Years of heartbreak lead to Stanley Cup
Lightning close out Stars with Game 6 win
EDMONTON, Alberta — The joyful yells from the bench could be heard in the empty arena in the final seconds and the roar from players when 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 as the Lightning beat the Dallas Stars 2-0 in Game 6 on Monday night to conclude 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.”
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. Their first Cup came in 2004, which was just ahead of a lockout that wiped out an entire season. Oddly enough, similar uncertainty hangs in the air because of the coronavirus.
Tampa Bay’s core group closed out the clincher with an almost poetic display of what got the Lightning to this point over the past several years and months. Point’s goal came with assists from longtime standouts Nikita Kucherov and Hedman, key addition Coleman scored on an odd-man rush in the second and Vasilevskiy did his job on a relatively slow night in net.
Veteran defenseman Braydon Coburn was the first to get the Cup after Stamkos and Hedman, even though he played just three games in the postseason. He played 964 regular-season and 137 playoff games to get to this point, losing in the final twice before.
“The beauty of our team is everyone was chipping in,” Point said. “… 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.
In the final alone, Tampa Bay’s power play was clicking and turned the series around. Point’s goal made it 7-for-16 over the past five games to decimate the Stars, who were undone by their lack of discipline and couldn’t get enough “Dobby” magic from goaltender
Anton Khudobin.
“There is no feelings right now,” Khudobin said. “Just empty, you know.”
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 years who was 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 second-guess anything we’ve done.”
The Lightning did to the Stars what Chicago did to them in the ‘15 final, when injuries built up. Tampa Bay had Point and No. 2 center Anthony Cirelli playing hurt this time, didn’t have Stamkos for almost all of the playoffs — and still survived.
“These last six weeks have been really emotional for my family and I, not only on the ice but off the ice,” said Stamkos, who played just 2:37 in the playoffs yet scored a goal in Game 3. “I just want to say to my family: I love you guys so much. To all the friends and everyone who supported us along the way: We love you, we can’t wait to celebrate with you.”