Lightning are the team to beat in the NHL

Expect Stanley Cup to reside in Tampa Bay once again

A Victor Hedman card.

All players and staffers with the Tampa Bay Lightning can do the Ric Flair strut followed by the trademark, “Woo!”

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.

A Steven Stamkos card.

Tampa Bay is trying to win the Stanley Cup for a third consecutive year, which is something that hasn’t happened since the New York Islanders won the Stanley Cup four straight years from 1980 to 1983. Those storied Islanders squads were going for a fifth straight title before grudgingly giving way to the revered Edmonton Oilers in 1984 and the start of their dynasty run.

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.

An Andrei Vasilevskiy card.

When opponents see the effort the Lightning still put out after having won the Stanley Cup in each of the past two years, opposing teams have to question themselves in where they are in the “how bad do you want it” department.

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.

A Nikita Kucherov card.

The best all-around defenceman praise came after the Avalanche swept away Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Championship Series.

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.

An Alex Killorn card.

The Lightning seemingly had the collective confidence and calm knowing that was only one game and the Stanley Cup is not won in the first game of an opening round series. The Lightning took out the Maple Leafs in seven games claiming Game 6 by a 4-3 score in overtime in Tampa Bay and prevailing 2-1 in Game 7 in Toronto.

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.

A Brayden Point card.

The Avalanche will provide a stiff challenge to the Lightning. With players like Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Andre Burakovsky, Gabriel Landeskog, Devon Toews, Valeri Nichushkin, Erik Johnson, Josh Manson, Darren Helm, Pavel Francouz and Darcy Kuemper, maybe the Avalanche will be the answer to the Lightning like the Oilers were to the Islanders back in 1984. If the injured Nazem Kadri makes it back, the Avalanche will be even more of a challenge to deal with.

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

A Connor McDavid card.

For the casual hockey fan, nothing beat the Edmonton Oilers running it back to the fire wagon days of the 1980s in the NHL Playoffs.

The Oilers finished 11^th 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.

A Leon Draisaitl card.

In the Western Conference Championship Series, the Oilers weren’t able to outgun an Avalanche team that also has lots of offensive talent in Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Nazem Kadri.

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 35^th 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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After Stanley Cup high by Lightning, where does the NHL go from here?

Look of 2020-21 campaign has no certainty

A Brayden Point card.

In the current day, it seems like the great feeling of experiencing the NHL’s top annual moment was fleeting.

On Monday, the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup for the second time in team history blanking the Dallas Stars 2-0 in Game 6 of the NHL championship series to take the best-of-seven set 4-2.

When Lightning captain Steven Stamkos raised the Stanley Cup after his team posed for a group picture with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, you could see in Stamkos’s eyes and his reaction in that moment at Rogers Place in Edmonton was an ultimate dream comes true.

As the Stanley Cup was passed amongst the members of the Lightning team include standout players like Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy and head coach Jon Cooper, the joy of holding up the historical professional hockey prize was as pure, natural and euphoric as it could get.

There were good tingles when you saw role players like Tyler Johnson, Anthony Cirelli, Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn enjoy the rewards for doing their party to help the Lightning reach the NHL’s peak. 

A Victor Hedman card.

On the Saskatchewan front, Saskatoon product Luke Schenn and Shaunavon product Brayden Coburn realized the top moment of their lengthy NHL careers with their first Stanley Cup win.

While it was still obvious the world was in the grips of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as no fans were in attendance and only team family members that lived in Canada were in the building, the night belonged to the Lightning. They soaked in a treasured moment in time they rightly deserved.

For a period of two months beginning on August 1, NHL fans both hardcore and casual got to watch the television broadcasts extended 24-team post-season play out in the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton. When it was time to hold the conference championship series, all the action was condensed into Edmonton.

Even if your favourite team lost out, fans had to admit it was comforting having the NHL on television on pretty much a nightly basis. Watching games helped get the mind off of the troubles the world was going through even for a short time.

An Alex Killorn card.

Still, even as quickly as the day after the Stanley Cup final ended, the question that inevitably ran through the head was “what happens now?”

First up, the NHL Entry Draft will be held this coming Tuesday and Wednesday via video conference call from the NHL Network Studios in Secaucus, New Jersey. Free agency will open on Friday, Oct. 9 at 12 p.m. eastern time.

After that, things get murky. The NHL has not announced a start date for the upcoming 2020-21 regular season.

Speculation has ranged from December 1, to the middle and later part of that month and possibly early in January 2021. Actually, everything with regards what the 2020-21 NHL campaign could look like is all speculation at this point.

In an interview with SiriusXM NHL Network Radio on this past Wednesday night, Bettman said he was unsure what the next NHL season will look like.

