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Tampa Bay Lighting gets to hoist its first Stanley Cup since 2004

By Arnie Leshin 
Step one for the Tampa Bay area brought the Lighting hockey team the legendary moments that the Stanley Cup brings, to hoist the prestigious silver Cup around the ice rink, one teammate at a time, in what was its first time to celebrate this since it’s initial big championship moment in 2004, and that was in Tampa Bay.
This time the site became neutral ice because of the coronavirus pandemic, and this avoided travel for every National Hockey League team that gained the playoffs. And so it was that the Lighting played with very few in the stands in an almost empty arena at the Rogers Place Rink in Edmonton, Alberta, for the Eastern Conference winners to win the finals in six games by shutting down the Western Conference champion Dallas Stars, 2-0, Monday night.
That leaves Tampa Bay’s baseball team, the Rays, and a franchise hunting for a new home field as it and the Miami Marlins have had the lowest attendance for years. The Rays enter the playoffs with the best record in the American League and open today at home against the Toronto Blue Jays in game one.
And then there’s the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the area’s National Football League with Tom Brady as its new starting quarterback, and after losing their loss in the opener, have won the next two behind the experience and leadership of the six-time Super Bowl champion.
That’s it, but a big deal when one area has three contending franchises.
But this one belongs to the Lighting, which came in as the 2nd-seeded conference playoff team, and who opened by ousting the red-hot Boston Bruins in five games, the challenging New York Islanders in six, and then dropping the opener to Dallas followed by four-straight wins. It won in many ways, its team play, good coaching, a power in power plays, and a stellar defense with AndreiVasilevskiy as goaltender. This was his second shutout of the finals, and this time he saved 22 shots as his team again had more shots, 29-22.
A team that has been successful in power plays (made 7 of 16 in last five games), that’s how they scored their initial goal when forward Brayden Point turned in his playoff-best 14th goal at 12:33. In the second period, it was defenseman Blake Coleman who tallied the insurance goal when Tampa Bay was a man short, by finding the net on a breakaway at 73:01. The Lighting defense then continued to dominate the ice by limiting the Stars’ offense on a night with not much for Vasilevskiy to handle.
Assists came from Nikka Kucherova and Hedman, who had one each.

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