Tampa Bay Lightning win NHL Stanley Cup.
The Florida team beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 to close the final series in Game 5 4-1 and claim their second straight title after winning in 2020.
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| NHL Stanley Cup |
The Tampa Bay Lighting only needed one goal to beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 this Wednesday in the fifth game of the best-of-seven series, which they won 4-1 and were proclaimed champions of the Stanley Cup of the National League of Ice Hockey (NHL) for the second year in a row.
With the backing of their star goalkeeper and the only two Tampa Bay players on the ice without their name in the Cup, the Lightning won it all for the second time in 10 months.
Russian goalkeeper Andrei Vasilevskiy had a series-finale shutout for the fifth time in a row, an NHL-record, since the 2020 final.
Vasilevskiy completed a frenzied final minute, making 22 saves to remain unbeaten in games after a loss in the last two playoffs.
Left winger Ross Colton and defender David Savard were absent last year and made sure to make their mark in the final Tampa Bay title race.
Both were the protagonists of the only goal of the game that Colton scored at 13:27 in the second period when he beat the Canadiens' goalkeeper Carey Price with his shot, before the delirium of the 17,000 fans that filled the stands of the Amalie Arena.
The scene could not have been further from the empty and joyless arena where the Lightning won the Cup last September in a continent-wide quarantined bubble in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada).
The Tampa Bay joined Pittsburgh as the only consecutive Cup winner in the cap era, but did so even more impressively amid virus protocols with the shortest span between championships in NHL's long history. .
Not losing twice in a row thanks to a combination of Vasilevskiy's brilliance and one of the deepest squads built since the cap was implemented in 2005, Lightning solidified its status as a modern dynasty.
Russian right winger Nikita Kucherov had 32 points to join Mario Lemieux as the only players to lead the postseason in scoring two years in a row, and Canadian center-back Brayden Point scored 14 goals in three rounds.
Kucherov, Point and defender Victor Hedman also played despite suffering injuries.
It was too much for the Canadiens, who once again trusted Price to keep them in a game. The Canadian team's star goalkeeper finished the game with 29 saves, but could not avoid the goal that allowed the Lightning to keep the Stanley Cup in Tampa, Florida, which has become the capital of professional sports champions after the Buccaneers also won Super Bowl LV of the National Football League (NFL).
The Tampa franchise, in a nontraditional market that didn't even exist until 1992-93, became the most famous in the NHL. The Lightning won the Cup for the third time in franchise history and denied Montreal, in its 25th Stanley Cup appearance, from getting its first title.
The Lightning also added another title for "Champa Bay," with this title just after Tom Brady led the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl victory in February, while the Tampa Bay Rays played the World Series last fall.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor had suggested that the Lightning lose Game 4 on the road so they could win at home, and she fulfilled her wish when coach Jon Cooper's team became the first since Chicago in 2015 to raise the Cup at home.
That paved the way for not only fans to roar in approval, but also for player families to join in the celebration, something that was not possible in the bubble.
Left winger Patrick Maroon became the fourth player in NHL history to win the Cup three years in a row with two teams, while Kucherov joined Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky as the only players with more than 30 consecutive playoff points. .
The title fight was fueled by the adversity of the team that overcame the impact of being swept by Columbus in the first round of the 2019 playoffs. After that, they learned from each loss to build a determination that is difficult to maintain as that playoff hockey takes its toll.
The Canadiens ran out of gas in what would be a surprise playoff race for a team that opened the postseason with the worst record of the 16 qualifiers.
Montreal rallied from a 1-3 first-round deficit against Toronto and knocked out Winnipeg and Las Vegas to reach the final round for the first time since winning the Cup in 1993.
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