Burns: 3 Things we learned from winning the Stanley Cup

Nearly a full year after the start of the 2019-20 regular season, the Tampa Bay Lightning lifted the Stanley Cup as champions of the National Hockey League for the second time in franchise history and first since 2004.
Tampa Bay defeated Dallas 2-0 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final 363 days after the puck dropped on the 2019-20 season, the Lightning putting together a dominating performance in the clinching game to win arguably the most difficult Cup ever contested.

The Lightning became the first franchise to join the League in the 1990s or later to win two Stanley Cups.
Victor Hedman was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner, awarded to the most valuable player to his team in the playoffs, after scoring 10 goals - third most by a NHL defenseman all-time in a playoff season - and notching 22 points while leading the Lightning for average time on ice.
Brayden Point scored the game-winning goal 12:23 into the opening period of Game 6, hopping on his own rebound and shooting past Stars goalie Anton Khudobin on a power play for the game's first goal.
Blake Coleman, a native of Plano, Texas and a Dallas Stars fan growing up, cemented the victory with a second goal 7:01 into the second period for a 2-0 Lightning lead.
From there, the Bolts shut down the Stars defensively, allowing just 22 shots total in a dominating win.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are Stanley Cup champions.
And they may have lifted the trophy under the most difficult of circumstances.
"It's something we talked about at the beginning of training camp that it's not just going to take 20 guys to win the Stanley Cup, it's going to take every single guy that was in this bubble and more," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "And I'm so proud of each and every one of them."

1. THE MOST COMPLETE GAME EVER PLAYED
After losing Game 5 in double overtime on Saturday, denied in their first opportunity of lifting the Stanley Cup, Steven Stamkos stood up inside the locker room and delivered probably the most important speech of his career. He reminded his team that they were in a position to win a Stanley Cup for a reason, that they still had two more chances to close out the Stars and lift the Cup, that there was no other group in the world he had more faith in to get the job done than this 2020 Tampa Bay Lightning team.
Two nights later, the Lightning went out and put together maybe their finest performance in the 28-year history of the organization.
The Bolts conducted a clinic in Game 6 on how to play responsible, defensive hockey.
They allowed only four shots in the first period of the Cup-clinching game. They gave up just four more in the second.
The Lightning had gotten to within a game of lifting the Stanley Cup by not sacrificing defense for offense, by not cheating the game, by making sure they protected their own net before worrying about putting pucks in the other net.
In Game 6, they made sure the Dallas Stars weren't going to get close to putting a puck past their goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
"Probably in my 11 years that was the most complete game we've ever played," Victor Hedman said.
One sequence late in the contest with the Lightning holding a 2-0 lead summed up the sacrifice made to win the 2020 Stanley Cup. With Dallas throwing everything they had into the zone to try to spark something offensively, the Bolts scrambled and hounded pucks and chased to keep the Stars from getting organized. With about a minute-and-a-half remaining, a Stars shooter got the puck in the right circle with a look at the net. As he went to the shoot, three different Lightning players - Ryan McDonagh, Barclay Goodrow and Anthony Cirelli - all went down to the ice to block the shot, which ended up in the netting behind the goal, never reaching Vasilevskiy.
The Lightning were not going to be denied the Cup they had waited so long for and were going to do everything possible in Game 6 to win it.
"So many guys would do anything in the world for a chance to win the Stanley Cup, and there's so many great players that have played this game and haven't had a chance to experience what we just experienced," Stamkos said. "My hat's off to every single player and every single person in this organization. It was amazing to be a part of this whole run. It was so special this year to do it in the style that we did it."
Tampa Bay got all the offense it would need in the first period when Brayden Point followed up his own saved shot on a power play with a rebound goal past Anton Khudobin to give the Lightning the all-important opening goal and a 1-0 lead.
In the second period, Blake Coleman provided the insurance marker. Pat Maroon, who is now a back-to-back winner of the Stanley Cup after winning with the St. Louis Blues in 2019, intercepted a pass at center ice and carried the puck into the offensive zone. He dropped a pass behind for Cedric Paquette, who spotted Coleman all alone in the right circle. Coleman's shot went between the left leg pad and glove of Khudobin and into the back of the net, giving the Bolts a 2-0 advantage at 7:01, which would be more than enough on this night with the way the team was defending as a group.
"What was special about this group is it took everybody, and everyone had their moment and everyone chipped in," Point said. "You're really proud of everyone's effort and everyone's sacrifice to be here and like I said, I think what makes this so special is everyone had their moment and everyone contributed to this win."
The Lightning ended up outshooting the Stars 29-22 in Game 6. Tampa Bay had more shots than the Stars in every game of the six-game series.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped all 22 shots he faced in Game 6 to record his first career playoff shutout, prompting Alex Killorn to joke "finally" as Vasilevskiy sat next to him during post-game media availability.
Vasilevskiy saved his finest playoff performance for the biggest stage of his career.
"Just amazing," Vasilevskiy said. "We played extremely well. Just give up a few scoring chances. Just grateful that I got a shutout tonight in the most important time of our lives."

