NASHVILLE - Cory Stillman's first inclination was to shrug his shoulders and say, "I don't know."
Upon further thought, however, the Lightning left wing decided it all came down to "getting a bounce."
Left wing Ruslan Fedotenko believes it's simply the "whole team is playing well."
Those explanations are as good as any when trying to figure out what switch Tampa Bay's forwards flipped on in their past 18 games. Consider that Stillman, Fedotenko, Vinny Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Martin St. Louis and Fredrik Modin combined for 45 goals and 72 assists in that stretch and the team went 13-3-0-2, ending with Thursday's 5-2 victory over the Predators.
In the 19 games before that, the group, which makes up the team's top two offensive lines, had 18 goals and 25 assists, and the Lightning was 4-12-3-0.
Do you see a correlation there?
"It's never easy to score goals in this league," coach John Tortorella said. "I give our guys a lot of credit for just staying with it and finding a way. Hopefully, it will continue."
"We're having fun playing," Fedotenko said. "You're not nervous you're going to make a mistake. You just go out there and do your best and enjoy it. Everybody is on the same page and that's what keeps us winning."
To their credit, they never took themselves out of the team concept while they slumped. So in their minds it was just a matter of time before things began to click.
Sure, there was worry. But, as Stillman said, "With players who score, it's a matter of doing the right things every night and, eventually, if you work hard enough it's going to go in. At this level, if you don't battle and work hard in your own zone and the neutral zone, you're not going to get rewarded. That's just the way it works."
Tortorella helped the process by showing the players a video package of clips from last season when they were at their best.
"As coaches we just try to guide them down the right path so they have a better understanding of how they can be successful," Tortorella said. "Sometimes it's good for players to go back and see what they were doing to be successful."
"I just look and see what I did differently to what I did now," Fedotenko said. "Go to the net and not just all around it. Sometimes it helps to watch how you scored before."
And though Tampa Bay got a tie and a loss in its next two games, it dominated the Panthers and Blue Jackets, outshot them 79-47 and was stopped only by superb goaltending.
Its next game, a 6-1 victory over the Flyers on Jan.3, sent the Lightning, now 15 points ahead in the Southeast, on its way.
"It's just a confidence thing. That's all it is," Stillman said. "It's wanting to have the puck. Everybody wants to be the difference in a hockey game, and when things aren't going well you either try to do too little or too much. It's finding that zone when you hold on to the puck and make a play, and you just play within your game. We stuck with it."
