TORONTO — They have grown with age and Stanley Cup heartbreak. They’ve reassembled the pieces, revised the gameplan and reimagined what they should be in the process.
And as the Tampa Bay Lightning march into the Eastern Conference final for a fourth time in six years, even veteran members of the team concede that this trip feels different.
“Maybe our mentality has changed a little bit. We pay attention all over the ice,” said Victor Hedman, smiling amidst the glow of a double-overtime winner that eliminated Boston on Monday night.
No NHL team has scored more goals or won more regular-season games than Tampa since the start of the 2014-15 season. And thus, no team better understands why trouble can arrive when you’re trying to score five per night in the playoffs.
It’s somewhat fitting that the decider in a five-game series with the Bruins ended by a score of 3-2 because it underlines how Jon Cooper’s crew has become the leopard that changed its spot.
The Lightning lost Hart Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov early in Game 5 and had already been playing without captain Steven Stamkos all playoffs. They weathered storms through the second and third periods and dealt with a blast of doubt in the final minutes when David Krejci batted home a pinballing puck to set up overtime.
“I’ll tell you it was a little deflating obviously when we gave up the [tying] goal, but as we told the guys: It was a blocked shot, an unfortunate rebound and a broken stick or maybe we don’t even go to overtime,” said Cooper.
And still, down to 10 healthy forward options on the bench and without their top two offensive weapons, the Lightning found a way. They only allowed Andrei Vasilevskiy to see one shot during a double overtime period that lasted more than 14 minutes before Hedman froze the clock with a well-placed shot through traffic.
“To be honest, I didn’t see it go in, I just saw everyone celebrating,” said Hedman. “It’s a great feeling. I’m so proud of our team, too, the way we’ve come together as a group during this time has been phenomenal.”
What the Lightning and Bruins shared in common entering this second-round series is that the loser was going to be crushed. They are two elite organizations that had tremendous regular-season performances before the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down and neither knows how many kicks at the can a salary-capped league will afford them in the future.
The final outcome was probably a little closer than it appeared. Vasilevskiy outperformed Jaroslav Halak in goal, and Tampa squeezed more production out of its top offensive weapons. But the margins were thin and the Lightning claimed two overtime victories — bringing their total to four during these playoffs alone.
“Clearly we’re getting used to it,” said Cooper. “If you want to advance you have to win these games, that’s all there is to it. It was gutsy.”
Tampa will be favoured in a series against the winner of the Flyers and Islanders — New York leads 3-1 entering Game 5 on Tuesday — and anything less than a Stanley Cup will be considered a disappointment for an organization that’s done everything but get its hands on that silver mug these last few seasons.
They came within two wins of a championship in 2015. They got to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final in 2016, then missed the playoffs, then got to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final again.
Last year they tied an NHL record with 62 regular-season victories and were shockingly swept in the first round of the playoffs by Columbus.
That came with some soul-searching, a renewed commitment to managing the puck and focusing on defensive play. It would have been mad if they came back trying to do the exact same thing.
“It’s a great feeling to win the first two rounds, especially after last year,” said Vasilevskiy. “We kind of screwed it up.”
“They’ve worked at it. They worked at their game,” added Cooper. “They’ve worked at their mental mindset. You don’t know how these games are going to turn out, especially when you get to overtimes. A break here, a break there.
“But we feel like we’ve earned our breaks but it’s because of what those guys have done in there.”
Facing the NHL’s top regular-season team, the Lightning surrendered 10 goals in five games. And at 5-on-5, they outscored Boston 14-5 in the series while producing an edge in expected goals, scoring chances and shot attempts.
They were clearly better for facing the Blue Jackets in Round 1 — veteran defenceman Ryan McDonagh said that matchup forced them to “dial in our focus and play as a team” — and they should find an extra shot of confidence, not to mention rest, after dispatching Boston so quickly.
The Lightning will have to wait for the outcome of other series before finding out when they’ll make the trip west to Edmonton for the NHL’s Final Four, but during that downtime they can reflect on the growth that’s arguably put them in a better position to get the job done this time around.
“We take pride in playing defensively, playing as a group all over the ice,” said Hedman. “I just think we’re a very well-balanced team and we’re really looking forward to where we can go next.”
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