Unlike the NBA, it called for doing it in two spots Toronto and Edmonton, while the US grappled with surging coronavirus cases in too many places for NHL leadership to feel comfortable.Īnd it worked. Like the NBA, it called for walling off teams from the public for months on end. The league and players’ union worked for nearly four months to iron out where, how and when to play so 2020 wouldn’t join 19 as a year in which the Cup wasn’t awarded. His team went 12-3 in one-goal games this postseason.Ĭommissioner Gary Bettman was on hand to present the Lightning with the Stanley Cup exactly 200 days after his announcement that the season was being put on pause with 189 games left unplayed. The painful playoff losses look like mile markers now losing four consecutive games to Chicago after going up 2-1, blowing 3-2 series leads in the Eastern Conference final in 20, and last season’s jaw-dropping, first-round sweep by Columbus after the Lightning had tied the NHL single-season wins record and won the Presidents’ Trophy.Ĭoach Jon Cooper thought the attitude needed to change from wanting to beat every opponent 9-0 because. Tampa Bay had Point and No2 center Anthony Cirelli playing hurt this time, didn’t have injured captain Steven Stamkos for almost all of the playoffs and still survived. The Lightning did to the Stars what Chicago did to them in the 2015 final, when injuries built up. Tampa Bay Lightning players surround NHL commissioner Gary Bettman after winning the Stanley Cup. Rick Bowness, an assistant for Tampa Bay for five years who was part of their 2015 run that fell short in the final, faced his own uncertain future as interim head coach. The Stars simply ran out of gas after injuries piled up. Point’s goal made it 7 for 16 over the past five games to defeat the Stars, who were undone by their lack of discipline and couldn’t get enough “Dobby” magic from goaltender Anton Khudobin. In the final alone, Tampa Bay’s power play was clicking and turned the series around. ![]() It was more of a coronation than a challenge as the dominant Lightning outshot the Stars 29-22 and looked like the powerhouse they’ve been for much of the past decade. Their new star in Point scored a power-play goal in the first period with assists from longtime standouts Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman, key addition Coleman killed a penalty and scored on an odd-man rush in the second, and Vasilevskiy did his job on a relatively slow night in net. Tampa Bay’s core group closed out the final with an almost poetic display of what got the Lightning to this point over the past several years and months. ![]() ![]() The NHL is the first of the four major North American professional sports leagues to crown a champion since the start of the pandemic. Getting this done was a triumph of sorts, financial woes notwithstanding. Questions about the future were put off for a celebration, by the Lightning and the NHL.
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