“I don’t know what we are going to do yet, but we are focusing on what the issues are,” said Bettman on the broadcast. “When we know more how about those issues get resolved or are left unresolved, we’ll be in a better position to announce what are plans are and what the contingencies are.

A Tyler Johnson card.

“That exercise is going to require a few more weeks, but we are intent on playing the 2020/21 season. My goal would be to play a full season, a regular season and then go into normal playoffs. While that is our goal and our objective and I think we can do that, we need a little more time to work on the planning.

“That is something that we are going to be doing in conjunction with the players again.”

At the start of the Stanley Cup final, Bettman said attendance impacts 50 per cent of NHL revenues. Unlike a circuit like the NFL that has all its costs covered due to its television contract, the NHL needs some fans in the stands.

Outside of a few spots in the United States, mass gatherings are still not permitted in most NHL markets including all seven teams located in Canada. The border between Canada and the United States is still closed to non-essential travel and odds are high that likely won’t change until well into 2021.

During the SiriusXM NHL Network Radio interview, Bettman said there are a lot factors that are out of the NHL’s control, but he would like to get fans back inside rinks around the league.

A Nikita Kucherov card.

“We don’t know what the world is going to be like,” said Bettman. “When will our buildings as a result be open like they used to be?

“The fact is our players and our game gets an incredible energy from our sold out buildings every night. It is part of what makes NHL hockey the best in person sporting experience. We miss our fans terribly.”

It should be noted that all the buildings in the NHL aren’t sold out on a nightly basis, but attendance for the league before the 2019-20 regular season was paused on March 12 was healthy. The fans do create a good atmosphere inside NHL buildings.

Still, the biggest question is how long will the wait be before the next meaningful NHL game is played?

Could a lengthy amount of time pass before the NHL hits the ice again?

When the league does return to action, what is it going to look like?

Will the teams in Canada just be playing each other with the same happening in the United States?

A Steven Stamkos card.

After the NHL Draft ends, the league will be venturing into an unknown. It is an unknown that is already being thought of as the NHL regular season usually begins around the time the upcoming NHL Entry Draft is slated to be held.

The Lightning, who have talent all over the place, will likely become more and more thankful they reached their potential with their current generation as the days pass. As it is expected the salary cap won’t grow and could possibly shrink, the Lightning will be hard pressed to keep their roster together.

While there was security knowing games were happening on pretty much a nightly basis during the 2020 NHL post-season, the off-season the NHL is in feels a little ominous and scary.

That ominous and scary feeling likely won’t totally go away until the COVID-19 pandemic is declared over.

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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Lightning conquer huge hump with Stanley Cup win

A Victor Hedman card.

The doubts about this generation of the Tampa Bay Lightning are gone forever.

The skeptics viewed them as the team with exceptional skill but one that lacked the will to win a championship. The Lightning had won 42 or more games in each of the past seven regular seasons.

They made the Stanley Cup final in 2015 and fell in that best-of-seven series 4-2 to the Chicago Blackhawks, who at that time captured their third Stanley Cup title in six years.

In 2018-19, Tampa Bay had a dream regular season posting a 62-16-4 record to finish first overall in the NHL for the first time in franchise history. Their 62 wins matched the regular season record put up by the Detroit Red Wings in 1995-96.

The regular season success translated into post-season disappoint for the Lightning as they were swept 4-0 in a best-of-seven first round series by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2019 NHL playoffs.

Returning the bulk of their roster, the Lightning entered the 2019-20 campaign and the 2020 NHL playoffs as arguably the team with the most to prove. They were the team skeptics could easily write off expecting another disappointment to happen.

In what proved to be season that no one could have written a script for, the Lightning came of age.

On Monday night in the hub city of Edmonton, the Lightning would not be denied. Skilled Lightning centre Brayden Point, an alumnus of the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors, scored his 14^th goal of this post-season burying the rebound of his own shot on the power play to put his side up 1-0 on the Dallas Stars at the 12:23 mark of the first period.

A Brayden Point card.

The Lightning added a second tally in the second period and made that 2-0 score hold up as the final to take Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final at Rogers Place and win the series 4-2. It marked the second time the Lightning captured the Stanley Cup with their first win coming back in 2004 courtesy of Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Cory Stillman, Pavel Kubina, Nikolai Khabibulin, John Tortorella and crew.

Following the gut punch of the 2019 playoff loss to the Jackets, the Lightning were having a strong regular season in 2019-20 posting a 43-21-6 record to sit second overall in the NHL’s Eastern Conference.

