Game 7 home defeat empties Cup hopes

TAMPA — Disbelief will eventually give way to acceptance.

The Lightning aren’t there yet — in a lot of ways. Will they ever be? Really, what guarantees are there?

Late Wednesday night, Washington Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, free at last, trundled down a hallway at Amalie Arena with the Prince of Wales Trophy in his hands as if carrying a baby in a blanket. Ovechkin’s wait was over. Earlier, in the losing dressing room, hushed tones and even shock were the rule.

“We worked very hard for three rounds. And now it’s over,” Lightning captain Steve Stamkos said after the shattering 4-0 Game 7 loss. “It’s just a very disappointing gut-wrenching feeling. I know how special this group was.”

“It’s tough,” Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said.

This team led the NHL in goals this season. It had a budding star in goal in Andrei Vasilevskiy. It had breakout players like Brayden Point. General manager Steve Yzerman and coach Jon Cooper shored up the defense with veterans like Dan Girardi and Ryan McDonagh. A special group. Seemingly nothing was left to chance. And it didn’t matter. Which raises the question: Will it matter next year?

That might have been on some Lightning fans’ minds as they fled the arena long before Game 7. Maybe they’re a tad spoiled. Their team went to the Cup Final in 2015. It has made three of the last four conference finals, the fourth coming this season, after the Lightning missed the playoffs last year. Are things that bad? You’d prefer maybe to be the Buffalo Sabres?

“The window isn’t closed,” Stamkos said. “This group is way too talented and still very young. We have a guy like Vasy. The window is never closed.”

“The one thing about Steve Yzerman is he seems to keep our window open every year,” Cooper said. “That what makes him a hell of a GM. No, I don’t think the window will ever be closed with this team.”

But an open window doesn’t matter if you never climb through it. Think Buccaneers fans don’t know that? Their team hasn’t come close to the Super Bowl and not won so much as one playoff game in 15 years. The Rays, despite a World Series 10 years ago and playoff runs, have never really come close again.

True, the Lightning have a different feel. Stamkos is just 28 and will probably score 500 NHL goals. Hedman, 27, is constantly ascending. He is likely about to win the Norris Trophy, presented to the league’s top defenseman. Scoring star Nikita Kucherov is only 24. Brayden Point is just 22. Vasilevskiy is 23. Mikhail Sergachev is 19. Even so, the Lightning hoisting the Stanley Cup in 2004 grows larger in stature and memory. It was hard to do then, and it looks harder to do now. It doesn’t help when you don’t show up when it matters.

“Winning a Stanley Cup is difficult,,” said Yzerman, who didn’t lift hockey’s greatest prize for Detroit until his 14th season. “There’s no clear path to it. Part of the process is working through various situations, including this year’s playoffs. … Winning it early in your career is great, but the reality for a majority of players is that it’s a struggle to get there.”

You can wait on next year all you want, but even the best teams can run out of next years. What if this is it for Cooper and his team? It’s worth considering on the day after.

The Lightning need to get better. Right now, it’s the team that had the most points in the Eastern Conference but couldn’t close the deal. The Capitals know that feeling all too well. Ovechkin and his crew have been building — and suffering — for more than a decade. They have finally punched on through. But they still must topple upstart Vegas.

But the Lightning couldn’t stay with the Caps in this series, especially 5-on-5. It basically went the last eight periods of this series without a goal. Who is to say it will better next time, that Stamkos and Kucherov’s tanks won’t run empty at a critical moment during a run? That’s what happened this time. And this won’t be the same team next year. Yzerman won’t blow it up, nor should he, but there will be turnover. Older players will give way to younger ones. The Lightning have real talent in their system. Yzerman built this thing to last.

Wednesday night ended the Lightning season. Ovechkin was left holding a trophy. The Lightning were left holding the bag. Ovechkin’s long road to the final might be an object lesson for Stamkos, Hedman and the Lightning. You just keep plugging.

This roster brims with talent and promise. Yzerman has made sure of that. And three conference finals in four years doesn’t sound like a team stuck in a rut. The Lightning might be right back here next season. Then again, it might not.

“I’m damn proud of them,” Cooper said late Wednesday. “To not make the playoffs, then get to Game 7 of the conference final. For us to be down 2-0 at home, and win three in a row against them … Yeah, when you get this far, for sure you’re thinking this is your year.”

It wasn’t.