Burns: 3 Things we learned from advancing to the Stanley Cup Final

The Tampa Bay Lightning are heading back to the Stanley Cup Final for the third time in franchise history and first time since 2015.
Anthony Cirelli scored the series-clinching goal in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final against the New York Islanders, the 23-year-old center posting up on the edge of the crease to receive Barclay Goodrow's pass from below the goal line and one-time a shot past Isles goalie Semyon Varlamov at 13:18 of overtime to give the Lightning a 2-1 victory and earn the Bolts the Eastern Conference playoff championship and the Prince of Wales Trophy.
Now they're after a bigger prize.

"We won one trophy and now we're going for the next one," Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said postgame.
The Lightning will meet the Dallas Stars in the Cup Final, the Stars awaiting the winner of the Lightning-Islanders series since they finished off the Vegas Golden Knights in five games in the Western Conference Final on Monday.
Tampa Bay won't have much time to recover from a hard-fought Eastern Conference Final against the Islanders. Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final is set for Saturday at Edmonton's Rogers Place (7:30 p.m. puck drop).
Hedman said he's not worried if his team will have enough left in the tank to finish off their run with the ultimate reward: the Stanley Cup.
"We had four months to rest before the playoffs started," Hedman explained. "We're a confident group. We don't really look at it that way. We're in the Finals. We have a lot of energy. We're super excited. This is not the time to think about how you feel. This is when you go after it. We've got to empty the tank, it doesn't matter if it's four or seven games. We've just got to go out there and empty the tank every night."
The Lightning will only get a night to celebrate advancing to the Stanley Cup Final in what might prove to be the most difficult Cup to win of all-time.
But that's a worry for another day. The Lightning are four games away from hoisting the Cup for the second time in team history, this group that's come oh-so-close since it's last Cup Final appearance in 2015 on the precipice of finally making good on so many promising seasons and near misses.
"If you're going to tell me, 'Hey Coop, you get to play in the Stanley Cup Final. You're only going to get 45 hours to rest before the game but you're going to get to play in it,' I'm taking that all day," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said after the win, beaming.

1. CIRELLI'S CLINCHING GOAL
For a moment in Game 6, not only did it look like Anthony Cirelli's night could have ended, but maybe his playoffs and even the start of next season might be in doubt too.
In the second period, Cirelli collided with the Islanders Anders Lee as Lee had one leg outstretched behind him at the blue line trying to remain onside while his other leg was bent at the knee in front of him. Cirelli banged into Lee knee-to-knee, the two not seeing each other, the impact sending Cirelli down to the ice in severe pain.
Lightning head athletic trainer Tom Mulligan came onto the ice to attend to Cirelli. He eventually got up after about a minute and skated off under his own power but headed straight down to the tunnel to the locker room, where he remained for the rest of the period.
Replays of the hit weren't pretty. Cirelli's leg appeared to buckle at the knee in the collision.
Yet, when the third period began, Cirelli went out on the ice for a turn to test his leg before sitting down on the bench and readying for his next shift.
"To lose him there was a big blow for a little bit," Blake Coleman said. "He's got our team mentality. He's a warrior."
The fact Cirelli was able to keep playing was remarkable.
It would also be the biggest break the Lightning received all game.
With the score deadlocked 1-1 through 60 minutes and into overtime, Cirelli proved to be the Lightning hero he nearly was two nights early when he danced and dangled his way through the Islanders defense in the second overtime of Game 5 and got all the way to the crease before sending his shot wide.
Seconds later, the Islanders converted a two-on-one to win.
Cirelli wasn't to be denied in Game 6.
With just under seven minutes remaining in overtime, Cirelli beat Devon Toews to a puck dumped into the zone that he probably should not have been able to get to first. Cirelli held the puck up along the wall with Toews and Mathew Barzal on his back, fending them off until he could slip a pass into the path of Barclay Goodrow who was entering the zone to support.
Goodrow took the puck behind the net. Cirelli went to the front of the net. Goodrow faked like he was going to come all the way around the net from behind and pop around on the other side but stopped right behind the goal and came back to the side he just arrived from.
Goodrow fed a puck around Toews to the front of the net for Cirelli, who got position on Barzal and was uncovered down low. Cirelli's one-timer hit the far post, caromed behind Varlamov, ricocheted off his skate and crossed the goal line.
There was confusion on the ice at first as no signal for a good goal came from the referees, but the call eventually came, Cirelli jumped up in excitement and his teammates spilled onto the ice to celebrate.
"That was a hell of a play by Goodrow to fake backhand and get that to me," said Cirelli, who scored his first career playoff overtime goal and first career postseason game-winner. "The emotions are just so high. We worked all year. Our goal is to be playing for the Stanley Cup, and we're doing it now. I think it's every kid's dream to be in this situation, so I think we're excited and we're ready to go."
The series-winning play encapsulated Cirelli's value to the Lightning. He was first to the puck in the offensive zone because he outhustled the opponent who had a shorter path to the puck. He fought off the checks of two players despite not being the strongest or most muscular player on the team. He delivered a puck into a good area for his linemate. Once he did, he got to the front of the net - one of those dirty areas not every player wants to go -- to give Goodrow a target to pass to.
And, most importantly, he finished when the Lightning as a team struggled to finish against the Islanders in Game 6.
"Anthony is someone who gets in and is so strong kind of in his triangle with his balance on his skates and then strong on his stick," Kevin Shattenkirk said. "But he can fight off one, two, three guys and get the puck to the other players on his line and make things happen from there…Obviously really proud of him. This guy is a bright young star and someone I've enjoyed watching all year."

