SERAVALLI: Lightning strikes twice as Bolts go back-to-back

TAMPA, Fla. — Turns out, Lightning does indeed strike twice.

At the beginning of this journey, coach Jon Cooper asked his Tampa Bay players: “Is your Cup full?” Dripping with champagne after another 16 wins, it runneth over now.

The Tampa Bay Lightning captured their second straight Stanley Cup on Wednesday night with a 1-0 win over the Montreal Canadiens at Amalie Arena, capping one of the most dominant three-year runs by any team in any generation, including their record-setting 2018-19 regular season.

Two Stanley Cups. Never trailed in any of their eight playoff series beyond Game 1. Unbeaten in 15 games (15-0) following a loss. Five consecutive shutouts in series-clinching games. A goal differential of plus-60 over two playoff runs. Utter dominance on display.

“Back-to-back? Come on,” a shirtless Nikita Kucherov said. “That’s [bleeping] unbelievable.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy took home the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, as voted by an 18-member panel from the Professional Hockey Writers Association, becoming the first goaltender to win the Conn Smythe since Jonathan Quick in 2012.

Each of the last two series wins, including a Game 7 victory over the New York Islanders in the semifinals, were of the 1-0 variety.

Put simply, the Lightning were comfortable winning any style game in any type of environment. They were just as relaxed in a one-goal game as they were in a no-holds-barred schoolyard style game when the Florida Panthers tried to run them out of the building in the first-round.

Less than 10 months ago, they won in a sterile bubble in Edmonton without fans. Time heals. They hoisted Lord Stanley’s mug in front of 18,110 full-throated fans, the first team to clinch on home ice since Chicago in 2015.

“It’s like we won two completely different Stanley Cups,” Cooper said. “To win one without fans and then to do it in our building, with our fans, it’s really special.”

The chance to win a ‘normal’ Stanley Cup, in front of friends and family and fans was a big motivator for Tampa Bay.

But not as much as enjoying every moment of this last dance. The Lightning iced a team with a full-season cap hit of $101.5 million in a league with an $81.5 million cap – thanks in part to controversial cap maneuvering with Kucherov’s season-long injury.

After not playing a single regular season game, Kucherov came back and led the playoffs in scoring with eight goals and 32 points.

“It’s stupid,” Blake Coleman said. “I don’t know anyone who could miss the entire regular season and come back and do what he did.”

Kucherov gave the Lightning a shot in the arm in the postseason – and a totally different look as they attempted to press the ‘go’ button after an up-and-down 56-game regular season.

“That was the conversation: Don’t let this end,” Cooper said. “It’s too special of a group. They weren’t going to go out without raising a trophy.”

“We knew going forward with the salary cap world that this might this group’s last chance as assembled,” captain Steven Stamkos said. “I can’t say how much that motivates us. We talked about it midway through the playoffs. Let’s take advantage of this opportunity. It’s not very often you get to play with a team of this talent.”

Cooper said: “This team, knowing that we’re probably not going to be together, this was the end of a special group for two years.”

Stamkos said Game 5 was “the toughest game for me personally that I’ve ever had to play.” There was the agony of trying to wipe Monday’s Game 4 loss in Montreal, while also managing the sleep-reducing pressure of trying to win on home ice.

Once rookie Ross Colton scored in the second period, Stamkos said he knew they’d win because they were that confident Vasilevskiy would shut the door.

“We missed out on that feeling to win in front of our family and friends,” said Pat Maroon, who became just the third player to win three Stanley Cups in three years with two different teams. “We did everything we could do to do it again.”

When the horn sounded and Amalie Arena exploded into euphoria, the clock struck midnight for the Canadiens, who fell short after a magical Cinderella run after finishing the regular season in 18th place. Montreal’s loss pushed Canada’s Stanley Cup drought to at least 29 years.

“They bled. They fought. They never quit,” Canadiens coach Dominique Ducharme said.

The Lightning were just too strong, too deep, too indefatigable.

Alex Killorn said the Lightning will “go down as one of the better teams to ever do it,” just the second team in the last two decades to win back-to-back. Hard to argue.

Legacy is such a heavy word. But Cooper was asked about the idea of Tampa Bay resembling a modern-day dynasty, and that offered a chance for one of the best coaches of his generation to reflect on how far this group has come.

“In 2015, we were the new kids on the block, this team that was young and so fun to watch. Then we were labeled as the team that couldn’t get it done. And now we’re throwing around the word dynasty,” Cooper said. “It’s a huge wave of emotions.”

Next year’s version of the Lightning will look a little different. A little leaner. But they’re still going to have arguably the best goalie in the world, the best defenseman in the world and one of the best skaters in the world in a Conn Smythe runner-up and playoff leading scorer in Kucherov.

Count them out on a three-peat at your own peril.

“You win the Stanley Cup two years in a row, you deserve to go down in history,” Stamkos said. “No matter what happens from here on, this group will be etched together forever. That’s pretty f’ing special.”