Lightning rule the NHL
In a matter of days, the Tampa Bay Lightning went from the brink of elimination to Stanley Cup champions.
Ruslan Fedotenko scored two goals and Nikolai Khabibulin stopped the last 16 shots he faced as the Lightning beat the Flames 2-1 in Game 7 to win the Stanley Cup in their first trip to the NHL finals on this day in 2004.
The Lightning needed a double-overtime victory in Game 6 to stay alive and send the series back to Tampa Bay with a chance to clinch in front of their fans.
A raucous crowd of nearly 23,000 at the St. Pete Times Forum watched the hosts build a 2-0 lead following Fedotenko’s second-period goal, his 12th of the postseason. Fedotenko took a pass from forward Vincent Lecavalier, who had maneuvered the puck between two defenders, and fired a shot over the left shoulder of Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff.
Calgary pulled within a goal after Craig Conroy scored on a power play at 9:21 of the third period.
But the Flames couldn’t find the net again as Khabibulin turned them away. Perhaps no save was bigger than his stop of a rebound shot by Jordan Leopold with just under 5 minutes to play.
The win also gave 40-year-old forward and team captain Dave Andreychuk an elusive Stanley Cup title. Andreychuk, who entered the NHL in 1982, had been in the postseason 17 times (playing in 139 games) without having reached the Finals.
The team later erected a statue of Andreychuk outside the arena, depicting him hoisting the Stanley Cup over his head.
Lightning center Brad Richards earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs MVP after recording 26 points (12 goals and 14 assists). He later won a second Cup title in 2015 when he helped the Blackhawks beat the Lightning in the Finals.
The Lightning-Flames series served as the last Stanley Cup
Finals to air on the ABC/ESPN family of networks. ESPN televised the first two games and ABC showed the last five games, with the incomparable Gary Thorne handling play-by-play duties.
NBC and OLN picked up the NHL for the 2005-06 season. The 2004-05 season was canceled by the league lockout.