At that point, world events caused everything to ground to a halt due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The NHL season was paused on March 12 as the entire sports world in North America came to a stop due to unprecedented shutdowns.

Still, the NHL and NHL Players’ Association worked to put together a plan to complete the 2019-20 campaign and award the Stanley Cup. An expanded 24-team post-season tournament would be played in a bubble format without fans in the cities of Edmonton and Toronto.

On July 10, NHL training camps opened for the clubs taking part in the post-season tournament, and the Lightning moved into the Toronto hub city on July 26. The post-season officially began on Aug. 1.

The Lightning were one of four teams in the Eastern Conference to have a bye past the qualifying round into a best-of-seven series in the round of 16. They played three round robin games to determine the top seeds in the Eastern Conference bracket taking two out of three of those contests.

In the round of 16, the Lightning once again met the Jackets and downed them 4-1. Tampa Bay proceeded to advance to a best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Boston Bruins, who fell in last year’s Stanley Cup final in seven games to the St. Louis Blues.

A Nikita Kucherov card.

The Lightning dropped the first game to the Bruins before rolling off four straight wins to take the series 4-1.

For the conference title series, all hub city action was condensed into Edmonton from that point onwards.

The up and coming New York Islanders were the foe in the Eastern Conference Championship series and the Lightning prevailed in that best-of-seven set 4-2.

That set up the showdown with the Stars, who had a solid 37-24-8 mark in the regular season.

The Stars took the first game of the series, but the Lightning roared back with three straight wins. Tampa Bay had a chance to win the Stanley Cup on Saturday, but Stars pulled out a thrilling 3-2 victory in double overtime to force Monday night’s Game 6.

The Lightning did everything they could to ensure a series decided Game 7 wouldn’t be required.

After Point gave the Lightning a 1-0 edge, they netted a key insurance goal in the second.

At the 7:01 mark of the second, the Lightning entered the Dallas after getting the puck off a centre ice zone turnover by the Stars. Lightning centre Blake Coleman converted a cross-ice pass from linemate Cedric Paquette to put Tampa Bay up 2-0.

The Lightning controlled play over the first 40 minutes holding a 21-8 edge in shots on goal.

Still, the Stars make a big push back in the third holding a 14-8 edge in shots on goal in the frame, and the Lightning showed their mental toughness in holding the fort defensively.

An Andrei Vasilevskiy card.

With about 4:35 remaining in the third, Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy made two quick stops in succession with the second coming from the stick of Stars skilled centre Tyler Seguin from point-blank range.

The unsung Vasilevskiy made 22 saves to pick up the shutout in goal.

At the other end, Stars netminder Anton Khudobin, an alumnus of the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades, deserved a better fate turning away 27 shots to take the setback for Dallas.

Following the game, injured Lightning captain Steven Stamkos dressed in his gear and raised the Stanley Cup. He appeared in one game in the post-season scoring a key goal in the Lightning’s 5-2 victory in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup final.

Veteran offensive defenceman Victor Hedman showed he was one of the best in what he does in the NHL. He was named the winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the MVP of the NHL playoffs.

The Swede had 10 goals, 12 assists and a plus-13 rating in the plus-minus department in 25 post-season games. Hedman picked up an assist on Point’s power-play goal on Monday.

Point had 19 assists to go with his 14 goals for 33 points in 23 games to finish second in post-season scoring for the Lightning. Star right-winger Nikita Kucherov had an outstanding post-season topping Tampa Bay in scoring with seven goals and 27 assists for 34 points in 25 games.

Kucherov also picked up an assist on Point’s power-play goal that was the Stanley Cup winner.

A Steven Stamkos card.

The Stanley Cup title was a sweet moment for Lightning head coach Jon Cooper, who has been the team’s bench boss since becoming a mid-season replacement for the fired Guy Boucher with 16 games remaining in the 2012-13 campaign.

After the Lightning were swept in the first round of the 2019 NHL playoffs, there were questions about whether Cooper was the man for the job to lead Tampa Bay to a Stanley Cup title. On Monday night, it was mission accomplished for Cooper.

Going forward in these pandemic times, there is lots of uncertainty about the fate of a 2020-21season for the NHL.

It is uplifting to know the NHL successfully held a post-season tournament in 2020 in an expanded form. The players were also away from their families outside of some of the Lightning and Stars families making it to the Edmonton bubble for the Stanley Cup final.

As of right now on Monday night, it is only right to allow the Tampa Bay Lightning to celebrate their accomplishment of winning the Stanley Cup, because they have more than paid their dues to get to this point.

Your 2020 #StanleyCup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning!!!! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/P43wYrBEZW

— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) September 29, 2020

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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If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.