Tampa Bay raises Cup asDallas’ bubble finally bursts
EDMONTON, Alberta— The joyful yells from the bench could be heard in the empty arena in the final seconds and the roar from playerswhen Commissioner Gary Bettman called for Steven Stamkos to accept the Stanley Cup echoed even louder.
The triumph of winning the NHL championship in a bubble was certainly no less sweet for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Brayden Point scored his playoff-best 14th goal and the Lightning beat the Dallas Stars 2-0 in Game 6 on Monday night to win finish off the most unusual NHL postseason in history, staged nearly entirely in quarantine because of the pandemic.
The clock hitting zeros with no fans in attendance set off a celebration for a team that endured years of playoff heartbreak and two months in isolation — and their fans outside Amalie Arena in Tampa celebrated right along with them.
“It takes a lot to be in a bubble for 80 days or whatever long it was,” said defenseman Victor Hedman, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. “But it’s all worth it now, we’re coming home with the Cup.”
Before giving that trophy to Hedman, Bettman gave all the players credit for enduring a quarantine largely on their own for so long.
“To be in this place at this time under these circumstances is remarkable and frankly overwhelming, “Bettman said. “Frankly, all of the players who participated should feel like MVPs.”
Goals from Point and Blake Coleman and a 22-save shutout by Andrei Vasilevskiy in Game 6 were enough to power the Lightning to their second championship after winning it in 2004. That one came just ahead of a lockout that wiped out an entire season and similar uncertainty hangs in the air now because of the coronavirus.
Questions about the future
were put off for a celebration by the Lightning and by the NHL, the first of the fourmajor North American professional sports leagues to crown a champion since the start of the pandemic.
“The beauty of our team is everyone was chipping in,” Point said. “We got contributions from anyone and everyone at different
times, and that’s what makes this win so special.”
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.
“There is no feelings right now,” Dallas goalie Anton Khudobin said. “Just empty. We battled hard, especially with this situation, it’s not easy to stay without families for two months and stuff like that.”
The Stars simply ran out of gas after injuries piled up.
“I couldn’t ask more from our players,” said coach Rick Bowness, an assistant for Tampa Bay for five yearswhowas part of their 2015 run that fell short in the final. “So it wasn’t enough to beat that team, so it wasn’t enough. But it’s better than sitting here saying how we could done this or could have done. We don’t secondguess anything we’ve done.”