Bolts notes: Penalty kill big part of recent success

For a good portion of the season, Tampa Bay's penalty kill had been killing its playoff chances.

Recently, it's been a difference-maker as the Lightning have begun to play better in the past three weeks in an attempt to crawl back into the playoff picture. In the past 10 games, as Tampa Bay put together a 7-1-2 stretch entering Sunday's game against Pittsburgh, the Lightning allowed only two power play goals, killing off 25-of-27 penalties against (92.6 percent) in that time before Pittsburgh scored a power play goal in the first period. Prior to that Tampa Bay had allowed 37 power play goals in 175 shorthanded situations (78.9 percent).

"We've been very aware of things that we were aware of before but were not sharp at," Lightning head coach Guy Boucher said. "But I also feel that our defensive corps has improved, and the coming of (Brendan) Mikkelson has improved our defensive corps, and individually the guys have improved, as well. The forwards, too, have improved. . . . the penalty kill is doing well and it's a product of our whole defensive awareness and defensive qualities that have improved."

Record time

RW Steve Downie scored goals 11 seconds apart in the first period to establish a new franchise record for fastest two goals by the same player. Downie fired a slap shot from just inside the blue line that went through G Brent Johnson at 9:58, then tapped in a cross-crease pass from RW Teddy Purcell at 10:09 for a 2-0 lead.

The previous record was held by C Jason Wiemer, who scored a pair of goals 16 seconds apart in the third period against New Jersey on Oct. 3, 1997.

Gilroy, Malone out

D Matt Gilroy sat out Sunday's game after suffering an upper-body injury during the second period of Saturday's game in Buffalo. He did not skate Sunday morning but did work out at CONSOL Energy Center in the morning, and his injury is not considered to be long-term.

"It's not something for long, long-term, but it's certainly something which prevents him from playing right now," Boucher said of Gilroy.

Ryan Malone, meanwhile, was held out again as a precaution despite "begging" the coaching staff to allow him back into the lineup in his hometown against his former team.

"With him, he's always ready to play so we have to manage it for him," Boucher said. "He's available but he's just been available so I'm very tentative. Not because of the quality of the player, we just want to make sure that he doesn't miss any more (games). He's missed enough, we've missed him enough. We play again on Tuesday (against Ottawa) so we'll see."

With Gilroy out Boucher opted to insert RW Adam Hall back into the lineup instead of D Marc-Andre Bergeron, switching the lineup back to the conventional six defensemen and 12 forward alignment. Tampa Bay had been dressing seven defensemen for the past few games. Boucher said the decision to play Hall was made easier as Bergeron felt some soreness in his back after returning to the lineup Tuesday against Los Angeles.

Nuts and Bolts

Pittsburgh C Sidney Crosby missed his 28th consecutive game with post-concussion symptoms. Crosby has appeared in only eight games since Jan. 5, 2011. … Purcell has assists in four consecutive games.