CHICAGO – The sting of 1993 still haunts Tampa Bay Lightning hero Dave Andreychuk. He can joke about it now that he has a statue of himself raising the Stanley Cup outside Amalie Arena, his workplace.
“I know the date. They were showing it on TV. On May 29, Wayne Gretzky had his best game ever. I was part of it. On the wrong side,” the 51-year-old laughed last week at his own misery. A little self-directed schadenfreude from a former Toronto Maple Leaf.
Captains make captains. Losses make winners. Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers were swept by a fading dynasty their first Stanley Cup Final.
And with all the gab of the young, fast Lightning as the club of the future, Andreychuk understands better than most that nothing is promised.
“I said it in ’04 to the [Martin] St. Louis, [Brad] Richards, Dan Boyles of the world that just because you’re 21, 23, 25 years old, you might not ever get back here again,” Andreychuck explained. “We’re saying that same message to these same young guys that are obviously very talented and deserve to be here: They need to understand how hard it is to get to this point.”
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Doug Gilmour captained that Leafs semifinal squad in ’93 and in some way helped form Andreychuk into the leader of a championship run 11 years later.
“Dougie was not a guy that stood up in the room. He was very quiet,” Andreychuk said, “but what he did on the ice, we tried to jump on his back. Stammer (Stamkos) takes his team on the back and takes control.”
The weight of 18 men, 11 years, seven goalless games and two should-have-been gold medals sits on Steven Stamkos.
The air around the captain’s stall after Saturday’s 2-1 home loss was a tense mix of sombre and seething. Yet he sat through waves of questions, voice and head lower than usual. He’d played more than 21 minutes and registered just one shot on Corey Crawford.
“We have to find a way to score some goals. It starts with me. I’ve got to be better,” he said. “We’ve worked too hard to get to this opportunity to not leave it all on the line next game. I expect everyone to do that.”
“Was there anything behind the fact you didn’t go on for a long stretch at end of game?” a reporter asked. “Anything preventing you?”
“No,” Stamkos said.
Again he was asked about not being used during Tampa’s pulled-goalie push to tie the game late.
“I’m not the coach. You’re gonna have to ask that [of him],” he said. Then he applauded Tampa’s depth.
One day earlier, a loose Lightning squad was having fun at their Florida practice facility.
Stamkos insisted his golden chance in the waning moments of Game 4 — a vacant-net look ticked away by Brent Seabrook’s stick — didn’t spoil his sleep. But oh, yes, he had watched the replay, likely multiple times. (Last season he viewed the footage of his breaking leg over and over.)
“If I’m in that situation again, I can’t do anything else than what I did. Those ones are just tough luck,” Stamkos said. “It’s the ones where you have a goalie beat and you miss an open net, that’s when you start gripping your stick a little more.”
The miss was splashed on the front page. And Saturday, a Chicago Blackhawks fan traipsed around Amalie Arena’s concourse with a homemade sign featuring Patrick Kane holding the Cup aloft. The message: “Hey, Stammer. Do you even lift, bro?”
Hockey allows players to control effort, mind-set and the suit they wear to the rink, but little else. In 2014, Stamkos believed his busted fibula would heal in time for the Olympics, and it came excruciatingly close.
The captain is not superstitious about personal slumps but team ones.
“If we’re winning, I’ll keep things the same,” Stamkos said. “If we’re losing, I’ll change the suit up, things like that.”
The sport demands a one-game-at-a-time approach. Yet these Lightning talk about winning it all, they recount the times they came close before, what it could feel like on Wednesday.
These aren’t kid dreams. This is an adult envisioning his hands on the trophy, knowing whom he’ll hand it to first (“It would be a pretty easy choice on our team,” Stamkos smiled), picturing the party with friends and family.
“How can you not think about winning that Cup? You gotta believe it. You gotta see it happening,” Stamkos said Friday. “We’re right here.”
Andreychuk said winning in June is everything.
“Steven is no different,” said the only captain to lead the Lightning to glory. “He’d give up the 50-goal seasons (to win the Cup).”
The Bolts’ slogan in 2004 was, “Why not us? Why not now?” They pressed up T-shirts. This year the city chants, “I believe that we will win!”
If they do, they’ll hammer a statue of Stammer too.
Throughout this two-month hockey gauntlet, only one team has defeated Chicago twice in a row.
That would be the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now they must do it again.
Stamkos says he believes. Is belief enough?