Enlarge image
Steven Stamkos
Photo:
Andrew J. Kramer / imago images / ZUMA Wire
Defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning has won the coveted Stanley Cup in the North American professional ice hockey league NHL for the third time.
The team around captain Steve Stamkos prevailed on Thursday night in the fifth final against record champions Montreal Canadiens 1-0 and won the best-of-seven series 4-1.
“These players had to work under the most difficult conditions.
Not just last season, this season too, ”said NHL boss Gary Bettman on Wednesday evening (local time) before the handover of the Stanley Cup to Lightning captain Steven Stamkos.
"It's incredible.
It's such a cliché, but there are no words, ”said Stamkos after the 1-0 win against the record champions through Ross Colton's goal.
"I don't want to say anything about the first time, but to do it again, that's something for history," said Stamkos
The NHL's pandemic management kept reaching its limits
Since the National Hockey League's salary cap was introduced in 2005, only the Pittsburgh Penguins have won this world-famous trophy for two consecutive years.
For the Lightning it is the third title in its history.
New divisions, no main round matches between teams from Canada and the USA, a strict test regiment, distance rules - the NHL tried to make the season possible with many measures in the midst of the pandemic, and yet again and again came up against its limits.
There were multiple outbreaks in teams, 52 games had to be postponed in connection with the virus, a dozen of them several times.
The effects could be felt right up to the final series, games three and four in Montreal saw only 3,500 fans in the ice rink, the authorities in Canada did not allow more.
In Florida, however, which had already let 24,385 spectators into the stadium when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl against the Kansas City Chiefs in February, there were more and more in the course of the playoffs.
The final saw around 18,000 spectators in the hall.
Ice hockey nation Canada has been waiting for the trophy for 28 years
Goalkeeper Andrei Wassilewski, who celebrated his fifth shutout in the play-offs with 22 saves and was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy for the most valuable player (MVP) of the play-offs, was a great support of his team.
Pat Maroon also got his share of the applause - becoming only the fourth player in league history to win the Stanley Cup for three consecutive years.
In 2019 he won the trophy with the St. Louis Blues, in 2020 and 2021 now with the Lightning.
For the Canadiens, however, the season ended with a great disappointment after the fourth defeat in the fifth game of the final series.
As the team with the fewest main round wins of all teams in the playoffs, they were the underdogs in every series, but with each passing day the belief in an end to the 28-year long dry spell of Canadian teams grew.
Since the NHL record champions won the last of 24 final wins in 1993, no team from the motherland of ice hockey has raised the Stanley Cup.
ara / dpa / sid