It would have been so easy to close the book on the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Stanley Cup window in the spring of 2019. The embarrassment of getting swept in the first round after a historic regular season and heading into an off-season filled with cap concerns was a justified setting to hit the do-over button. Fire the coach, trade your stars who couldn’t get over the hump and hope that the next batch would do better five years down the road. Instead, they stayed the course, made some adjustments and, in the end, last season’s heartache wasn’t the end, but the opening chapter in a hell of a championship run.
Happiness is a warm Stanley Cup hug
