TAMPA, Fla. _ The Lightning's dream season ended late Wednesday night with the final horn or, if you prefer, much earlier when Alex Ovechkin blasted the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy just 62 seconds into the game.
It ended one win shy of a trip to the Stanley Cup final.
It ended with an epic goal drought for the NHL's top-scoring team.
It ended with a 4-0 loss to the Capitals in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final.
It ended.
The Capitals advanced to the second Cup final in franchise history, where they will meet the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
Ovechkin, who called Wednesday's game the "biggest of his life," shook another monkey of his back and will play for his first Stanley Cup. He exorcised the first monkey when the Caps knocked off the Penguins in the conference semifinals.
The Caps were the better team during this series. They were more physical, more opportunistic. They wore down the Lightning with their muscle and neutralized the Lightning's speed. They found a way to get the puck past Vasilevskiy. They held the Lightning without a goal since 33 seconds into the second period of Game 5.
They won three times at Amalie Arena. So much for the home-ice advantage the Lightning earned with the best record in the conference.
What makes the elimination loss doubly frustrating for the Lightning was all the scoring chances they had in the first two periods.
Ovechkin scored 1:02 into the game when he blasted one from the right of Vasilevskiy.
Not the best start for the Lightning, but not fatal either. The Lightning talked on Tuesday about the "response" being one of the biggest keys to winning a Game. 7. How do you respond when something goes wrong?
Well, the Lightning's response was a holding penalty on Brayden Point 57 seconds later.
But the Lightning killed off that penalty, then came to life.
It came after Capitals goalie Braden Holtby in waves, and Holtby, who pitched a shutout in Game 6, felt the heat. He blocked shots but left juicy rebounds in front of the net, golden chances for the Lightning.
But the Lightning could not get a stick on any of them.
It became even maddening in the second period when the Lightning peppered Holtby with five shots in the first three minutes.
But Victor Hedman hit the crossbar.
Then Hedman skated in alone to the right of Holtby. He drew the goalie out of the net before feeding the puck into the crease, where it patiently waited for Yanni Gourde, who was crashing the net.
But with nothing in his way and a yawning net, Gourde could not convert.
Alex Killorn had a breakaway, but Holtby was able to get enough of his right shoulder on the puck to turn it aside.
The Lightning had 45 shot attempts through two periods, but only 22 found the net. The Caps blocked 10.
The Lightning out-hit the Caps 34-22 through two periods. Braydon Coburn and Tom Wilson fought at center ice when both left the box after serving matching roughing penalties.
The Caps, meanwhile, had 26 attempts, 15 of which found the net.
Two of those were from Andre Burakovsky, who scored his first two goals of the postseason.
The first came after Dan Girardi could not hold on to the puck after it was flipped toward the Lightning net. The puck hit him in the chest, then fell to the ice, where Burakovsky took it off Girardi's stick, took two strides and flipped it past Vasilevskiy.
If that was not the backbreaker, then it came later in the period when Burakovsky scored his second goal.
This Caps team, which lost three in a row after winning the first two, join the 1998 team as the only two in franchise history to reach the Cup final.
The Lightning are headed to a summer of reflection. The team felt it was primed for a second Cup finals run in four years. General manager Steve Yzerman added some grit in the offseason with the signings of Girardi and Chris Kunitz and added some much-needed depth at the trade deadline by acquiring Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller from the Rangers.
The Lightning rolled past the Devils and Bruins in five games each during the first two rounds.
They could not roll past Ovechkin and the Caps.
When it mattered, after the Lightning took a 3-2 lead in games, it was all Caps.
