Burns: Three things we learned from the Lightning's loss to Vegas

For just the third time this season, the Tampa Bay Lightning dropped consecutive games following Thursday night's loss to Vegas at AMALIE Arena.
The concern for the Bolts is the way they've gone down in both of those games.
Tampa Bay has been outscored 9-2 combined in losses to Calgary and Vegas following a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Golden Knights, a week after the Flames blasted the Bolts 5-1.

"That's a concern, in a place that's usually a tough place to play (for opponents)," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper summed up following the game.
The schedule doesn't get any easier for Tampa Bay either.
The Lightning hit the road for an eight-game road trip, sandwiched around the All-Star Game, starting Saturday at Minnesota, a place where the Bolts have won just twice in franchise history, the last time coming in the 2010-11 season.
The Lightning need to regroup, and quickly, to overcome this mini slump they've suddenly found themselves on.

"We need to take a look in the mirror, starting with myself, and give more of a passionate performance," Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos said from his locker room stall after the game. "We can't just go out there and expect to win."
Ahead, Three Things we learned from a disheartening performance coming out of the break by the Bolts.
1. EARLY GOALS DOOM BOLTS
Tampa Bay was all set to come out of its five-day-off bye week fresh and energized, ready to tackle the second half of the season with the same vigor they started 2017-18.
Those positive vibes lasted for all of 56 seconds.
On the game's opening shift, Vegas' Deryk Engelland sent an innocuous-looking shot at the net from just inside the blue line past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, replay showing James Neal getting a tip on the shot to give him a goal in six of his last seven games versus Tampa Bay.
Less than a minute into the game, the Lightning found themselves chasing, and they were never really able to recover.
"Again, we're behind the eight ball to start games, which has been a trend as of late," Stamkos said. "It's too hard of a league to play from behind all the time. I'll take responsibility to come out and play a lot better, to kind of lead the way. Our line didn't have it tonight."
Later in the game, with the Bolts still clinging to life down 3-1 to start the third, William Karlsson shut the door, scoring 18 seconds into the final period for an insurance goal Vegas ultimately wouldn't need.
"It shows that we have a lot to work on and it starts with how hard we work and how smart we work and just the commitment on doing all those details," Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman said. "What makes us successful is when we play simple. We play simple hockey, skate hard, work hard and we out work teams. It's not like we're way more skilled than the other teams. It's the work that puts us in those positions and that's where we need to be more consistent."
2. BANG-BANG SEQUENCE SPOILS COMEBACK
After getting on the board midway through the second period to cut its deficit to 2-1, Tampa Bay continued to apply pressure on the Vegas goal and built off the momentum of finally breaking through.
The Lightning must have thought they tied the game up with a couple minutes to go in the second, Steven Stamkos leading a rush into the offensive zone and lacing a cross-ice pass on the back post for Kucherov, who saw his scoring chance denied miraculously by a sprawling Marc-Andre Fleury making a fantastic right leg save.
Seconds later, Vegas was headed back the other way, David Perron carrying the puck into the zone, making a move in the right circle to elude a Bolt and freeing himself for an open shot in the slot, which he sent over the blocker of Vasilevskiy to push the Golden Knights' lead back to two goals.
"That's the swing," Cooper said. "We score, full of life and things might be better for us. But we didn't."
And therein lies the answer: The Golden Knights were opportunistic, capitalizing on their chances.
The Lightning couldn't.
The result? A 4-1 loss for the Bolts.
3. REVAMPED POWER-PLAY UNITS PAY DIVIDENDS
The lone bright spot for the Lightning was the general success of their power-play units, which saw a switch in personnel following the break.
During Wednesday's practice session and again on Thursday, the Bolts went with a revamped top unit where Brayden Point and Ondrej Palat joined Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Mikhail Sergachev, filling in for the injured Victor Hedman.

The new-look power play immediately produced for the Lightning, scoring their only goal of the game.
Sergachev started the scoring sequence by making a difficult play to keep the puck inside the zone and swinging a pass over to Kucherov on the right half wall. Kucherov one-timed the puck to Stamkos on the left dot, and Stamkos found a wide-open Ondrej Palat on the back post, Palat jamming home the opportunity to end a 21-game drought without scoring.
At that point, it appeared as if the Lightning might be able to make a game out of it, momentum having swung in their favor.
But after Fleury denied Kucherov and Perron came down to put Vegas back in front by two, the Lightning had nothing in the tank to come back.
"I guess the one thing, if there's a downer about tonight was we had no push in the third," Cooper said.