Burns: Three things we learned from evening the Eastern Conference Final

In his post-game question-and-answer session with the media, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper didn’t want the final 20 minutes of the Bolts’ 4-3 victory in Game 4 to overshadow the first 40.

The Lightning had just tied the best-of-seven Eastern Conference Final with Pittsburgh at 2-2. The series would turn in to a best-of-three. As far as Cooper was concerned, that fact was the only one that mattered.

“When you play 40 playoff games in the last two years, you’re used to things like that,” Cooper said, referring to the Penguins’ furious third-period blitzkrieg in which they rallied from a 4-0 deficit to close to 4-3 with 6:52 to go. “…You know, the one thing on the bench was it doesn’t matter how you get there. Whether you’re up 4-0, it becomes 4-3, or you’re down 3-0 and you go ahead 4-3, it doesn’t matter. You’re still winning…When you wake up in the morning, it’s not how they came back and made it a game.”

Tampa Bay’s mission Friday was clear: don’t go to Pittsburgh down 3-1.

The Lightning gave their fans a few nervy moments in the final period as the Penguins wouldn’t go away quietly. “We elevated the heart rate of (19,000) people in the building tonight,” Cooper said.

But their purposeful play over the first two periods to build a 4-0 lead in a closest-thing-to-a-must-win game couldn’t be undone in the Penguins push at the pole.

Tampa Bay was in this position last season, tied 2-2 in an Eastern Conference Final, two of the final three games on the road.

The Bolts won both road games over the New York Rangers to advance to the Stanley Cup Final.

Will past experience give them the edge this year against the Penguins?

We’ll start to find out Sunday in Game 5 at Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center.

Ahead, 3 Things from a necessary bounce-back win for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

1. MORE SHOTS, MORE GOALS

Seems simple enough

The more shots you take, the more chances you have to score.

That truism escaped the Lightning in the first three games of the series. The Bolts took 20, 21 and 28 shots, respectively, through the first three games, and the 28 shots in Game 3 a misnomer because Pittsburgh countered with 48.

The Bolts needed to fix plenty after a soul-searching loss in Game 3. Getting more shots to rookie goaltender Matt Murray’s net was one of them.

In the first period of Game 4, Tampa Bay registered 18 shots, as many as the first two periods of Game 3 combined. By the end of the second period of Game 4, the Lightning had collected 30 shots to Pittsburgh’s 22.

They also had a 4-0 lead.

“You know, obviously you make tweaks and adjustments throughout a series,” the Lightning’s Ryan Callahan said. “Game to game, you’re changing things and looking at their tendencies. We did some things different tonight that I thought we were successful with, but more than just your tactics or your systems, I thought it was our energy, our compete, the way we executed was a lot …

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