Battered and Bruised, Lightning Grind Their Way Back to Stanley Cup Final

Nikita Kucherov skated gingerly on the Amalie Arena ice during media timeouts Friday night. The Tampa Bay Lightning winger had been hit with a vicious (though apparently not malicious) cross-check by New York Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield two days prior during Game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoff semifinals on Long Island.

Kucherov's health was in question, but had coach Jon Cooper told him he was subbing in another player, Kucherov probably would have just made his way onto the ice anyway.

"Well, there was no question if I was going to play or not," Kucherov said during his postgame Zoom news conference. "Game 7 you've got to sacrifice yourself and play in this moment and share with the boys, and I felt good today."

The defending Stanley Cup champs will continue their title defense Monday night against the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Final. But Kucherov isn't the only one who's banged up. Defenseman Mikhail Sergachev took a big from Matt Martin in Game 7. It could have been a boarding major, but I won't get into the awful officiating. I'm sure there will be plenty of bad calls and non-calls in the Final.

Chris O'Meara/Associated Press

But no team gets to Game 7 in the semifinal round without absorbing a few blows. The thing about this team is that it's built to withstand them. The Lightning have so many weapons that Sergachev is in the third pairing with David Savard, who was a top-pairing defenseman with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Tampa Bay is built to win—not just in the regular season but deep into the playoffs. The building started under Steve Yzerman nearly a decade ago, and it's continued under Julien BriseBois, a veritable salary-cap wizard. The Lightning have long been one of the best teams in the salary-cap era, but until recently, they had nothing to show for it.

The Chicago Blackhawks won three Stanley Cups after the last lockout in 2004-05. The Los Angeles Kings won two in three years, and the Pittsburgh Penguins went back-to-back.

Since 2014-15, Tampa Bay has been right there with those teams but unable to translate regular-season wins into championships until last year. The Bolts lost to the Blackhawks in that third and final Cup run in 2014-15. The next season, they lost to the eventual champion Penguins in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final. They lost in Game 7 at home in the same round two years later, falling to the Barry Trotz-coached eventual champion Washington Capitals.

They won their first Presidents' Trophy in 2018-19 with a remarkable 128 points, the fourth-best regular season in NHL history. It was quite possibly one of the best teams ever assembled, but Tampa Bay was swept out of the first round by Columbus, leading to palpable anger and embarrassment.

"It was all building blocks to get here," Cooper said.

All the anger and disappointment has dissipated. The Lightning did what they were supposed to do last year and won the Stanley Cup. Great players such as Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point secured their legacies. Now, they'll try to build on that by winning a second straight Cup.

Chris O'Meara/Associated Press

"It's so damn hard to win in this league," Cooper said. "But last year I just found out we could win in different ways, but just the warrior mentality this group had, and it was prevalent tonight. After a really tough loss the other night, you just can't count them out, though. They've learned to defend, and another masterful performance in the defensive zone to win a huge Game 7 for us."

Like Cooper said, these Bolts can win in myriad ways. While they have enough firepower to overwhelm just about every team in the league, against the Islanders they needed to win with defense. They put on a clinic.

In Gamey 7, the only goal was scored short-handed by Yanni Gourde in the second period. It was the only short-handed goal New York allowed all season. In order to make it stand up, Tampa Bay needed to play an exceptionally detailed game in front of Vasilevskiy. There were times the Lightning looked gassed, but they found another level. They blocked 21 shots, they got sticks in shooting lanes, they executed in the defensive zone with precision and didn't take any penalties in the third period.

Trotz and his system tend to wear out opponents. But the Islanders couldn't rope-a-dope their way past a team that is so deep and powerful.

"It's becoming a broken record, but it's not how many you put in the net, it's how many you keep out," Cooper said. "It's a hard lesson to learn, especially the players coming up today and the skill, the rules getting put into place that open up skill and to skate and to score. But when you get to the playoffs, it's about defending."

The Bolts head into the Final as heavy favorites. The powerhouse facing the underdog Habs. Montreal wouldn't have even reached the postseason if not for the realigned divisions.

"You can't predict that it's going to happen, but that's the vision of everybody in this organization—knowing that we could do this," Cooper said. "But look, we haven't won the Stanley Cup this year. We're chasing it just like Montreal is. To be down to the final two in back-to-back years is a pretty remarkable accomplishment, and that's all well and good to one day put on your gravestone that you won a Stanley Cup, but to do it two years in a row, you are talking about now your team is special."

The Lightning are trying to show that they aren't just a great team but also one of the special ones. Back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances won't prove that, but back-to-back wins would. How much did the Islanders take out of the Bolts in that last round? It doesn't really matter, because if Tampa Bay is a special team, it will find another level once again.