie way though, especially when you've been in that role for some period of time. At times you're riding high and then at other times you get smacked around pretty good and you just can't wait to get back in there," McElhinney said. "It was kind of a game for me to bounce back, felt pretty good, got a lot of good blocks in front and a lot of good job on the PK."

2. NO STICK, NO PROBLEM
Tampa Bay's penalty kill more than made up for a lackluster power play on Thursday, the PK going 6-for-6 and really not allowing Carolina's power play to generate any grade-A opportunities or momentum off their numerous man-advantage chances.
One kill late in the second period exemplified just how hard-working the PK was.
The Lightning were whistled for too many men at 16:46 of the second, their fourth penalty of the game. Early in the kill, Blake Coleman had his stick snapped, forcing him to defend with just his body. Coleman couldn't get off the ice or get to the bench for a new stick because the puck never left the defensive zone.
As a unit, the penalty kill packed it in. Coleman stayed up top and just tried to get his body in the way of any puck he could. The rest of the unit worked relentlessly to block shots, take the puck off Carolina's stick and just disrupt as much as they could to keep the puck away from their net.
They weren't perfect. One Carolina attempt tipped at the net and glanced off the crossbar before bouncing away harmlessly. But the penalty kill scrapped and clawed just enough to keep Carolina off balance, and finally Coleman was able to get his hands on the puck to throw it out of the zone just as the power play expired.
"That kill was amazing," Gourde said. "Our guys are doing such a big job on the PK. Our defensemen are blocking shots. They're so good. There's great stick. Guys are willing to go down and block those shots, and that's really what the penalty kill was about tonight. It was about going down and making sure we go down and we block those shots, and guys did an amazing job of doing that."
The Lightning bench was vocal in its appreciation for the effort of that particular kill, hollering encouragement and tapping their sticks against the boards throughout.
It was a pivotal moment in the game and one in which the Lightning survived. They carried the momentum from the kill into the third period where they were able to take the lead and close out the victory.
"I think it was great," McElhinney said of the job the PK did in front of him in limiting shots on that kill. "That's kind of what it comes down to at the end of the day, especially at a moment like that where I think we were hemmed in for a good two minutes. To see everybody laying it on the line like that, trying to get in front of pucks, trying to get sticks in front of pucks, tremendous job for those guys to battle for two minutes straight pretty much."

3. GAMING IT OUT
The opening period was not the crisp effort we're used to seeing from the Lightning.
In fact, it was downright sloppy.
The Lightning looked sluggish early and seemed stuck in neutral for much of the period. They were lucky to only trail 1-0 after the first.
They showed signs of life early in the second period, only to see their momentum extinguished by an uncharacteristically bad power play.
Thursday's game probably should have ended up in the loss column for the Lightning. But they refused to concede defeat even though their play was not up to their standard. They scrapped their way to a victory, and it was an encouraging sign for head coach Jon Cooper to see his group persevere through some rough stretches.
"Let's be honest, the game wasn't pretty," Cooper said. "Our power play was sub-par and not what we're used to. However, our gamemanship was outstanding, and there is something to be said for that. When things just aren't going right, you have to find a way to game things out, and that's what they did. Did we make it hard on ourselves? We most certainly did, but we also gamed it out and the shot blocking and the commitment to keep the puck out of the net was exceptional and why we won."
Thursday's game was always going to be a difficult one for the Lightning to pull out, especially after putting together two exemplary efforts in the previous pair of games and against an opponent hungry to end its first losing slide of the season.
Carolina got a jump on the Lightning from the start and had their way for stretches of the game.
But the Lightning did enough of the little things - blocking shots, active sticks, chipping pucks in deep, first to rebounds, solid puck retrieval - that they were able to mask their deficiencies on Thursday and pull out an important victory.
Probably says something about how good of a team you might have when you can beat a really solid opponent when you're not at your best.
"Today was a little step back, but it just gives our team confidence, especially a couple guys down," Sergachev said. "Guys are stepping up their game, and it's nice to see."