Defenseman Ryan McDonagh was preparing to answer one last question regarding the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Stanley Cup championship when teammates Nikita Kucherov and Alex Killorn crashed the room, putting an abrupt and celebratory end to the news conference.
”Who’s next? Next question,” Kucherov said, looking into the camera.
With McDonagh stopping in mid-sentence, Killorn stepped behind the podium and said, ”We’re not staying here all night, man.”
The wait for the Lightning – and the NHL – was long enough after Tampa Bay clinched the Cup with a 2-0 win in Game 6 against Dallas on Monday night in Edmonton, Alberta.
The Lightning raised the Cup 363 days after the first puck was dropped on the 2019-20 season, and some 6 1/2 months after hockey was put on pause due to the coronavirus pandemic.
”We knew what we were capable of with our whole roster, and we were pretty thankful to get the opportunity to come back and play,” McDonagh said.
The Lightning’s title, their second after winning in 2004, was historic.
In becoming the first team to win the Cup after the month of June, the Lightning also became the first to win 18 playoff games, including two in a preliminary round seeding series, as opposed to the standard 16. And they did so while spending 65 days in the NHL bubble, starting in Toronto before relocating to Edmonton for the conference finals.
”Obviously, we can go back and look at what’s going on in the world now,” said Maroon, who won the Cup last year with St. Louis. ”I think a lot of us are going to sit back and talk about this one a lot, because this one was a special one, and a hard one to win.”
The Lightning returned home later Tuesday, greeted by family members and hundreds of fans on an airstrip near Tampa International Airport.
The crowd cheered team members exiting the plane. Defenseman Victor Hedman, holding his Conn Smythe Trophy, and team captain Steven Stamkos, hoisting the Stanley Cup, were the last to leave the airplane.
”To finally be here and enjoy it, it’s awesome,” Killorn said. ”It’s kind of surreal right now to be honest.”
Once reunited with their families, the team members were taken to Amalie Arena for a private on-ice celebration that included their wives, girlfriends, children, arena staff workers and team sponsors.
Team owner Jeff Vinik said the Lightning have been one of the most successful teams in the NHL, but were missing one thing.
”Over the past six years we’ve been to four conference finals and played for the Stanley Cup,” Vinik said. ”This time we won it.”
Stamkos thanked the families for their patience as the players spent more than 60 days in the NHL’s bubble in Toronto and Edmonton.
”This was probably the toughest Stanley Cup to win under the circumstances.,” Stamkos said. ”It’s amazing the sacrifices the families went through just to allow us to chase our dreams.”
A fan rally and boat parade along the Hillsborough River is set for Wednesday, followed by a public celebration at Raymond James Stadium where 16,000 fans are expected to attend.
While the Lightning celebrate, the NHL turns its attention to next week, when the two-day draft – to be conducted remotely – opens on Oct. 6, followed by the start of free agency three days later.
It remains unclear when the 2020-21 season will open, either in December or early January, though the plan is to squeeze in a full 82-game schedule.
The experienced and deep Lightning made Stars coach Rick Bowness’ pre-series comments prescient. Bowness, a former Tampa Bay assistant, noted how the Lightning ”weren’t quite ready to win” in 2015 in losing the final to Chicago in six games.
This year’s team proved far more battle-tested, with much of the same core still in place, and all too familiar with playoff setbacks. The Lightning lost Eastern Conference final appearances – both in Game 7 – in 2016 and 2018. Then there was the unshakable memory of last year, when Tampa Bay ran away with the regular-season title only to be swept by Columbus in the first round.
It was only fitting, McDonagh said, that Columbus was the Lightning’s first-round opponent this year. Tampa Bay not only won the series in five games, but showed perseverance in opening the series needing five overtimes to pull out a 3-2 win in the fourth-longest game in NHL history.
They did it with Stamkos limited to playing just two minutes and 47 seconds while missing the rest of the playoffs with a core muscle injury. And they overcame leading goal-scorer Brayden Point missing two games (both losses) with an undisclosed injury.
The Lightning never lost two straight, and enjoyed a few blowout victories, including 8-2 and 7-1 routs over Boston and the Islanders. More important, Tampa Bay was 12-3 in games decided by one goal.
General manager Julien BriseBois earned credit for adding grit and playoff experience. Maroon and defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk were among the team’s offseason free-agent additions. BriseBois didn’t stop there, trading first-round draft picks to acquire Barclay Goodrow from San Jose and Blake Coleman from New Jersey in February.
The Lightning, who finished second in the Atlantic Division with a 43-21-6 record, capped a season in which they enjoyed a franchise-record 11-0 run from Jan. 29 to Feb. 17 following a 14-11 start.
Shattenkirk credited coach Jon Cooper for not over-reacting to the early stumbles.
”I think his patience was probably the best characteristic,” Shattenkirk said earlier this month. ”He showed throughout the whole way in believing in our team and believing in the guys we had in the locker room.”
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