TAMPA, Florida – Ten teams over the past three years have tried to eliminate the Tampa Bay Lightning in the postseason while chasing a dynasty. They tried it in the 2020 bubble, they tried it in Canada, North Carolina, the state of Florida and the New York Islands, but they all failed.
From 2019, no one had found a way to knock down a team that reached the top, until Sunday, the Colorado Avalanche discovered the right combination of skill, speed and determination needed to eliminate the champion.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, the NHL has a new champion. The high-flying Avalanche defeated the Lightning, 2-1, in the sixth game of the final, to win the Stanley Cup, one of the most elusive and enduring trophies in the sport.
One by one in the post-match celebration, the Avalanche players held the shiny cup high, kissing it as they paraded through the ice Amalie Arena, just as the Lightning had done on the same court, their court. house, the previous year.
It is the third title in the Colorado franchise, and the first since 2001, when Joe Sakic was the team captain. Sakic, who also played seven seasons with the organization before moving from Quebec, was again available to share the latest celebration, this time as general manager and architect of a club so deeply talented that he meaning that Tampa Bay had finally done. he found his match.
Cale Makar, the dazzling 23-year-old defender, was named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs for his eight goals and 29 points. But other great players, such as center-back Nathan MacKinnon, winger Mikko Rantanen, brave striker Nazem Kadri and winger Gabriel Landeskog, the captain, played a major role in kick-off the Stanley Cup. the stubborn grip of Tampa Bay.
When asked during a TV interview what other teams in the avalanche could learn, Landeskog said, “Go out and find a Cale Makar somewhere.”
The Lightning had hoped to become the first team to win three Stanley Cups in a row since the Islanders won four consecutive titles between 1980 and 1983. But achieving this task is a test of endurance: the great goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy and the skaters who form The central group of stars of the team such as defender Victor Hedman, winger Nikita Kucherov and defender Mikhail Sergachev, played their 68th high-intensity match in a postseason series that began with the 2020 playoffs , which were played in the so-called bubbles in Canada because of the pandemic.
The Lightning had played more games than any other team in the last three years, defending themselves from elimination in four games during that period, and after three years of constant mental and physical beating, they finally gave way to a new champion. .
In 2020, the Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, a neutral place with no fans, and last year they defeated the Montreal Canadiens.
This year, they became the first team since those Islanders in the early 1980s to reach a third consecutive playoff series, but Colorado was the best of the 10 teams the Lightning have played in the last three seasons. (including the Islanders and Florida Panthers twice each). ).
Sakic, who has proven to be almost as skilled at creating a winner from the office as he was with skates on his feet and a stick in his hand, is responsible for building a team that has been widely recognized for several years as one of the emerging powers of the league. But that only happened after Colorado lost the playoffs six times in seven years, from 2011 to 2017.
Those were sad years for NHL hockey in Denver, but the Colorado reception, run since 2013 by Sakic, added talented players every year. Many of them have come through draft elections, thanks to all those losing seasons. Landeskog was selected with the second overall selection in 2011. MacKinnon was selected with the first selection two years later and Colorado selected Rantanen with the 10th selection in 2015. In 2017, they had the good sense to take Makar at number 4 and two years later they added defender Bowen Byram, also with a No. 4 pick.
With these local players, in addition to key additions over the years, such as defender Kadri Devon Toews and winger Andre Burakovsky through exchanges, and winger Valeri Nichushkin through free agency, Colorado rose to the dispute. The Avalanche won the Presidents Trophy last year, given to the team with the best balance of the regular season. But so far, the group has not been able to turn the success of the regular season into the glory of the playoffs, falling in the second round in each of the previous three years.
This season, with Makar exploding to win the Norris Trophy as the best defense in the league and Kadri, 31, who set a career high with 87 points, the Avalanche set victory records (56) and points (119) and more. importantly, he brought that dominance to the playoffs with a 16-4 record.
From the training ground, Avalanche’s question surrounded the team’s ability to overcome past failures and ultimately win a title. This was proved in the final as the Avalanche lost the fifth game at home and faced the prospect of becoming only the second team of 37 to lose in the final after taking the lead. of the series by 3-1.
But in Game 6, the Avalanche showed some championship determination.
The Lightning scored first with a goal from Steven Stamkos, the team captain, who turned in front of the goal and slipped the puck between the pads of Avalanche goalkeeper Darcy Kuemper. The Lightning held that lead until MacKinnon equalized with a single shot to the right of Vasilevskiy just 1 minute 54 seconds from the start of the second period, stifling the public’s spirits.
Minutes later, Artturi Lehkonen, who joined the Avalanche in a change Sakic made in March with Montreal, scored to give Colorado their first game advantage, bringing the team closer to their first Stanley Cup celebration since Sakic kept the trophy as a player. , 21 years ago.
In the third period, the cooler legs of the younger Avalanche forced the record to remain at the Tampa Bay end for long stretches, providing one more proof that it was finally time to crown a new champion.