After three years of dominance, the Lightning have finally been vanquished. Their dreams of a threepeat are official over with their 2-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. But this team should not be forgotten in the annals of NHL history.
In the end, the Lightning’s injuries got the better of them. The loss of Brayden Point for the majority of the series was a massive crush to Tampa’s offensive capabilities. After the game, Jon Cooper noted that Brayen Point was so badly injured that he’ll be back ready to train and practice in September. He was a true warrior to even try to come back and win his teammates another cup.
The injuries to Cernak, Bellemare, Rutta, Kucherov, Hedman, and every other Lightning player that had to miss ice time throughout this series were also noteworthy, ad it severely reduced each players’ capabilities. All these players deserve credit for fighting through their pain and staying in the lineup.
Regardless, in the end the Lightning management should highly be credited for this teams’ continued success for the past three years. General Manager Julien Brisebois deserved his nomination for GM of the Year for his work on this team.
He has not only been able to keep Tampa’s core of Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ryan McDonagh, Ondrej Palat, and Mikhail Sergachev for three consecutive cup runs, but also adding important trade and free agent acquisitions (Correy Perry, Nick Paul, Brendan Hagel, etc.) has been truly remarkable.
And this has all occurred in the salary cap era. Only the 2015/16 and 2016/17 Pittsburgh Penguins can boast of winning back-to-back cups in the salary cap era, but even they cannot say they reached three finals in a row.
The Lightning have achieved something not seen since the legendary New York Islanders teams won four cups in a row back in 1979-83.
Nevertheless, with this team losing in the final hurtle, they cannot be considered a “dynasty” in the traditional meaning of the word (YET!). However, this team is more than worthy of me labeling them as a mini-dynasty (core winning two cups) and one of the greatest rosters of all-time.
“How?”, you may be wondering. “How can this team be considered one of the greatest if they didn’t win a third cup?” Well, to that, I’d say winning two Stanley Cups in the salary cap era is just as impressive as winning three back in the day. Why? Because the salary cap restrictions were designed specifically and solely to combat and destroy teams like the Lightning.
The Bolts beat the NHL system and deserve to be honored for all-time in doing so.
This loss may be painful for all Lightning fans now, but they should be able to get over it soon with the knowledge that this team is not giving up yet. If the Lightning won the cup this year, I would have called it on this core’s cup winning potential.
But, with this loss seared into their memories, I can only imagine the Lightning will upgrade and go for their third next season.
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