Expect Stanley Cup to reside in Tampa Bay
once again
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| A Victor Hedman card. |
Of course, the Lightning players and staffers handle things in more of a classic humble manner traditionally expected winners in professional hockey that is without bravado and swagger. Flair does attend Lightning games, so maybe that is the team’s way of bringing in bravado and swagger.
Still when it comes to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, to be the team you have to beat the team.
As the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, the Lightning are the team. It feels like it is going to take a supernatural effort to pry the Stanley Cup away from Tampa Bay’s grasp.
On Wednesday, the best-of-seven Stanley Cup final starts in Denver, Colorado, with Game 1 (6 p.m., CBC). The host Colorado Avalanche, who finished second overall in NHL’s regular season standings with a 56-19-7 record, face the Lightning, who finished eighth overall with a solid 51-23-8 mark.
The Avalanche won the NHL’s Western Conference title, and they are the team on the rise that has seemingly arrived.
The Lightning won the NHL’s Eastern Conference crown, and they are chasing history as the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.
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| A Steven Stamkos card. |
The Lightning are still in their prime. They have a dependable core of players who are used to willing their club to victory in Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, Alex Killorn, Brayden Point, Ondrej Palat, Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev, Patrick Maroon, Ryan McDouagh and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Through three rounds of the playoffs, the Lightning made seemingly all the extra effort plays when it comes to blocking shots or winning one-on-one battles for the puck. Those extra effort plays are added in addition to the fact they play the game on a systems front seamlessly and often flawlessly.
On top of that, the Lightning have gotten Hockey Hall of Fame level goaltending from Vasilevskiy.
Teams that get all those things inevitably win Stanley Cups.
In the Lightning’s case, the fact they’ve won the last two Stanley Cup titles, and they go all out in the shot blocking department and winning one-on-one puck battles can create “shock and awe” doubt in opponents.
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| An Andrei Vasilevskiy card. |
You begin to see why the Lightning are the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions and the other 31 teams in the NHL are not.
Veteran Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois and long time head coach Jon Cooper have built a team for sustained success and not to be a one-year wonder club.
If the Lightning knock off the Avalanche to win a third straight Stanley Cup, BriseBois and Cooper have to be locks for the Hockey Hall of Fame.
If the Lightning capture a third straight Stanley Cup title, the debate begins on which players from their team will be locks for the Hockey Hall of Fame. Stamkos, Hedman and Vasilevskiy have to be the non-debatable locks for the Hockey Hall of Fame, if the Lightning win a third straight Stanley Cup.
Had Stamkos, Hedman and Vasilevskiy played on a NHL Canadian team their entire careers, they would be talked about like hockey royalty.
Put it this way, Avalanche 23-year-old star Cale Makar has been mentioned quite a bit among Canadian mainstream media as the best all-around defenceman in the NHL. The graduate of the junior A Alberta-based powerhouse Brooks Bandits is deserving of big praise.
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| A Nikita Kucherov card. |
However, it can be argued the 31-year-old Hedman is a better all-around defenceman than Makar. To be honest, Hedman might be the best all-around defenceman in the NHL.
With Hedman playing his entire NHL career dating back to his first season in 2009-10 with the Lightning, he hasn’t received much attention from Canadian mainstream media outlets until the Lightning reach the Stanley Cup final.
When the Lightning play in the Stanley Cup Final, an acknowledgement is made of, “Wow! I didn’t realize Victor Hedman was that good.”
Actually had Hedman played his entire career for the Toronto Maple Leafs, you could almost see Toronto media outlets making the case that Hedman was the greatest defenceman to ever play in the NHL.
That leads to another intangible the Lightning have. They don’t get phased when things go south for a game or adversity rises up.
Back in the first round of the current NHL Playoffs, the Lightning lost Game 1 of their best-of-seven series to the Maple Leafs 5-0 in Toronto. There was talk that the Lightning were finished and the Maple Leafs would be Stanley Cup champions.
