The Tampa Bay Lightning and Colorado Avalanche are playing for the Stanley Cup starting on Wednesday, and it will be a singular Final series. Indeed, never before have two teams with singular nicknames met with hockey’s highest piece of hardware on the line. And they’re both forces of nature. Are the Minnesota Wild a force of nature? Or the Seattle Kraken?
One could argue that this singular matchup is the most compelling Cup Final in more than a decade, or since the Pittsburgh Penguins-Detroit Red Wings clashes in 2008 and ‘09. I would argue that.
The Penguins of 2016 and 2017 and the Red Wings of 1997 and 1998 are the last two teams to win back-to-back titles. They flirted with dynasties. But like the Chicago Blackhawks and the Los Angeles Kings of the salary cap era, they didn’t quite get there.
The 1980s New York Islanders won four Cups in a row. The 1970s Canadiens won four in a row and six in nine years. The 1980s Oilers won four in five years and five in seven. It used to be a thing. Now, in a post-expansion age, the NHL is a much different league with a salary cap, an effective players’ union, parity and so forth. Dynasties may be a thing of the past.
Or maybe the Lightning, who can become the first team in 40 years to win three Cups in a row, will be the last.
All the Lightning have to do is get through the best in the league.
The Avalanche are awesome. They’re the highest-scoring team in the playoffs with 4.64 goals per game. They’re wicked fast, and they’re also big enough to grind. Coming off a sweep of Connor McDavid’s Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference final, they’re also the fresher team.
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Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar key for Colorado Avalanche
Their deep corps of forwards is led by superstar center Nathan MacKinnon, who has been on a mission since the Avs were eliminated in the second round last year. Their captain, Gabriel Landeskog, is a horse. Their talented defense is led by Cale Makar, who is drawing comparisons to Bobby Orr. And rightly so.
They believe it is their time. They look a lot like the 1984 Oilers, the team that ended the Islanders’ four-year reign and established their own dynasty. (Or, do they look a lot like the 1983 Oilers, who were swept by the Isles?)
As for the Lightning, they understand they’re on the other side of their peak. They’ve played 65 playoff games, more than any other team, over the past three years. How much do they have left in the tank?
The Bolts are also aware that there is a “dynasty” tag to be gotten here. Three in a row – nobody does that anymore. They have 16 players on their roster who’ve won at least one Stanley Cup, and 13 who wore Lightning-blue when they won it all last year.
They have matured to a point where they seem impossible to eliminate.
They looked beatable in the first and third rounds and came back to win both series. Their motto is “defend to the end.”
Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos is playing like he still feels underrated. In the deciding Game 6 against the Rangers, Stamkos: beat all-world goalie Igor Shesterkin from distance, sat in the penalty box and watched the Rangers tie the game with a power-play goal, came out of the box and scored the game-winner.
That is a star with a sense of the moment.
This series is tough to call. In round numbers, Vegas bookies have Colorado as the 0.6/1 favorite and Tampa Bay as the 1.55/1 underdog. In percentage terms, roughly speaking, that’s 60-40.
If you think speed will prevail, go with the Avs. They’re in another warp class than the Maple Leafs and the Rangers (and on par with the Panthers).
These Avs are vastly superior to the 2020 Dallas Stars and the 2021 Canadiens, the teams the Lightning beat to win their last two Stanley Cups. These Avs also have home-ice advantage.
Yet, I’m having a difficult time picking them.
Brayden Point’s return could be clutch for Lightning
An injury could tilt the scale one way or another. Right now, it looks like Mr. Clutch Brayden Point will return to play for Tampa Bay in the Final, while Nazem Kadri – a critical piece for Colorado – and Andrew Cogliano remain questionable. Advantage, Bolts.
As for intangibles: Just as Stamkos is motivated for a showdown against McKinnon, so is defenseman Victor Hedman looking forward to sharing ice with “Bobby Orr” Makar – the current favorite to win the Conn Smythe.
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And then there is Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, the greatest netminder of his generation. He has won 11 consecutive playoff series with a 2.11 goals-against average and a .930 save percentage. His performances in closeout games are the stuff of legend.
During this postseason, the Avs have picked apart David Rittich, Connor Ingram, Jordan Binnington, Ville Husso and Mike Smith. Which is to say they have yet to see anything close to Vasilevskiy.
Any vacillation about picking a winner in what will be a hotly contested battle of titanic teams ends with a Vasil-lation.
Lightning in six.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Stanley Cup Finals: Avalanche vs. Lightning to produce singular series
