Regardless of the sport, winning consecutive championship titles is rare because it is very difficult. Injuries, egos, contract requirements, and the NHL salary cap often derail second-degree races.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, however, are on the verge of achieving something even more difficult: winning three Stanley Cups in a row. The two-time champions beat the Rangers, 2-1, to win the Eastern Conference Finals on Saturday and will return to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they will face the Colorado Avalanche starting Wednesday in Denver.
No team has played in three consecutive Stanley Cup finals since the Edmonton Oilers led by Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier in the mid-1980s, and the Islanders were the last team to win three consecutive cups when they won four. consecutive titles 40 years ago from 1980 to 1984.
Perhaps Lightning is not attracting the national attention of some of the clubs in the major markets in the league or their Canadian teams. They play in Tampa, a Florida tourist destination where a Buccaneers quarterback named Tom Brady holds the top spot.
But quietly and empathetically, the Lightning have built a dynasty under coach Jon Cooper and his captain, Steven Stamkos, who has been the core of the team’s success. Now 32, the Toronto suburban center has played its entire 14-year career in Tampa and helped create a perennial rival.
With 522 goals in his career, including the playoffs, he only chases two guys named Ovechkin and Crosby among the active players. It has also been the tail that has helped keep his high-flying teammates together, including his teammates Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat. The Tampa Bay roster includes players with a total of 204 playoff games, most of them from any team.
Stamkos stepped up his stellar career when he scored two Lightning goals, including the game-winning winner at the end of the third period on Saturday, to end the Rangers.
“It’s great to score a couple of goals in a game as big as this one, but if I didn’t score and win, I would have been just as happy,” he said after the game.
Stamkos has scored nine goals so far in the NHL playoffs, but Lightning won the series convincingly dominating the Rangers in almost every facet of the game. Tampa Bay overcame a two-game deficit and won the last four games of the series, beating the Rangers 12-5. The Lightning made few mistakes, which kept the Rangers’ power play off the ice. The young Rangers, in the playoffs for the first time in five seasons, failed to score as strongly in the last four games of the series.
On Saturday, the score and shots on goal were deceptively adjusted, and the statistics would have been more unbalanced had it not been for the brilliant play of Rangers goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin. The Lightning had many more quality goal opportunities and the Rangers, who had won all five play-offs during the playoffs, looked deflated after a daunting defeat in the fifth game in New York on Thursday.
While Shesterkin was desperately trying to keep the Rangers in the game, his counterpart, Tampa Bay goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy, barely tested himself. He stopped 20 shots and won his eighth straight game, six of which were white.
Tampa Bay has now won 11 straight playoff series, which Cooper attributed to his players’ continued drive.
“No one would blame them” if the players put it aside, he said. “Hey, you’ve won one, you’ve won two, and come back and go for a third.”
The Lightning beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in seven games in the first round and then swept the Florida Panthers. The Rangers then faced the first two games in the series in New York.
But the Lightning showed why and how they continue to win championships. They found their starting point when the series moved to Tampa, improved with each game and were the much brighter team on Saturday. They skated fast, made clear passes and caught wrong passes from the Rangers. They dominated the first period, attempting 25 shots while the Rangers got 12.
Shesterkin kept Tampa at bay, even wiping out his own disaster. After an attempt to clear the record was intercepted by Riley Nash of the Lightning, stopped a tip from Patrick Maroon. He used his right pad to stop a Pierre-Édouard Bellemare spike attempt and denied Anthony Cirelli in a breakaway.
In the second period, Shesterkin stole Kucherov, Tampa Bay’s top scorer, when he tried to reverse the record.
But after all of Shesterkin’s frantic stops, Tampa Bay scored after Stamkos overtook an injured Ryan Strome and fired a wrist from the top of the circle.
The Rangers finally had a chance to play power in the third period when Corey Perry hit Filip Chytil in the face with a stick. Tampa blocked all Rangers shots.
The Rangers finally scored on another power play when Stamkos was called to hold on and Frank Vatrano fired a shot from a face-off that slipped past Vasilevskiy.
Whatever momentum the Rangers gained, he disappeared 21 seconds later. Stamkos, coming out of the penalty area, ran into the net, grabbed a pass from Kucherov and fired the puck. Shesterkin grabbed him by the glove, but the puck bounced and Stamkos’ leg hit him against the net. After a review, the goal remained.
Now Tampa Bay will face the Avalanche, which has had plenty of time to contemplate its next rival. They finished with the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Finals almost a week ago. They were the best team in the West in the regular season with 119 points, and so far have a 12-2 mark in the playoffs, including the garbage of the Nashville Predators and Oilers.
Colorado allowed just 40 goals in Tampa’s 41, but the Avalanche scored much more often, leading all teams with 65 goals to 52 in the Lightning.
They are led by Nathan MacKinnon, the fast and creative center and defender Cale Makar, whom Wayne Gretzky recently named the best two-band player since Bobby Orr.
Colorado won their two games against Tampa Bay this season, by one goal each time. But it may be without Nazem Kadri and Andrew Cogliano, both of whom have injured fingers. It is unclear whether goalkeeper Darcy Kuemper will start Game 1.
The Rangers will have all summer to heal their injuries and think about how they blew a two-game lead against defending Stanley Cup champions. Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said a grueling schedule – 20 playoff games in 40 days – had worn down his club.
The sting of a Stanley Cup race that ends too soon will last.
“I’m empty,” said Rangers center Mika Zibanejad, who then paused for a long time. “I don’t want it to end.”
Cooper, the Lightning coach, can’t believe it’s not for his team.
“When you grow up in Canada, you always dream of having your name in the Stanley Cup,” he said. “And getting there for the first time was a dream come true. Getting there for the second time next year was like a dream, as if there was no way back. And going there for the third time is unthinkable. “