When Steven Stamkos beat Canadiens goalie Carey Price on a breakaway Sunday it appeared like the Tampa Bay Lightning captain was finally ready to put his stamp on the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs. To that point, Stamkos had been held goalless in all eight previous playoff outings this Spring.  

Celebrating the goal in Montreal's Bell Centre, Stamkos seemed like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He admitted as much afterwards. 

And yet Stamkos, who netted 43 goals in the regular season to finish second in the Rocket Richard Trophy race, failed to build on that breakthrough during Games 3 and 4 of the second-round series. In fact, the 25-year-old was held without a shot in consecutive games for the first time in more than four years. 

"I have to be better," Stamkos admitted in the moments following his team's 6-2 blowout loss in Game 4. "Try to find ways. I just don’t feel like I'm in positions to shoot in the last couple games. I have to find a way."

Reporters once again asked about his health, echoing questions that had been asked in the dying days of Tampa Bay's first round series against Detroit, which saw Stamkos finish with three assists in seven games. 

"We went through that already," Stamkos said, insisting he's not dealing with any major injury issue. "I feel like I just have to get in better positions to try and get shots off."

Stamkos hasn't exactly been invisible as the Lightning built a commanding 3-1 series lead against the Canadiens. He has picked up at least one point in three straight games, although his lone assist on Thursday night – the secondary one on Ondrej Palat's goal – came with Tampa Bay trailing 5-1. 

The Habs have certainly been keying on Stamkos, who burned them for five goals and two assists during the five games between the teams in the regular season. 

"You watch the D they throw over the boards against him and the lines that play against him and they've done a good job so you have to give Montreal a little bit of credit for what they're doing," Lightning coach Jon Cooper acknowledged. "There's a little onus on Stammer. He's going to have to find different ways to get to the net whether it's popping out to his one-timer spot, getting into the holes, jamming pucks to the net, he's got to find different ways."

But Cooper seemed far from concerned about his star's lack of production. He expects Stamkos will deliver eventually, because, well, he's done it before. 

"You don't score the amount of goals he's scored in his career (276 in 492 regular season games) by just doing the same thing," Cooper quipped. "I've been with Stammer a couple years now and that kid finds a way. He'll find a way."

The bigger issue for Tampa Bay's captain and coach is the way the team as a whole played on home ice the last two games. Montreal has clearly been the superior team at even strength, outshooting Tampa Bay 61-37 in that situation over the last two tilts. The Lightning only stole Game 3 thanks to strong play from goaltender Ben Bishop and a buzzer-beating goal from Tyler Johnson. 

"We just have to be better," Stamkos said when asked what adjustments need to be made. "I know it's a pretty vanilla answer, but we're not good enough the last couple of games ... We needed to have an effort and willingness and compete and we didn't do that so it's pretty simple."

Cooper was willing to go into a little more detail. 

"We're just way too loose defensively. Last night, we were thinking about the wrong net and we got to start thinking more about our net," Cooper said before boarding the team's charter plane bound for Montreal on Friday afternoon. "We get applauded, I guess, for our goal-scoring ability and things like that, but we've been a pretty good defensive team, especially in the playoffs, and we have to get back to that or this is going to be a longer series."