The Backcheck: Bolts deliver bounce back win over Canes

Last Friday outside of Boston, the Tampa Bay Lightning had a practice unlike any other this season. Head coach Jon Cooper never took the ice, and while the assistant coaches were out there for the start of practice, they didn't stay for long.
Letting the players decide how they wanted to use their ice time, it felt like Cooper was looking towards his leadership group to help lead the charge in pulling the Bolts out of the losing streak that began with a 5-2 home loss to the New Jersey Devils last Sunday.
And while the Lightning didn't win the Saturday afternoon game vs. the Bruins, the commitment was there. They were engaged, mentally and physically. They were much more responsible in their own end and managed the puck much better, but just couldn't find a way to score more than one goal in the 2-1 loss. Despite losing, the game felt like a big step in the right direction.

"Sometimes I would rather lose and play this way than win and play in a crappy way because, eventually, it's going to bite you back," said Pierre-Edouard Bellemare following Saturday's loss. "It's tough to say it's a great loss, but at the end of the day, we showed up with way more emotion, way more passion.
"Everybody tried to chip in and pull the rope in the same way as everybody else. That's my overall take.
"Just understand that if we play like this, we're going to be a nightmare to meet."
On Tuesday night in Raleigh, North Carolina, Tampa Bay built on that performance.

Once again, Cooper looked towards his leaders to pull his team into the fight when he reunited the trio of Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov to play on the top line. They answered the bell and combined for a total of eight points with three goals and five assists amongst the three of them.
"It definitely turned the tables from the last time we were here," said Cooper. "They're a really good team. We've played the best two teams in the East the last couple of days.
"We didn't get any points out of the Boston game, but I thought we took some steps forward and I thought the guys got rewarded tonight for how they played."
After a scoreless first period that ended with shots even at eight apiece, Stamkos opened the scoring 5:58 into the middle frame, just 13 seconds after the Bolts' first power-play chance of the night expired.
With pieces of the top power-play unit still on the ice, Kucherov sent a pass to the point for Mikhail Sergachev, who wound up and looked like he may fire a shot on goal, but elected to send a pass to Stamkos on the back door, where Tampa Bay's captain carefully redirected the puck underneath the pad of Pyotr Kochetkov for his 31st goal of the year.
"Just trying to get open there," Stamkos said. "Sergy had a good, heads-up play and squeaked one through. It was nice to get on the board. I think, after that, we responded pretty well."
Sergachev picked up his 48th assist of the season and 15th helper of the month, which is tied for the third-most among all NHL skaters during that span.
And with the secondary helper, Kucherov hit the 75-assist mark for the second time of his career, making him just the fourth player to record multiple 75-assist seasons this century, joining Connor McDavid, Henrik Sedin and Joe Thornton.
But beyond the impressive offensive numbers, the Lightning's strong response was centered around their play in the defensive zone. Carolina had to fight tooth and nail to get any quality looks, and when they did get pucks to the net, Andrei Vasilevskiy was there to slam the door shut.
"It's all about defending your net," Cooper said. "Tonight, to not give one up, and Vasy obviously had something to do with that, but it was never like he was under siege at all during the game.
"That's how we've got to play if we want to do anything in the spring. Like I said, a couple pretty good defensive efforts here the last two games."
With that strong defending, offense was generated on the other end of the sheet.

After Point sped into the offensive zone and fed a pass to Stamkos, the Bolts captain sent a backhand pass to the far post for a streaking Darren Raddysh, who was crashing the net. A Carolina defenseman got a stick on the puck, forcing it to ricochet off the pad of Kochetkov before it ended up just below the goal line, where Point jumped on the rebound and banked the puck off the back of Kochetkov's leg for his team-leading 46th goal of the season.
"I've seen a lot of guys have been doing that lately," said Point. "It's a rebound and I'm just trying to put a puck in there.
"If it doesn't bounce off him, maybe it bounces to one of our guys. It's just kind of throwing a puck there and hoping you get lucky."
They say it's better to be lucky than good, right? Well Point has been really, really good for Tampa Bay this season.
His 46th goal of the campaign gave him the fourth-most goals scored in a single season in Lightning franchise history, trailing only Stamkos' 60 in 2018-19, Vinny Lecavalier's 52 in 2006-07 and Stamkos' 51 in 2009-10.
But he wasn't done there. The speedy center got his 47th of the year at the 12:17 mark of the third, and while Vasilevskiy didn't give up a goal all night, the second Point goal felt like the ultimate dagger that put the game away.
Taking the puck at the Lightning blue line, Stamkos sent a perfect stretch pass across the neutral zone to Point, who was tracked at 21 miles per hour as he flew into the Carolina zone. In full flight, Point got to the bottom of the circle and fired a perfect wrist shot over the glove of Kochetkov that went right off the back bar and out to put the Bolts up 3-0.
The chase for 50 goals has been on for Point, but it feels more real now than ever as he sits just three goals away from becoming the third player in franchise history to hit the historic mark.
"I try not to," said Point when he was asked if he thinks about the milestone. "I just try to keep playing the same way.
"Obviously, we're trying to build a game here for playoffs and getting into the playoffs. I think that's where the focus is for all our guys. It's not on personal stuff.
"I liked our game in Boston. I liked our game tonight. Hopefully we can keep that going."
Looking to get something going, the Hurricanes pulled Kochetkov with around six minutes remaining before Alex Killorn scored his 23rd goal of the year at the 15:39 mark of the third to wrap up the 4-0 win for Tampa Bay.
"It just starts with effort, emotion," said Stamkos. "I thought we probably didn't get the fate that we wanted to in Boston, but we talked about process over outcome and tonight was a good example of getting the outcome because of the process.
"We know what the recipe is, it's just about executing it. The last couple games, I thought we've executed that. You give up two goals in the two games against two really good teams, that's a good start."

Prior to tonight's contest, the Lightning played a franchise record 19 games over the course of 33 days, including four back-to-back contests. Finally enjoying a well-deserved day off on Sunday, the team got back at it with practice on Monday ahead of Tuesday night's contest.
"The schedule over the last month has been pretty grueling, I think for a lot of teams," said Stamkos. "It was our first day off in a long time the other day. We got a chance to reset and come in here and just play a solid game."
Tampa Bay's unparalleled success over the past three seasons has been centered around one thing - defending. With all the star power up front, the offense will come. Chances are going to be surrendered at points of every game, but when Vasilevskiy is in the net and the team is defending the way the Lightning can, they'll take their chances.
Now only seven games remain before the start of the postseason, and the past few contests have shown a lot of positive signs, as the Bolts look to play that style as consistently as possible before the big dance.
"This is obviously a very tough rink to come into," said Stamkos. "They're a very good team and we know what happened last time we came in here, too.
"I thought we just played a really solid, patient, physical, kind of 'in your face' style of game, and we got rewarded tonight.
"I liked the effort tonight. Like I said, we talked about it against Boston. If we play like that and we limit teams' overall scoring chances, we're going to have a good chance to win, especially when we've got Vasy in net.
"Tonight was a good example of that."