2. OVERCOMING ADVERSITY ONCE AGAIN
The saying goes that the fourth win in a best-of-seven series is always the hardest one to get, and that proved to be most definitely true for the Lightning in Game 6.
Nothing seemed to go right for the Bolts.
Maybe the biggest key to earning a victory in Game 6 was for the Lightning to score the first goal against an Islanders team that likes to clamp defensively once they get a lead.
The Bolts surrendered the opening goal a little over four minutes into the game on a wraparound shot by of all people defenseman Devon Toews.
The Lightning settled down and created wave after wave of scoring chances in the remainder of the first period and throughout the second. Yet, Victor Hedman's rebound shot from the slot off a shot sent in from the blue line by Erik Cernak was the only one to beat Varlamov.
The Lightning had multiple opportunities to take the lead but were thwarted at every turn, much like they were in Game 5.
"It wears on you, there's no doubt," Cooper said of his team's inability to get more pucks past Varlamov. "That's where a little bit of the mental makeup, a little bit of our maturity because we felt halfway through that game we could have been up a lot more than a tie game. They were defending and their goalie was playing extremely well. When you're bending a little bit, and parts of the game we did, that's when you're thinking, 'Hey, we deserve to be in a better spot than we are being tied.' But the guys, they hung in there and stuck with it."
The third period was the Lightning's worst of the series and maybe their worst of the playoffs, a second period in a clinching Game 5 scenario against Columbus in the First Round the only one that could be similarly regarded.
Getting out of their own end in the third period was an adventure. The Lightning hardly saw any of the puck. They'd work tirelessly to stave off shots from the Islanders and when they were finally able to clear, it ended in a turnover and more possession for the Isles and another cycle in the offensive zone.
The Bolts were teetering. They looked gassed. Players were dropping almost every other shift it seemed. Cirelli went down in the second but was able to come back for the third. Ondrej Palat blocked a shot that left him hobbled.
The Islanders smelled blood. And a Game 7
But the Lightning held on.
"I think at this time of the year, you get handed a lot of challenges. Guys go down, you have to have your guys on the outside ready to step up," Kevin Shattenkirk said. "I think for us, we've just been ready to meet those challenges, face that adversity. I think we realize it makes us stronger in the end when we come through it. It's something that we've been building on all year. We had some troubles at the beginning of the year that I think were great for us in the long run. Once we started figuring out our team identity and we stick to it, we know how strong we can be mentally."
In overtime, the Lightning regrouped but had to fight through one more difficulty. On a four-minute power play from the end of the third period after Andy Greene got Nikita Kucherov in the mouth with his stick with 23 seconds in regulation, Tyler Johnson turned the puck over in the neutral zone on the continuation of the power play in overtime, leading to a shorthanded breakaway.
Brock Nelson had the puck on his stick and a chance to level the series and force a Game 7 in two days. Andrei Vasilevskiy, however, came up with the save of the series, not biting on any of Nelson's moves and blocking his attempt to keep the Bolts' hopes alive.
"We gave up a breakaway in overtime and we needed our goalie to make a remarkable save to give us a chance to win tonight," Cooper said. "That stuff happens. Sometimes those go in, sometimes they don't. The reason you get that far is because hopefully you've earned your way and you've played better than the other team and eventually chances and things go your way. But you need some breaks. To get back the way we have especially with the core group all still together, like I couldn't be more proud of them."

3. TO TOUCH OR NOT TO TOUCH
Lightning assistant captains Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Alex Killorn walked to center ice after the Game 6 victory to receive the Prince of Wales trophy awarded to the Eastern Conference playoff champions.
But before they arrived, they motioned for Steven Stamkos, the Lightning captain wearing his jersey and a pair of black jeans, to come out and accept the trophy with them.
Stamkos hasn't played in this postseason, and it's unclear if he will in the Stanley Cup Final either.
He's just as much a part of this run as his teammates, however, and they wanted to show him how valuable he's been by having him on the ice for the trophy presentation.
"We were kind of celebrating and we wanted all the team captains up there. Wanted Steven to be a part of it for sure," McDonagh said. "No doubt, he's been a huge part of this run even without playing. Definitely a special moment for that group and then to get the whole team involved, great moment."
When they got to the trophy, Victor Hedman put his hand on it. Then a couple more players touched it. Once the entire team gathered around the trophy for pictures, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Kevin Shattenkirk each grabbed it from opposite sides.
Tradition says you're not supposed to touch the Prince of Wales Trophy, that it can be bad luck.
But when the Lightning advanced to the Stanley Cup Final in 2015 at Madison Square Garden after defeating the New York Rangers 2-0 in Game 7, Stamkos didn't touch the trophy during the award presentation and the Lightning lost in six games to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Cup Final.
Hedman said the different approach this time around was calculated.
"Didn't work last time, so we tried touching the trophy this year," he said. "That was a no brainer for us. We're not superstitious, but we didn't touch it last time so this year we did."
The last three times a team has touched the Prince of Wales Trophy, they've gone on to win the Stanley Cup: Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017 and Washington in 2018.
So maybe there's nothing to that superstition anyway.
After pictures, Hedman picked up the trophy and started to skate off the ice with it.
That is, until he spotted Stamkos and gave it to the Lightning captain to carry into the Bolts locker room.
"Even though Stammer's not playing, he's still the leader of this team and is such a good influence in the room, during practices and morning skates," Hedman said. "He's still a big reason that we're here where we are. I'm just so happy for the whole group to once again, a few of us went there in 2015 but to go back in the Final with the Lightning again is an unreal experience.
"We're super excited."
We all are, Heddy.