Enjoy this team and this run, Lightning fans

Following his team's 6-3 win in Game 3 that brought the Tampa Bay Lightning to the precipice of winning a second-straight Stanley Cup, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was asked in his post-game media availability about the methodical approach the Bolts have taken this postseason to get to this point of achieving rarified air in the National Hockey League.
During their run in 2020 when they lifted the Cup for the first time since 2004, finally getting over the hump and fulfilling their potential after so many near misses and playoff disappointments in recent years, the question asker noted it seemed there was more emotion involved in that playoff run. This one had a business-like feel to it.
Their play was precise.
Deadly, almost, in their precision.
Cooper acknowledged the different feels to the two runs. And he used an analogy we can all relate to in explaining the difference.

2020 was like the first day of school for the Lightning, he said. There were new players on the team like Patrick Maroon and Luke Schenn and Curtis McElhinney, guys brought in during the offseason to try to add some grit and toughness and veteran presence to a team coming off a shocking four-game sweep in the First Round to Columbus. Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow and Zach Bogosian were obtained at the trade deadline to fill holes in the lineup and round out the group. There was the pandemic-shortened regular season, the four months of waiting to find out if the season would resume, the playoffs that would be played entirely inside a bubble in Toronto and Edmonton, requiring the Bolts to spend 65 days isolated between their hotel and the arena with just themselves, their hockey family, to keep them company.
Everything felt new, Cooper explained, like they were all on some uncharted journey together.
If 2020 was the first day of school, 2021 would be the last day.
There's uncertainty if this group in its current state will be able to return after this season is over. Core pieces will likely have to be moved out to get the team under the salary cap, something that would have happened last season if not for Nikita Kucherov's offseason hip surgery that forced him to miss the entire regular season and alleviated some of the Bolts' cap concerns.
There's the expansion draft this summer too, the Seattle Kraken joining the NHL next season as the 32nd team. The Lightning will likely lose one of their top players in that process.
2021, as Cooper explained it, almost feels like the last time everyone will be together before they go off in their different directions. Some will still be there next season undoubtedly, but who and how many is an answer nobody knows right now.

"We don't know what our team is going to look like next year and if we're all going to be together again," Cooper said. "There's some crazy circumstances that had to happen for this team to stay together. I know these guys understand that. They know that. And they're well aware of what they can cement to themselves if they can somehow get one more win. It's been unbelievable to be a part of."
As Cooper uttered those final words, he stared off into the distance, his eyes fixated on a point, almost as if the realization of the impending finality of the journey was starting to crystalize in his own head in real time.
It was a poignant moment. There should be considerable elation, satisfaction surrounding the team right now considering it's one game away from achieving greatness, becoming one of the rare NHL teams to repeat as Stanley Cup champions, cementing themselves as one of the teams future generations will look back on as one of the best the League has ever produced.
Or, being "special" as Cooper has used as a motivating rallying cry throughout this run.
And yet, there was a bittersweet sadness to the realization this group as it's currently constructed will probably never get another stab at a Cup run because of these unavoidable circumstances that will prevent them from staying together. Sure this team will be another Cup favorite next season. The Lightning aren't losing Andrei Vasilevskiy or Victor Hedman or Nikita Kucherov or Steven Stamkos or Brayden Point from their team. When you have those five guys to build around, you're always going to be in contention. But there's players that have been here since Cooper's arrival, core players like Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn that pretty much followed the head coach from their American Hockey League affiliate in Syracuse to the NHL, that might be forced to play elsewhere. There's free agents like Coleman and Goodrow the Lightning might not be able to bring back next season because the team is already stretched to the salary cap limit without new contracts for those players even figuring into the equation.
There's a sense of finality with this group now that they're one win away from achieving their ultimate dream and no more than four more games and a little over a week left in the season.
"The players are aware of it. The players, it's almost player driven," Cooper said on the team's off day Saturday when asked to explain his last day of school comment from the night before. "It's not that we make a big deal of it. I think we all know the realities of the sport. Our team's been well-documented. Finally getting over the hump last year and then remarkably being able to stick together for one more crack at it. I don't see the circumstances of what happened last year happening again and I know the players don't see that. I think you guys all know what I meant by the last day of school. It's a bond that this group has carried together for the last two years and it's special. This doesn't come around very often, and I think the players, they know this. And that's why it doesn't take a whole ton to motivate this group."
You wonder how the Lightning can go two playoff seasons without losing back-to-back games? Or how they can record shutouts in each of their last four series-clinching victories? Or why they've faced just one elimination game over the last two runs?
Because this group has bought in to the team concept. There's no focus on individual accolades. When Vasilevskiy was passed over for Marc-Andre Fleury in the Vezina Trophy voting last week, there wasn't an outcry from the Lightning locker room bemoaning the lack of respect the team and its individuals get. They know Vasilevskiy is the best goalie in the world. They would just prove it on the ice, like we've seen with Vasilevskiy vastly outdueling Carey Price in the Stanley Cup Final.
Some observers thought Price should win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP even if the Lightning win the Cup. Is anybody saying that now?

These guys love playing with one another. They would do anything for their teammate. And that type of bond leads to the success the franchise has achieved these past two seasons.
"It's that inner drive, that maturity level they have to understand, you start throwing legacy around and a lot of these words that describe teams that you sit there and say, 'Geez, they were a pretty damn good team,'" Cooper said. "But you really get that moniker if you win Cups. I know we've won one and nobody can take that away from us, but the determination on this group to get another one, it's amazing to watch. We are not there yet, but I'm so proud of just the maturity level of this group and their sheer determination to continue and to try and get another one. Hopefully at some point here we can do that."
The Lightning can finish off the Canadiens as early as Monday and lift the Cup once again. They'll have a couple of weeks to celebrate if they do. Then the expansion draft comes July 21. And free agency starts a week later July 28. At that point, the team will start to reshape into what it will be for next season, but likely without some of those core pieces we've grown to love over the years.
Enjoy these guys, Tampa Bay fans.
Relish these final moments with this group.
A team this talented, this dominant, this driven and this together might never be assembled here again.