The Tampa Bay Lightning had the New York Rangers right where they wanted them midway through the third period Saturday night. Down 1-0 in an elimination game, New York looked tired and overmatched, having generated only a handful of quality scoring chances all night.
A Lightning victory - and series win - seemed inevitable.
Then Lightning captain Steven Stamkos took a penalty, and the Rangers' power play capitalized to even the score. Suddenly, New York had life, hope.
It lasted just 21 seconds.
Moments after leaving the penalty box, Stamkos made it 2-1 to put the resilient Lightning in control again. The rest of the third was a mere formality.
"I was just confident in our group, that we'd find a way, whether it was in a regulation or it was in overtime," Stamkos told reporters following the thrilling Game 6 victory on home ice. "We deserved to win the game tonight, and that was the feeling that we had from puck drop to the intermissions - just keep going, our will is going to take over."
There's something uniquely surgical about this Lightning group. They've become the first team to earn a spot in three consecutive Stanley Cup Final series since the mid-1980s Edmonton Oilers in large part because they bend but don't break. It's as if no level of pushback can kill their collective spirit.
In 2019, owner Jeff Vinik and general manager Julien BriseBois had, as head coach Jon Cooper put it Saturday, "an easy out" after the Lightning were swept in the first round of the playoffs following a 62-win regular season. They could have gone in a different direction. Instead, the coach returned and the core - both its stars and complementary players - remained almost fully intact.
You know what happened next - back-to-back Cups in 2020 and 2021. And over the past 40 days, the Lightning outlasted the star-studded Toronto Maple Leafs in a seesaw seven-game series, held the high-octane Florida Panthers to three goals in a four-game sweep, and turned a 2-0 deficit versus the Rangers into dust by allowing just five goals in the final four games of Round 3.
Pick a playing style and Tampa Bay's players will adjust and execute. They're highly adaptable and don't panic in gut-check situations. "I'm utterly impressed by what they do to win a hockey game," Cooper said.
Cooper called making a third straight Cup Final an "unthinkable" accomplishment, and honestly, the sport's most quotable bench boss is bang on. The modern NHL, with 30-plus teams and a prohibitive salary cap, is designed for parity, not dominance. Toss in complications associated with competing for championships amid a global pandemic, and the Lightning have arguably cemented their dynasty status ahead of the 2022 Final.
We're witnessing one of the greatest runs in NHL history - full stop, no debate.
If scholars are searching for the intersection of "skill mastery" and so-called "killer instinct," the Lightning dressing room would be a pretty good laboratory. Forget the incredible collection of raw talent among a group featuring Andrei Vasilevskiy, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, and Stamkos, the real magic of this team - what makes it extraordinary - is how its core absorbs new role players year after year without missing a beat.
Remember the kind of impact third-liners Yanni Gourde, Barclay Goodrow, and Blake Coleman had on the club's 2020 and 2021 runs? "How could that value, the tangible and intangible, possibly be replaced?!" pundits bemoaned.
Well, while they're not all on the same line, forwards Nick Paul, Corey Perry, and Brandon Hagel have done an admirable job replacing the Gourde trio.
"Each guy," Stamkos said, "is a part of the process."
That includes the six OGs from the 2015 Cup Final team - Stamkos, Hedman, Kucherov, Vasilevskiy, Alex Killorn, Ondrej Palat - as well as other longtime Bolts such as Ryan McDonagh and Anthony Cirelli, the Zach Bogosians and Pat Maroons at the bottom of the lineup, and everybody in between.
Of course, the work is far from over. The Colorado Avalanche, who swept Connor McDavid and the Oilers in the other conference final series, are probably the most talented squad the Lightning will have come across over the past three postseasons. Colorado's certainly a better team on paper than Tampa Bay's previous Final opponents, the Dallas Stars (2020) and Montreal Canadiens (2021).
Built on speed, skill, and connectivity, the Avs are a nightmare to defend against, especially off the rush. They come at opponents in waves. Colorado's forward group, led by Nathan MacKinnon, is diverse and deep, while the defense corps, led by Cale Makar, is mobile and smart. The only position in which Tampa Bay has a clear advantage is goaltender, where Vasilevskiy's resume and toolbox exceed those of Darcy Kuemper and Pavel Francouz.
The most important head-to-head will be Cirelli versus MacKinnon. Cirelli, a 24-year-old two-way center with a relentless motor, logged 252 five-on-five minutes this postseason. In those minutes, the Lightning allowed only four goals, despite Cirelli and linemates seeing plenty of Toronto's Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, Florida's Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, and New York's Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider.
Point missed the second and third rounds, but the Lightning survived. Pulling out four wins without the superstar center a third time could prove very difficult. Point, who's been sidelined with a lower-body injury for a month now, is "extremely probable" to return sometime during the Cup Final, according to Cooper. His status is a major X-factor ahead of Game 1.
Yet, no matter who's in the lineup or which team you cheer for, this should be a stellar Cup Final. Soak it in. Because, by definition, greatness is rare. And win or lose, Tampa Bay is an era-defining team. One of the best of all time.
"We don't know what's going to happen over these next 10-14 days," Stamkos said. "But we're going to give it our all. It's gotten us this far, again."
John Matisz is theScore's senior NHL writer. Follow John on Twitter (@MatiszJohn) or contact him via email ([email protected]).
