When the Stanley Cup was presented to Tampa Bay Lightning captain Steven Stamkos Monday night, nobody booed Commissioner Gary Bettman. This has to be the strangest postseason in NHL history.
The Lightning are a fitting champion for this bizarre season because no NHL franchise has known as much weirdness as the Lightning who were born on the strength of Phil Esposito’s personality in 1991.
Of course, the Lightning were exceptional at bubble hockey. Their franchise launched without a real arena, playing its first season in an exposition hall at the state fairgrounds. The Lightning then played three seasons in a domed baseball stadium. Surviving two months in a bubble wasn’t even close to the most unusual circumstances this franchise team has faced.
The Lightning won their first Stanley Cup in 2004 when observers were anticipating a lockout that would cause the cancellation of the next season. That’s exactly what happened. The Lightning won and the NHL didn't play another game for almost a season and a half.
This is a team that was first to play a woman in goal, using Manon Rheaume in net for preseason games in 1992 and 1993.
Despite being the official bidder for the expansion franchise, Esposito never owned more than a small percentage of the team. The late George Steinbrenner was also involved with the team, although not for long.
The Tokyo, Japan company Kokusai Green Company Limited, a mysterious group to say the least, once had a yen to own a professional sports team and bought controlling interest in the Lightning, even though the company’s owner had never seen an NHL game or even been to Florida.
Art Williams once owned the team, and when the team drafted Vincent Lecavalier No. 1 overall in the 1998 draft, he called him the “the Michael Jordan of hockey.… Jacques Demers was once the team's coach and then general manager. Film producer Oren Koules was also once the Lightning’s owner. Former NHL coach and general manager Doug MacLean once put together a group to buy the team, but it never came to fruition.
The late Detroit Pistons owner Bill Davidson bought the team and that’s when the team won the Stanley Cup in 2004. Davidson’s Pistons also won championships. The Lightning franchise team is owned today by Jeff Vinik who is one of the NHL’s most respected owners. Ownership matters when it comes to winning in sports.
Lightning fans were ready for bubble hockey in 2020 because they probably feel like they have seen it all in Tampa.
The Lightning team was ready for this unusual setup because they have been working through the process of becoming a champion since 2015 when they lost in the Stanley Cup Final to the Chicago Blackhawks. Since then, the Lightning have been tinkering and tweaking the lineup and playing style with the hope of discovering the formula to win it all.
That’s what general manager Julien BriseBois did, making this lineup grittier, feistier, better defensively and deeper with the acquisition of such players as Barclay Goodrow, Blake Coleman, Zach Bogosian, Kevin Shattenkirk and Patrick Maroon among others.
What BriseBois did is impressive, considering that this isn’t how it usually works in the NHL. We want to believe that when you reach the Stanley Cup Final and lose, you just to need to make small modifications to be a winner. But in reality, getting close to winning doesn’t often mean you will eventually win.
The Philadelphia Flyers (2010), Vancouver Canucks (2011), New Jersey Devils (2012), Boston Bruins (2013 and 2019), New York Rangers (2014), San Jose Sharks (2016) and Nashville Predators (2017) and Vegas Golden Knights (2018) all reached the Final in the past decade without winning. Some of those teams -- the Flyers, Canucks, Devils, Rangers -- have bottomed out and are trying again with a rebuilt team. Only the Bruins have stayed a major contender for multiple years after falling in the Final.
The Lightning deserved considerable credit for sticking with this group until finally getting it right.
Bettman and the NHL Players Association also deserve accolades for the plan that resulted in this exceptional playoff run. Zero positive Covid tests, testing every day, for more than two months. Incredible. Everyone should be commended. The NHL's testing success looks even more impressive when you consider that the NFL started reporting positive tests this week with the Tennessee Titans. Today's NHL question where do we go from here? When does the 2020-21 season start? Will we have to start with some form of bubble? When will we start bringing fans back into the picture? More than 50 percent of team revenue comes from gate receipts. How long can owners sustain major losses? The NHL has 31 teams in various states where the rules are all different. Can the NHL have games with fans in Florida, but no fans in New York? What happens if players or fans test positive.
The NHL has had a very successful playoff run, but now the real work is beginning. The NHL's task to plan for a new regular-season may be even more monumental than putting together the bubble playoffs.