TAMPA, Fla. — This is how you will always remember them.
Dancing on the ice, joyous and triumphant. Engaging the crowd, rapturous and noisy. Holding one of the most precious trophies in sports above their heads, ferocious and proud.
Yes, the Lightning have done it again.
They have put their names in the history books, and they have showered Tampa Bay in glory. The Lightning won a second straight Stanley Cup Wednesday night with a 1-0 victory in Game 5 against the Canadiens, and a community’s winning streak continues unabated.
And as they embraced each other and that 37-pound Cup, it was as if nothing else mattered. Not past heartbreaks, nor impending departures. Not awards, not contracts, not last year’s postseason in the bubble. Just the game they loved, and the journey they have taken.
Once upon a time, we thought they were a team for the ages. A team that seemingly scored on command and collected regular season victories like pennies in a piggy bank. But it turns out, they were more than that.
The Tampa Bay Lightning hope to clinch the Stanley Cup on Wednesday when it faces the Montreal Canadiens in Game 5. The Lightning hold a 3-1 series lead and stand 60 minutes away from possibly raising the Cup on home ice.
They were a team for our hearts.
A group of stars that reinvented themselves as a team of overachievers. A handful of tough forwards, and a collection of sturdy defensemen. Battlers, grinders, hard cases. Lovable characters playing alongside the MVP, Vezina and Norris Trophy winners.
The memory of a Lightning team that won 62 games in a historic regular season and then collapsed in the first round of the playoffs in 2019 no longer feels bitter or forlorn. Now, it’s just part of a greater story of resilience and growth.
In a bizarre way, the experience made the past two years even more enjoyable. Or, at least, made us all appreciate just how difficult it is to survive four rounds of the postseason, no matter how many records you challenge.
That 2019 group may have been a team to admire, but this is a team to embrace.
For sure, there were big moments along the way. Late goals early in the postseason, and Andrei Vasilevskiy standing tall in the net in the final two rounds. And the idea that two of the only newcomers — Ross Colton with the goal and David Savard on the assist — teamed up for the first goal in Game 5 is even a nice separator between the two Cups.
Because, for the most part, this run wasn’t as dramatic as 2020. No overtime winners and less of a desperation feel. Instead, the best memories of this team will be more introspective. It will be the kinship and camaraderie of a group of players that you have grown attached to.
You may not remember that Nikita Kucherov finished with 32 points in the postseason, but you’ll forever recall how he showed up for the first night of the playoffs with no training camp, no exhibitions, no game action in nearly eight months and still looked like a magician on skates.
You may not always recall that it was Yanni Gourde who scored the shorthanded goal that won Game 7 against the Islanders, but you’ll remember his mischievous grin when he was finished throwing punches with some opponent who always seemed bigger and angrier than him.
You may not remember a single one of Alex Killorn’s or Barclay Goodrow’s goals this postseason, but you will always appreciate how they threw their bodies in harm’s way to block shots against the Canadiens.
It’s been 11 months of hugs and ovations, even if most have come at an infuriating distance during a pandemic. Beginning in mid-August of 2020, the Lightning have been on the ice for 45 playoff games stretched over two postseasons. They won 32, and dispatched eight usurpers along the way. In all that time, they faced their own elimination only once, and beat the Islanders 1-0 in that memorable Game 7.
And so now we are dancing in Ybor City, and raising our mugs on Beach Drive. We’re buying championship swag in Clearwater, and bragging to neighbors in Brandon. Sports fans in Tampa Bay are on an 11-month bender unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
A Stanley Cup that was followed by a World Series appearance that was chased by a Super Bowl title and was then topped off with another Stanley Cup on Wednesday night.
New York? Boston? Philadelphia?
Today, they are lightweights.
Four decades of ridicule in Tampa Bay stadiums and arenas has been obscured by the shine of all that bling in 2020 and ’21. And no trophy has spent more time here than the Stanley Cup. No big-time team has ever gone back-to-back in Tampa Bay like the Lightning have done.
This is their moment, but it is also their era.
Since Jeff Vinik’s first full season as owner in 2010-11, the Lightning are third in the NHL in regular season victories and are now one of four teams to have won two Stanley Cups in that time. The arena is usually filled and hundreds of local charities are $50,000 richer.
We’ve watched these players grow, and that’s not a mere platitude. Steven Stamkos was 18 when he first skated in a Lightning uniform. Victor Hedman was, too. Both are over 30 now. Tyler Johnson, Killorn, Kucherov, Ondrej Palat were all in their early 20s when they arrived.
We’ve seen them start families, and put down roots. We’ve seen them return from injuries, slumps and holdouts.
We’ve seen them fall two games short of the Stanley Cup, and we’ve seen them fail to make the playoffs at all. We’ve seen them skate for Barry Melrose, Rick Tocchet and Guy Boucher before Jon Cooper arrived to cash his first NHL paycheck.
We’ve seen a team rise and a city blossom. We’ve seen a story unfold little by little, player by player, memory by memory over the course of a decade.
Bless you, boys. We’ll not forget you.
