Tampa – – The Tampa Bay Lightning are up 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Final. The Montreal Canadiens are in trouble. Tampa is on the precipice of greatness. It’s hard to win consecutive Cups in this league. We all know that. The key to keeping this dynasty going is by signing Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman this offseason.
Ryan McDonagh detailed how he started the play to the very memorable goal by Coleman.
“We did get outworked and out-chanced us and outbattled us,” McDonagh admitted. “We made a play and regrouped going into the third. Pretty remarkable play by those two. A huge swing for sure.”
Goodrow made the pass and this was his take.
“I heard the bench yell shoot. To dive like that for a puck and still get good wood on the shot and on net and over the pad is a special play. He has a knack for those shots.”
Coleman was very humble. He will now be remembered forever in Tampa and on the internet.
“I knew the clock was winding down. I saw goody make the poke. Tried to do everything to give him an option. Incredible pass from him,” Coleman noted. “In that moment it was all we had. Goody put it in a great spot. I don’t know why these goals happen.”
That’s 2/3rds of an important line for the Lightning. If Victor Hedman needs knee or hip surgery, that’s a path to saving his salary in the regular season as well as Tyler Johnson being selected by the Seattle Kraken, also puts them on the path to keeping them there. That gives Tampa around $12.9 million to get these two signings done with some RFA’s as well. The RFA’s will have to take Kevin Labanc type deals. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers kept most of their winning squad together. The Lightning can too also take advantage of the tax structure there so taking less as a player doesn’t hurt as much and then you can keep on winning. Who doesn’t want to do that?
Tampa has to close out this series to make this happen but that seems likely. Tampa has to get creative with their accounting and again, they know how to do that.
Tampa has prospects they can fill in the missing positions. Cal Foote on defense. Alex-Barre Boulet, Ryan Lohin, Taylor Raddysh, Antoine Morand, Mitchell Stephens, and Boris Katchouk can all try and make the team and Ross Colton can move up to 3C.
Tampa can do this. You don’t want to throw away this kind of chemistry.
