Lightning face team breakup
Players knew final may have been last game together
With the clock ticking on their time together, the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning talked about what they already knew was their last Stanley Cup run as a group.
They talked about it midway through the playoffs. They talked about it on the verge of reaching the final. Changes were coming, so captain Steven Stamkos and his teammates told each other, “Let’s take advantage of this opportunity.”
Tampa Bay did just that in winning the championship back to back, and players and coaches celebrated in a fashion befitting the end of an era. Coach Jon Cooper said it felt like “the last day of school” and the Lightning aced their final exam before inevitable changes break them apart.
“This team, knowing that we’re probably not going to be together, this was the end of a special group for two years,” Cooper said. “Who knows what’s going to happen here, but I think that was a huge motivator for our group.”
It took a strange sequence of events to keep the Lightning together this season. Longtime forward Tyler Johnson was put on waivers last fall when it looked like they needed to clear salary cap space, and general manager Julien Brisebois paid the price of a second-round pick to dump salary in late December.
Then star forward Nikita Kucherov discovered he needed hip surgery, the rehab of which would cause him to miss the entire 56-game regular season that was squeezed into four months. It was a major loss but also one that allowed Tampa Bay to stash his $9.5 million cap hit on long-term injured reserve and put a playoff-worthy team on the ice.
Salary cap gymnastics also allowed Tampa Bay to add David Savard at the trade deadline, and the rugged defenseman who had never won it all before set up rookie Ross Colton’s winning goal in the Cup clincher Wednesday night.
It had all bounced the right way for the Lightning.
“I don’t see the circumstances of what happened last year happening again,” Cooper said during the final. “I know the players don’t see that.”
Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow, the 2020 trade deadline pickups who were so important in these two titles, are almost certainly gone as unrestricted free agents. The Lightning could lose Johnson, veteran forward Alex Killorn, savvy defenseman Ryan Mcdonagh or another important player in the Seattle expansion draft. Playoff leading goalscorer Brayden Point needs a new contract extension with his deal up next summer.
It’s now up to Brisebois to address the future breakup.
Notes: A person with knowledge of the situation says that Vladimir Tarasenko has asked the St. Louis Blues for a trade.