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| An Alex Killorn card. |
During the Game 7 win over the Maple Leafs, the Lightning lost Point to a lower-body injury. Without their high-scoring centre, who plays a strong two-way game, the Lightning swept the Florida Panthers, who finished first overall in the NHL regular season standings with a 58-18-6 record, in a second round series and took out the New York Rangers in six games in the Eastern Conference Championship Series.
In Game 1 against the Rangers in New York, the Lightning fell 6-2. The Rangers followed up by posting a 3-2 victory in Game 2 to take a 2-0 lead in the series to once again start banter that the Lightning were dead.
Four straight wins later by Tampa Bay, and the Rangers were making plans for which golf courses they would hit in the off-season.
After the Lightning took Game 5 in New York by a 3-1 score, numerous Rangers fans were waving white flags on social media channels.
Regarding Point, the Lightning say they expect him to return to action in the Stanley Cup final.
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| A Brayden Point card. |
In this round between the Lightning and Avalanche, it feels like experience is going to matter, and it will play out like the 1983 Stanley Cup final where the Islanders swept the Oilers providing a big learning experience for the Edmonton side.
If the Lightning did sweep the Avalanche, that would be a surprise. At the moment, the Lightning are the two-time defending champs, and it is hard to envision them getting knocked off. They are far from being old and done.
The Lightning will be the favourites to win the Stanley Cup until someone indeed knocks them off. Look out Avalanche, because the champs are here.
Oilers playoff run was fun entertainment, other notes
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| A Connor McDavid card. |
The Oilers finished 11th overall in the NHL’s regular season standings with a 49-27-6 record, and in the post-season, they attempted to emulate their all-time great clubs from the 1980s by piling up the goals. They went on a run that saw them make the Western Conference Championship Series for the first time since 2006, when the Oilers advanced to the Stanley Cup final and fell to the Carolina Hurricanes in seven games.
Edmonton’s venture through the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs came to an end on June 6 with a 6-5 overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche that was highly entertaining. While the Avalanche to the Western Conference Championship Series in a sweep, the Oilers legitimately could have won Games 1, 3 or 4 of the series.
The Oilers run had lots of nostalgia points too.
With the Oilers being blessed with two of hockey’s best players in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, it was easy to follow the team’s exploits. In 16 post-season games, McDavid piled up 33 points coming off 10 goals and 23 assists to go with a plus-15 rating in the plus-minus department.
Draisaitl also appeared in all of the Oilers 16 post-season outings piling up 32 points coming off seven goals and 25 assists to go with a plus-four rating.
That allowed fans to dream back to the 1980s, when Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier and company were putting up insane offensive numbers for the Oilers.
The Oilers took out the Los Angeles Kings in a first round series that went the distance to seven games, where the Oilers took the deciding contest 2-0. That brought memories of the playoff encounters the two sides had in the 1980s and early 1990s.
In the second round, we had Battle of Alberta for the first time since 1991 between the Oilers and Calgary Flames. The Oilers took the series in five games with storylines jumping around all over the place as much as the offence.
The rivalry had a bit of snark in it too. The Flames took the first game in Calgary 9-6, before the Oilers rolled off four straight wins. Edmonton’s victories in Games 2 and 4 of the series came by respective 5-3 final scores.
The Oilers clinched the series with a 5-4 win in Game 5 in overtime with Draisaitl setting up McDavid for the winner.
A lot of nostalgia surfaced during that series between the Oilers and Flames as fans recalled their playoff meetings in 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988 and 1991.
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| A Leon Draisaitl card. |
The series began with an 8-6 victory by the Avalanche in Game 1 in Denver before Colorado closed things out with their 6-5 overtime win in Game 4.
The post-season run seemed to take heat off Oilers standout general manager Ken Holland, who faced criticism because his Oilers teams hadn’t made a long playoff run like his old Detroit Red Wings teams used to do including four Stanley Cup title wins.