2. FROM THE OUTHOUSE TO THE PENTHOUSE
When the Lightning came in to the 2019-20 regular season, they knew they would have to answer plenty of questions about their epic collapse in the previous postseason when they tied a NHL record for regular season wins (62) but lost in four straight to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the First Round, getting swept from the postseason in a week.
About a month into the season, those questions died down. But whenever a team came into AMALIE Arena that had yet to face the Lightning, especially a Western Conference team the Lightning don't see often, their media would again bring up the debacle, and you could almost feel Bolts players thinking to themselves, 'Here we go again.'
Clearly, they were tired of talking about what happened in the 2019 Playoffs.
But oddly enough, it was that experience that galvanized the team and propelled them to win the Cup a year later. And it was that moment they brought up repeatedly in their post-game comments after winning the Cup
"In a team sport, I truly believe that failure you have to feel it before you can have success," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said after Game 6, joined on the stage with his entire coaching staff, most smoking a celebratory cigar. "There's some blessed ones that don't have to go through that, but it makes it, you wear the bumps, you wear the bruises, you wear the heartache, you wear the feelings, you wear it on your sleeve and it keeps you up at night. But it also drives you. And it almost becomes the fear of losing becomes greater than the joy of winning. And we were not going to be denied as a staff, but our players weren't going to be denied. We've got to get up here and talk about and own it what happened last year, but so do the players. The players took it on the chin. And I can't be happier for those guys because they deserve it. Those guys have gone through so much heartache, and to come back year after year after year and take our swings and take our licks and sit here all of a sudden to be talked about…We were talked about as the team that can't get it done, you know what, we got it done. And it wasn't without failures along the way."
Early in the season, Cooper and his staff embraced the story of the University of Virginia men's basketball team, which became the first No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament history to lose in the first round to a 16 seed in 2018 but followed up that dubious distinction a year later by winning the national title.
The Lightning felt if they can do it, why can't we?
When Cooper held his media availability after winning the Cup, he was joined by his entire coaching staff. Sitting in front of them on the table was a Virginia Cavaliers hat Cooper wore earlier in the season and kept with him throughout his time in the bubble.
"Basically we went from the outhouse to the penthouse, that's what happened," Cooper said.
"Pretty incredible group," Ryan McDonagh added. "You draw of all teams in the 24 teams in the bubble, Columbus, who obviously ended our season the year before. Talk about keeping your mentality in the right place, we had to win a game in (five) overtimes just to start the series. And I think that win in itself just set us up for what no matter was going to be thrown at us, we were going to find a way."
Getting Columbus in the First Round a year later could have sparked those old memories of failure. But instead, it galvanized the team. And finding a way to defeat the Blue Jackets in an epic opening game of the series that lasted five overtimes and over six hours until Brayden Point found the back of the net to set off a raucous on-ice celebration was just the spark the team needed to finally put to bed their playoff failures of the past and focus on writing a new ending to their developing story.
"That might have turned the tables for us," Cooper said about that five overtime win. "Because if we don't win that game, all of a sudden doubt creeps in. We had a pretty resilient group, but you need to see some sort of success. You need to feel it. You need to taste it. And we got rewarded for playing the way we did, because we don't win that game, who knows. Now Columbus, they might be in our head. But when we won that game, I think that was a catapult for where we are right now."

3. EMBRACE THE SUCK AND DANCE IN THE RAIN
The 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs was always going to be the most difficult championship in National Hockey League history, possibly in the history of team sports.
Spending over two months inside a bubble, without the aid of your support staff - friends, family, home fans to spur you on - while basically cut off from the outside world was going to test the will and mental fortitude of even the toughest teams.
This Tampa Bay Lightning team was not going to be denied though, no matter what circumstances were thrown their way.
"You're going to remember this moment that we just had for the rest of your life and how worth it it was to go through however many days it was without your support staff or your family and your friends," Stamkos said. "To be honest, we just stayed focused. After what happened last year, there was definitely a chip on our shoulder and so many people counted us out because of what happened and we kept the same core together, we added some vital pieces in the offseason, at the trade deadline and we just came together. I guess we're going to miss being together every single second of every day. It just doesn't get any closer than what we've been able to accomplish in this bubble. It was I think one of the toughest championships to win under the circumstances, and we found a way and we're going to miss being in the room and spraying champagne all over each other but I think we get to do that for a while. We're excited to get home to our families and our friends and celebrate with our great fans and everyone that continued our support and didn't just hop on at the last minute. There's so many people that believed in us since day one, and we've done the same as a group."
At the beginning of the restart, general manager Julien BriseBois said the Lightning would have to "embrace the suck and dance in the rain" to lift the Stanley Cup. The circumstances surrounding the restart and the Stanley Cup Playoffs were going to be difficult. But to win the Cup, the team would have to be focused on a singular mission.
That focus paid off when the team was able to dance inside the locker room after having won the Stanley Cup for just the second time in franchise history.
"It's been a grind," Alex Killorn said. "We've been getting tested every single day. We haven't gone outside much. But looking back, this is going to be something that's so special. We'll never forget this moment. We're just happy to get back to Florida and enjoy this with our fans and our friends and family."
Even within the playoffs, the Lightning were tested. They lost key players at inopportune times. Ryan McDonagh went down with an injury in Game 1 of the Second Round against Boston and didn't return until Game 5, but the Lightning won four straight in the series anyway to advance to the Eastern Conference Final. The Bolts were without their most dynamic player, Brayden Point, for two games in the ECF against the Islanders, losing both, but still found a way to advance.
The Lightning played four separate multiple overtime games, including the epic five overtime win in the opening game of the best-of-seven stage. They played the most overtime minutes of any team in NHL history.
They were without their captain for all but 2:47 of the playoffs.
But whatever hardships were thrown their way, the Lightning embraced it.
They dealt with the suck.
And now they're dancing in the rain.
"We're going to take this to our grave," Victor Hedman said. "We're so happy. For me, just to be around this team, the dedication, the resiliency that we showed throughout these playoffs, the amount of one-goal games that we won, overtime wins, overtime losses, the way we were rebounding from losses. I don't think we lost a game coming off a loss. I don't think we lost a game wearing the white jerseys either, so playing on the road really suited us. Very happy with the way things ended."