Lightning turn the page on missed opportunity in Montreal

As the Tampa Bay Lightning were cutting into their chicken parmesan at the team hotel following their Game 4 loss in overtime to Montreal, denying them the opportunity to sweep the Canadiens and lift the Stanley Cup for a second-straight season, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper surveyed the post-game meal room.
A couple staff members were lamenting the fact the Lightning had let a golden opportunity to make history slip away. The Bolts hit three posts in the contest and had a four-minute power play with the game tied at the end of regulation and extending into overtime they couldn't capitalize on. Montreal played its best game of the series by far and still needed extra time to defeat the Lightning for the first time in the series, and even then it was touch and go for the Canadiens.
The players, however, had already turned the page on the disappointment.

They knew the Stanley Cup Final is a best-of-seven, not a four-game series. Montreal was in the Stanley Cup Final for a reason. The Canadiens weren't going to go down without a fight, especially on home ice and facing the potential end of their season.

"I'm not sitting here saying that we're thinking about tomorrow night's game," Cooper said during the team's media availability Tuesday morning, ahead of their flight back to Tampa, which would beat the arrival of Tropical Storm Elsa," But they understand that, I heard guys talk about it, like sweeping a team's hard to do. It's hard enough just to beat a team, let alone to take them out in four. We're in the Stanley Cup Final. It's rare that happens. Teams don't fluke their way to the Final. It's two good hockey teams playing each other, and the series was meant to go more than four games. Guys understand that, but I know that they'll, you can see, even this morning, this is a focused group. They'll be ready tomorrow."
The Lightning have gone through this before, the disappointment of being unable to finish off an opponent but with the prospect of celebration still on the horizon. In last year's Stanley Cup Final, the Lightning held a 3-1 lead over the Dallas Stars after winning Game 4 in overtime 5-4. A day later, they could close the Stars out, win the second Stanley Cup in franchise history and erase so many recent memories of disappointment and near misses in playoff seasons of the past.
For a moment, it looked like Game 5 would be the final game of the series. Mikhail Sergachev scored 3:38 into the third period to give the Lightning a 2-1 lead. Sergachev's strike from distance was close to holding up as the Cup-clinching goal.
But Joe Pavelski scored with 6:45 to go to tie the game and force overtime, and Corey Perry scored 9:23 into double overtime to extend the series and give the Stars life.
Tampa Bay responded with a brilliant effort in Game 6, shutting out the Stars 2-0 behind a 22-save shutout by Andrei Vasilevskiy, the first of Vasilevskiy's four-straight shutouts in series-clinching games, an active streak that is the longest such run in NHL history.
That game was possibly the most complete effort the Lightning have put together over the last two postseasons, equaled maybe by a 4-0 win in Game 6 of the First Round this year versus Florida, a 2-0 victory in Game 5 at Carolina to close out the Second Round series or a 1-0 defensive masterpiece in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Semifinal against the New York Islanders a little less than two weeks ago.

"I think going through that last year, that experience that we had, losing Game 5 last year was pretty tough," Anthony Cirelli said. "We had an opportunity, and they get that overtime goal. It's kind of the same situation here. We have to have a short memory. The game happened. They got the goal, and we didn't. Now we're going back home, and we have an opportunity again. I think just the whole experience from last year helps us this year, and we've just got to be ready from the opening puck drop."
Tampa Bay will get a chance to put its remarkable resilience in bounce-back games to the test yet again when the series shifts back to AMALIE Arena for Game 5 Wednesday (8 p.m. Eastern puck drop). The Lightning are 6-0 this postseason in games following a loss and 13-0 over the last two postseasons combined, that mark improving to 14-0 when including their 3-2 shootout win over Washington in the 2020 Round Robin opener coming off a four-game sweep to Columbus in the First Round of the 2019 Playoffs, that 14-game win streak in games following a playoff loss the longest such run in NHL history.
Ryan McDonagh says the Bolts' ability to bounce back and respond after defeat stems from a mindset of hating to lose more than wanting to win.

"That's probably the identity of this group," he said. "We're all competitors and it bleeds right down from our coaching staff too giving us a plan and having us go out and execute and putting in a lot of time and effort. We've got to have that mindset right from the start (in Game 5) and go from there."
The Lightning failed to capture the Stanley Cup in Game 4, and certainly you don't want to give a good team any life when they're teetering on life support.
But the Bolts still have three chances to close out the Canadiens and realize their ultimate goal of lifting the Cup for a second-straight season, of becoming "special" as Cooper has said to motivate the team throughout the postseason.
Having the chance to lift the Cup on home ice Wednesday, a little over nine months after they did it in front of an empty Rogers Place arena in Edmonton last season, away from their friends and family and a fan base that has been so loyal throughout the years, is one the Lightning aren't taking for granted.
"No doubt we missed an opportunity last night," McDonagh said. "Our group knows that. You turn the page pretty quick here this morning and you realize what a great opportunity you have here as a team, as a group, as an organization. Up 3-1 in the series and you've got to win one more and you're going into a place you're familiar with, the fan base that's going to be behind us, we've got to go out there and give it our best effort and try to win one hockey game."