Midway through the 2021-22 campaign, the Oilers made a coaching change, which seemed to spark their run to making the playoffs. Dave Tippett was out as head coach and Jim Playfair was out as associate coach, and Jay Woodcroft was in as head coach and Dave Manson became an assistant coach.
Obviously, Woodcroft and Manson have done enough that they need to be retained.
The Oilers need to get a little bit better on defence and find a way to improve their goaltending situation. In goal, the Oilers got all they could get from 40-year-old Mike Smith, but he had way too many shaky and error prone moments.
The Oilers other goaltender in Mikko Koskinen signed a two-year contract with play with Switzerland’s Hockey Club Lugano on Monday.
Edmonton has to decide if 23-year-old local product Stuart Skinner, who was a WHL star with the Lethbridge Hurricanes and Swift Current Broncos, is their goaltender of the present or do they have to acquire another puck stopper.
Unfortunately across the NHL, there aren’t many goalies to go after that would be an upgrade and are sure things. Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers aren’t going anywhere any time soon.
Sure thing upgrades are left to desperate measures like sending five first round draft selections to the Winnipeg Jets for Connor Hellebuyck.
Despite what the Oilers need to do to more forward, it was refreshing to see them make a long playoff run once again.
- On Monday, Sage Watson, who is a star 400-metre hurdler on Canada’s National Women’s Track and Field Team, announced she is taking the upcoming season off to allow her body to recover from various lingering injuries. The 27-year-old from Seven Persons, Alberta, which is just southwest of Medicine Hat, has represented Canada at the last two Summer Olympics.
- On Monday, the Saskatoon Blades announced they signed 15-year-old forward Hudson Kibblewhite to a WHL Standard Player Agreement. The Blades selected the Vernon, B.C., product in the second round and 35th overall in the WHL Prospects Draft held this past May 19. Last season with Rink Hockey Academy Kelowna’s under-15 prep team, Kibblewhite piled up 61 points coming off 19 goals and 42 assists.
- On Monday, Softball Canada announced 19-year-old right-handed pitcher Jorde Chartrand, who is from Weyburn, Sask., was one of 20 athletes named to the Women’s National Team roster for the organization’s 2022 Celebration Tour and the Canada Cup International Softball Championship, which runs June 20-26 in Surrey, B.C. The Celebration Tour helps commemorate the bronze medal win by Canada’s women’s team at the 2020 Olympics, which were actually held last year in Tokyo, Japan. The tour includes a stop at Bob Van Impe Stadium on July 1 for a doubleheader against Czechia starting at 1 p.m. Chartrand, who has played and trained in Saskatoon, is coming off her first season playing for the University of Central Arkansas Bears women’s team in the NCAA Division I ranks.
- On Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, Canada downed the United States 3-2 in the gold medal game of the International Ice Hockey Federation’s Women’s World Championship tournament. Canada built a 3-0 lead and held on for the one-goal win at the LaBahn Arena. Ava Murphy had a goal and an assist for Canada, while Jocelyn Amos scored the winner. Mari Pietersen made 29 saves to pick up the win in goal for Canada.
- A hidden gem in Saskatchewan might be the action in the Saskatchewan Premier Baseball League. The play at all levels in that league is strong. The action in the under-18 AAA division is stellar. On Wednesday in the under-18 AAA division, the Saskatoon Cubs (10-2) will face the Saskatoon Diamondbacks (8-4) on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at Cairns Field in what should be a really good game. If you want to check out a contest from a curiosity standpoint, that would be a great contest to check out.
- Last Thursday, I had new content appear on the Howe Happenings blog that supports the Gordie Howe Sports Complex. I put together a feature story on track and field stars Michelle Harrison and Nicole Ostertag taking on busy outdoor seasons. The piece on Harrison and Ostertag can be found by clicking right here. I also created a new photo roundup that can be found by clicking right here.
If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.
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