There is no Cinderella this year.
As Tampa Bay Lightning fight for their third consecutive Stanley Cup, making them only the fourth team in league history to do so, they face the best possible rival the West could throw at them. If you thought that the balloon victory against Dallas in 2020 was tainted (was not) due to strange conditions or that last season was an anti-culmination against the superb Montreal Canadiens, the 2022 final is the best test.
Colorado is the best team that Tampa Bay has faced in any of these three finals – and in fact they may be the best team that Lightning has faced at any time during this three-year period. cycle.
The two teams got here in many different ways.
The lightning struck shortly after winning a six-game win against New York, in which they missed the first two games. In this series, Tampa Bay started with a nine-day break, while Rangers arrived immediately after a long series of seven games over Carolina. The lightning started slowly and then he understood.
If the break against rust was a factor at the beginning of this series, it could play a role again in the Cup final.
When he hits Game 1, Tampa Bay will be on a three-day break, while Colorado will have eight days off after sweeping Edmonton. Avs had a seven-day break between their series of rounds 1 and 2, after which they won match 1 after extra time and never lagged behind in their series against the Blues.
“It’s just part of what we’re doing, and the thinking we have is just to be ready, to stay ready,” said Gabriel Landeskog. “If we get eight days off, we get eight days off and we’ll make sure we train hard, rest and be ready to go.”
Hockey fans everywhere are certainly ready to strive for what on paper is emerging as the best final for the Cup in several years. The team that is trying to counter the recruiting contender we’ve seen coming for years has finally reached its peak.
Here’s how the two finalists line up.
RECORD OF DESTINATION
Avalanche: 2-0-0
Lightning: 0-1-1
What’s on the map for Colorado:
In 2016-17 Avalanche had a terrible season, one of the worst in history, finished with 48 points in 82 games and then had terrible luck in the lottery, falling all the way to the fourth overall pick. Don’t worry – they caught Cale McCarthy there. Early next season, they traded disgruntled center Matt Duchamp for a huge rematch that included defender Sam Girard and a pick in the first round of the draft, which turned into Bowen Bayram in fourth place in 2019. And that’s right, Avs won half of their completely solid blue line in the top six.
From then on, it developed steadily. In the following years, Devon Toews was acquired for several players in the second round and then became a defender of the Canadian team. Nazem Kadri was attracted to Alex Kerfut and Tyson Barry and his influence as 2C was huge, with 2021-22 being his best performance to date. Darcy Kumper has been named the No. 1 goalkeeper this season through trading. There were also a number of solid additions “around the edges”, including Andre Burakowski and this year’s additions this season, Arthur Lekonen and Josh Manson.
All the while, Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic has resisted the urge to pay in the past for the biggest fish, such as Taylor Hall or Claude Giroud.
We see the Avs coming for several years and after three consecutive losses in the second round, the 2022 team is finally rehearsing, making its way through the Western Conference. What is at stake now is claiming the Stanley Cup before all their star players sign new, expensive contracts that will make adding to the margins a bigger challenge.
After this season, Nathan McKinnon will have just one more season with a profit of 6.3 million dollars, before gaining the right to unlimited free agency and becoming one of the best winners in the league. Kumper and Nazem Kadri will be UFA this summer and at least one may be priced out of town. Although ($ 9 million) and Miko Rantanen ($ 9.25 million) have already paid for themselves.
It’s not like this should be Colorado’s only crack in the Cup – they still have a loaded list and GM, which has proven to be a great asset manager – but things will start to tighten over the next season or two. The age and contracts on this list are in the Golden Zone at the moment, so it’s imperative that you finish the work before the off-ice considerations diminish the prospect a bit.
What’s on the map for Tampa Bay:
The word “dynasty” can be a little easy in modern sports, and this may be due to the fact that we haven’t had many real historical ones lately. The NFL Patriots of the NFL won three Super Bowls in four years in the early 2000s and three more in five years from 2014-18, and are one of the best examples of this – although some may even dispute it.
