Lightning Strikes the Stanley Cup
Ryan McDonagh of the Tampa Bay Lightning plays the puck away from Alexander Radulov of the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the National Hockey League Stanley Cup Finals on Sept. 28, 2020, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The Lightning beat the Stars in the final 4 games to 2.
Credit: © Andy Devlin, NHLI/Getty Images
The Tampa Bay area in Florida, a region where temperatures rarely dip below 40 °F (4 °C), is home to North America’s ice hockey champions. On Sep. 28, 2020, the Tampa Bay Lightning blanked the Dallas Stars 2-0 to win the Stanley Cup. The Lightning won the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Finals four games to two after a long, strange, and grueling season. Goals from Braden Point and in-season acquisition Blake Coleman were more than enough offense for goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who finished the series with a flourish, stopping all 22 shots he faced.
Long-time Lightning player Victor Hedman earned the Conn Smythe Trophy for the most valuable player of the playoffs. He scored 10 goals (the third-most ever scored by a defenseman in the playoffs) and 22 points over 25 playoff games.
The Lightning triumphed in the playoffs despite a limited contribution from their captain Steven Stamkos, who was injured for almost all of the playoffs. Stamkos made a brief appearance in Game 3 of the Finals, scoring a goal in less than three minutes of ice time, before his injury forced him out again.
The loss was another heartbreak for the Dallas Stars, who lost to the eventual champion St. Louis Blues in the 2019 playoffs. During the offseason, they added to their solid core by picking up Joe Pavelski and Corey Perry, who had spent long careers on the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks, respectively. The veterans did their part, scoring the game-tying and winning goals in a heart-pounding double-overtime Game 5 to stave off elimination. The Stars backup goalie Anton Khudobin filled in admirably for injured ex-Lightning net-minder Ben Bishop, but he could not withstand Tampa Bay’s withering offense. The Lightning went a blistering 7-for-19 on the power-play in the series, while the Stars could manage only one goal in their 19 power-play chances.
Tampa Bay last won the Stanley Cup in 2004. The current core had been one of the best teams in the National Hockey League (NHL) to not win the Cup, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2015 Finals and suffering earlier playoff eliminations in 2016, 2017, and 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic ground professional hockey to a halt in 2020, as it did nearly every other aspect of life. As the virus spread through North America in March, the NHL postponed and eventually cancelled the remainder of its season. Each team had played about 70 games of their 82-game schedules.
The NHL and National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) later agreed to hold playoffs beginning Aug. 1. The NHL playoffs took place in “bubbles” similar to that employed for the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs. Players, coaches, and player-facing team personnel remained cloistered in hotels near Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, and Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, Ontario. The games were televised, but no fans were in attendance. The bubble format was successful in preventing COVID-19 outbreaks among players and staff: the NHL reported no COVID-19 cases inside the bubbles during the nine-week playoff tournament, despite conducting more than 31,000 tests.
Because of the unplanned shortening of the regular season, the NHL added a qualifying round to the playoff structure. The teams with the fifth- through twelfth-best records in both conferences played a single five-game qualifying series. The eight winners joined the top four teams in both conferences for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which retained its usual format of four rounds of seven-game series.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly delayed the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Steven Stamkos and his team hoisted the Cup less than a week before the 2020-2021 season would have normally begun. The NHL’s Return to Play plan envisioned the next season starting as early as Dec. 1, but commissioner Gary Bettman admitted it could be pushed back to January. The bubble format, while successful for the playoffs, has been ruled out for the regular season. The NHL and NHLPA are discussing alternatives to play the season safely.
