TAMPA, FL – Ten teams over the past three years have tried to eliminate Tampa Bay Lightning in the postseason while pursuing a dynasty. They tried in the balloon in 2020, tried in Canada, North Carolina, Florida and the New York Islands, but they all failed.
Since 2019, no one had found a way to bring down a team that made its way to the top, until Sunday, when Colorado Avelanche discovered the right combination of skills, speed and determination needed to knock out the champion.
For the first time since the start of the NHL pandemic, there is a new champion. The high-flying avalanche defeated Lightning 2-1 in match 6 of the finals to take the Stanley Cup, one of the most elusive and enduring trophies in the sport.
One by one on the post-match holiday, Avalanche players held the glamorous Cup up, kissing it as they paraded around the ice at the Amalie Arena, just as Lightning did on the same rink, their home slide, the year before.
This is the third title for the Colorado franchise and the first since 2001, when Joe Sakic was captain of the team. Sakic, who also played seven seasons for the organization before moving from Quebec, was again available to take part in the final celebration, this time as general manager and club architect, so deeply in talent that it meant Tampa Bay was the most -he finally managed to meet his match.
Cale McCarthy, the dazzling 23-year-old defender, was named the winner of the Conn Smythe trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs for his eight goals and 29 points. But other superb players, such as center Nathan McKinnon, winger Miko Rantanen, rough striker Nazem Kadri and winger Gabriel Landeskog, the captain, all played a role in snatching the Stanley Cup from Tampa Bay’s tenacious grip.
Asked during a television interview what other Avalanche teams could learn, Landeskog said, “Go out and find Cale McCarthy somewhere.”
The Lightning had hoped to become the first team to win three consecutive Stanley Cups since the Islanders won four consecutive titles from 1980 to 1983. But accomplishing such a task is a test of endurance: the magnificent goalkeeper Andrei Vassilevsky and the skaters are part of the Main Star group. teams such as defender Viktor Hedman, winger Nikita Kucherov and defender Mikhail Sergachev played in their 68th high-intensity match in a post-season series starting with the playoffs in 2020, which were played on so-called balloons in Canada due to the pandemic.
The Lightning have played more games than any other team in the last three years, rejecting elimination in four games during that period and after three years of constant mental and physical blows, finally giving way to a new champion.
In 2020, Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars at Rodgers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, a neutral venue without fans, and last year they defeated the Montreal Canadiens.
This year, they became the first team since the early 1980s for the Islanders to reach the third consecutive final series, but Colorado was the best of the 10 teams Lightning has played with in the last three postseasons (including the Islanders). and the Florida Panthers twice each).
Sakic, who proved almost as adept at creating a front-office winner as he did with skates and a stick in his hand, is responsible for building a team that has been widely recognized for several years as one of the league’s emerging powers. But that only happened after Colorado missed the playoffs six times in seven years, from 2011 to 2017.
Those were gloomy years for NHL hockey in Denver, but the Colorado front office, headed since 2013 by Sakic, added talented players every year. Many of them came through elections in high drafts, thanks to all these lost seasons. Landeskog was taken with the second general election in 2011. McKinnon was elected with the first election two years later, and Colorado chose Rantanen with the 10th election in 2015. In 2017, they had common sense to take Although at number 4 and two years later added defender Bowen Bayrom, also number 4.
With these local players, plus key additions over the years such as quarterback Devon Tows and winger Andre Burakowski through an exchange and winger Valery Nichushkin through a free agency, Colorado has risen into a dispute. Last year, Avalanche won the Presidential Trophy, given to the team with the best record in the regular season. But so far, the group has failed to turn success in the regular season into glory in the playoffs, falling in the second round in each of the previous three years.
This season, when Although ran away to win the Norris trophy as the best defender in the league, and the 31-year-old Kadri peaked his career with 87 points, Avalanche set franchise records for victories (56) and points (119) and most importantly, carry that dominance to the playoffs with a record of 16-4.
From training camp, the question of Avalanche bypassed the team’s ability to overcome past failures and eventually win the title. This was tested in the finals, as Avalanche lost game 5 at home and faced the prospect of becoming only the second team of 37 to lose in the final, after taking a 3-1 lead in the series.
But in game 6 Avalanche showed some champion determination of its own.
The lightning scored first with a goal by Steven Stamkos, the team captain, who turned in front of the door and put the puck between the pads of Avalanche goalkeeper Darcy Kumper. The lightning held this lead, while McKinnon equalized the result in a single shot to the right of Vassilevski in just 1 minute 54 seconds in the second period, stifling the applause of the audience.
Minutes later, Arturi Lekonen, who joined Avalanche in Shakic’s deal with Montreal in March, scored to give Colorado its first lead in the game, bringing the team closer to its first Stanley Cup victory since Shakic held trophy up as a player 21 years ago.
In the third period, the fresher legs of the younger Avalanche forced the puck to stay at the end of Tampa Bay for long distances, providing further evidence that it is finally time to crown a new champion.
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