In the NHL, both the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks have won three Stanley Cups in six years over the past two and a half decades and are closest to the “dynasty” we’ve had in the sport since the Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders and Edmonton The Oilers won 14 of 15 Stanley Cups (five for Montreal and Edmonton, four for Aylas) between 1976 and 1990.
Lightning can enter this type of stratosphere with a victory in this series.
If they beat Colorado four times, Lightning will be the first team in the NHL to win three consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980-83 at the Islanders. Since the beginning of the millennium, Penguins (2016, 2017) and Lightning (2020, 2021) are the only two teams to win consecutive titles.
The last teams in one of the North American Big Four sports to win at least three consecutive titles were the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA (2001, 2002, 2003) and the New York Yankees of the MLB (1998, 1999, 2000).
It is impressive enough for these Lightning to have a chance to tri-peat in an era of parity under the salary cap, and even more so considering that we have a flat hat for several years, which leaves even less room to deal with increases in players and turnover in the list. Lightning’s Julien BriseBois GM did a masterful job.
And players also have to admit that while the last two seasons have been unusual (first bubble playoffs and then a regionalized calendar with 56 games), this is also a unique challenge for players to adapt to.
Winning with Lightning should give them dynasty status in NHL history. And they will still be a force next year.
DISTRIBUTED STATISTICS Turn off numbers 5 to 5 with Natural Stat Trick
The Colorado Perspective
Avs lost the Western Conference to become the first team to win its title in the regular season of the conference and then reach the Stanley Cup final after Chicago in 2013. Colorado needed only 14 playoff games to reach the final. The Cup and they became only the eighth team since 1987 (when each playoff round became the best of 7) to reach the fourth round with just two losses.
But it should be noted that only three of these teams won the Stanley Cup.
The views of Colorado are simply brilliant. Defender Cale McCarthy leads the team with 22 points in 14 games and has the best score per game of all the players. He is not fun at all in the playoffs and now generates vibrations of Bobby Orr with his tendency to dominate and control the course of the game all over the ice.
And, of course, you have Nathan McKinnon, the bull of a player who is often forgotten in conversations about “the best player in the world,” but he has to be right in the mix. He, Miko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog have been the young, sighted leaders in this team for some time and have 2-3-4 points so far, as you might expect.
But then you have Kadri, who played with an advantage that has not yet passed to penalties, which has been a worrying area for him in the past. Although he was injured in match 3 of the West finals, he is still not ruled out even for match 1 of the Cup final. Devon Tows is overshadowed by his defensive partner, but he is elite in himself.
People, it goes on. Arthur Lekonen, who sent Avs to the Cup final with a 4 OT victory over Edmonton, has tied for the league’s lead with three goals this season. Late flowering Valery Nichushkin averages more than 20 minutes a night.
They overcame Girard’s loss to injure all the playoffs and then when Kumper fell in Game 1 against Edmonton. Reserve Paul Francouz has won every match he has played in, and now it looks like Kuemper will be an option again in the final.
So, yes, Avs have a lot of success and are the perfect contender for consecutive champions. You can never count Avs, and although they’ve made two moves to get here, they’ve proven their ability to fight. Colorado won six of the seven games in those playoffs, where they conceded the first goal of the game, twice as many as the teams behind them and the only team with a better than .500 percent victory in this scenario.
The views of Tampa Bay
Speaking of return teams, Lightning are right there with Avs. Tampa Bay fell behind in their first-round streak to Toronto 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 before winning, and then dropped out of the Eastern Conference Finals in the first two games against New York before winning four consecutive.
As Justin Bourne writes, Lightning are masters at the feel of a series, adapting to what the other team is doing, and then pedaling.
We know everything about the stars in their lineup.
Nikita Kucherov is the top scorer with 23 points and has a chance to join Wayne Gretsky, Brian Trotie and …
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