Colorado Avalanche (1C) vs. Tampa Bay Lightning (3A)
Allau: 56-19-7, 119 points
lightning: 51-23-8, 110 points
Seasonal series: COL 2-0; TBL 0-1-1
Game 1: Wednesday, 20:00 ET (ESPN +, ABC, SN, CBC, TVAS)
The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to win the Stanley Cup for the third season in a row when they play the Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup final.
The Lightning would be the first team to win three times in a row since the New York Islanders won the Cup four consecutive seasons from 1980 to ’83. The Avalanche last won the Cup in 2001.
“Just sitting here right now and thinking about the magnitude of going to a third Stanley Cup final,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “You grew up when I was little and I wasn’t good enough to play in that league, but when you grow up in Canada, you always dream of having your name in the Stanley Cup. Getting there the first time was a dream come true. “A second time, the following year, was a dream. Going a third time is unthinkable.”
Tampa Bay defeated the New York Rangers in six games in the Eastern Conference Finals to advance.
Colorado will end up waiting nine days after completing a four-game sweep of the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals on June 6. They Avalanche had an eight-day layoff after sweeping the Nashville Predators in the first round.
“The coaches do a good job making sure we’re working, working and it’s good to get some rest, but we’ve already had it in these playoffs where we’ve had time to be. Ready for a series,” said the striker. ‘Avalanche JT Compher. “It’s just keeping your mind on that. You have some time to relax, but just make sure you’re mentally refreshed and focused on the goal ahead.”
[RELATED: 2022 Stanley Cup Final schedule | Stanley Cup Final coverage]
The Avalanche won both games of the regular season against Lightning. Striker Gabriel Landeskog (two goals, one assist) had three points in two games against them and striker Nathan MacKinnon scored three points (one goal, two assists) in one game. Goalkeeper Darcy Kuemper was 2-0 with an average of 2.40 goals against and a .929 savings percentage.
Forward Brayden Point led the Lightning with three points (two goals, one assist) in two games against the Avalanche. Forwards Steven Stamkos (one goal, one assist) and Ondrej Palat (two assists) have scored two points each. Goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy was 0-1-1 with a GAA of 2.96 and a savings percentage of 0.919 in two starts.
Point has a lower body injury and has not played since the 7th game of the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Cooper was unsure of Point’s status for Game 1, but said it was “extremely likely” that Point would play in the series.
Break the game
Allau: MacKinnon has 18 points and leads Colorado with 11 goals in 14 playoff games. MacKinnon also leads the Avalanche with five power-play goals and scored his second postseason hat-trick against the St. Louis Cardinals. Louis Blues in Game 5 of the Second Round of the Western Conference. His speed and strength always make him a focus for the opposition.
lightning: Nikita Kucherov remains a force for Tampa Bay. The striker leads the Lightning with 23 points (seven goals, 16 assists) in 17 playoff games. He is nine points clear of his 34 points (seven goals, 27 assists) in 25 playoff games in 2020. Kucherov has three goals and three assists in a five-point streak.
Goal
Allau: Kuemper missed the final three games of the conference final after suffering an upper body injury in the first game against the Oilers. Would it be available on Wednesday, but will Colorado go with Kuemper or Pavel Francouz, who started and won Games 2, 3 and 4 against Edmonton? Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said he and his staff will discuss the options. Kuemper is 6-2 with a GAA of 2.65 and a savings rate of 0.897 in 10 starts; Francouz is 6-0 with a GAA of 2.86, a savings rate of 0.906 and a goal in six games (four starters).
lightning: There’s no doubt about who starts in Tampa Bay. Vasilevskiy is 12-5-0 with a GAA of 2.27, a savings rate of 0.928 and a whitewash in 17 starts. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the postseason when Lightning won the Cup in 2021 and is once again competing for that honor. He is 61-34 with a GAA of 2.24, a savings percentage of 0.925 and seven whites in 98 playoff games of his career (93 starters).
Numbers to know
Allau: 31.1. Power play percentage for Colorado, which is 14 out of 45 and has scored with the man advantage in nine of its 14 postseason games. The Avalanche has picked up where they left off in the regular season, when they had the seventh-best power play in the NHL (67 of 279, 24 percent).
lightning: 2.41. Goals against per game in 16 games, the best of any team left in the postseason (the Dallas Stars allowed 2.14 goals per game in seven games). Tampa Bay has allowed two or fewer goals in nine playoff games. In closing their series against New York, the Lightning kept the Rangers one goal behind in each of the last three games.
X factors
Allau: Cale Makar. It could also have been categorized as a game breaker, because it is. The defender plays with the knowledge of a top-tier striker and leads Colorado with 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) in 14 playoff games. He saved the best for Game 4 of the conference final, when he scored five points (one goal, four assists) to help eliminate the Oilers. He was the first defender in NHL history to have five points in a series game.
lightning: Ondrej Palat. A Tampa Bay seventh-round pick (No. 208) in the 2011 NHL Draft, the striker has been featured this postseason. He has 16 points (eight goals, eight assists) in 17 games, second in the Lightning behind Kucherov. Palat, whose eight goals are second in the Lightning against Steven Stamkos with nine, always seems to be in the right place at the right time. He has two winning goals this postseason and 11 for his career, most in Lightning history.
They said so
“It’s no secret that some electric players have, and to be honest, [they’re] probably a team we thought we’d played in the last two years. … They have an amazing mix of veteran presence, star power, windmills, goalkeeper. So it’s a big challenge for us, but we’re going to make a game plan here together in the next few days, and as we do each series, we’re going to try to run it as best we can and give it a try. “ – Lightning captain Steven Stamkos
“It’s just a team that knows how to win right now. They’ve done it for the last two years, and they’re about to do it again. Any of those teams, they’ve been through it countless times. the ones we’ve had to deal with, and they’re coming out every time. So that’s something we’re going to have to clarify. ” – Avalanche Defender Devon Toews
Will win if …
Allau: They get a goalkeeper, from whom to start. Obviously, Colorado faced off with some firepower against Edmonton forwards Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane. The Avalanche will face Lightning again with Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Palat and Stamkos, among others. Whether it’s Kuemper or Francouz, he’ll have to be at his best and need the same from the defense in front of him.
lightning: If they can stand it. The depth of Tampa Bay has been crucial to getting this far after winning the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021. Now the Lightning are coming off another long series against the Rangers, but the Avalanche has not played since June 6 . They have played a lot. hockey for the last three seasons, and it would be easy to think that he will finally catch up. Betting against them, however, does not seem right.
How they look
Projected alignment of avalanches
Gabriel Landeskog – Nathan MacKinnon – Artturi Lehkonen
Valeri Nichushkin – Nazem Kadri – Mikko Rantanen
Andre Burakovsky – JT Compher – Nicolas Aube-Kubel
Andrew Cogliano – Darren Helm – Logan O’Connor
Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Jack Johnson – Josh Manson
Bowen Byram – Erik Johnson
Darcy Kuemper
Pavel Francouz
Scraped: Nico Sturm, Alex Newhook, Ryan Murray, Kurtis MacDermid, Trent Miner
Injured: Samuel Girard (sternum)
Projected alignment with lightning
Ondrej Palat – Steven Stamkos – Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli – Alex Killorn
Ross Colton – Nicholas Paul – Corey Perry
Pat Maroon – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Riley Nash
Victor Hedman – Jan Rutta
Ryan McDonagh – Erik Cernak
Mikhail Sergachev – Zach Bogosian
Andrei Vasilevsky
Brian Elliott
Scraped: Cal Foote
Injured: Brayden Point (lower body)