Bowman expects 'spectacular' Stanley Cup Final between Stars, Lightning

Scotty Bowman has one prediction for the Stanley Cup Final, and he admits it's a pretty safe one.

"I think we're going to see spectacular hockey," the legendary coach said of the series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars, which starts Saturday at Rogers Place in Edmonton (7:30 p.m. ET, NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS). "We never knew what was going to happen with the pandemic, but now the end is in sight."
Bowman, who turned 87 on Friday, might have a winner picked, but he's not sharing it publicly out of respect for each organization. Based near Tampa during the winter, he scouts for the Chicago Blackhawks as senior adviser of hockey operations at almost every home game of the Lightning and is friendly with their front office and coaching staff and familiar with their roster.
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He includes Dallas CEO Jim Lites and general manager Jim Nill, each of whom he worked with in the Detroit Red Wings organization, and Stars coach Rick Bowness among his friends.
But Bowman, who has won the Stanley Cup 14 times -- a record nine as a coach with the Montreal Canadiens (1973, 1976-79), Pittsburgh Penguins (1992) and Red Wings (1997-98, 2002), then five more as an executive with the Penguins (1991), Red Wings (2008) and Blackhawks (2010, 2013, 2015) -- has advice for each team.

Scotty Bowman in the late 1970s, with five miniature Stanley Cup trophies representing those he won coaching the Montreal Canadiens.
The Lightning, Bowman said, can't be complacent if they put the Stars in a hole "because Dallas has proven to be a good come-from-behind team. They gave up the second-fewest goals in the NHL this season (174 in 69 games to the Boston Bruins' 167 in 70 games). When a team doesn't give up a lot of goals, like Dallas, they don't need a ton of goals to win, so Tampa needs to keep playing well defensively."
Bowman said the Stars have their work cut out against the firepower of the Lightning, who scored a League-leading 243 goals in the regular season. In the postseason, Brayden Point has scored nine goals, Ondrej Palat has eight and Nikita Kucherov six.
And then there's versatile defenseman Victor Hedman, a towering presence (6-foot-6) at each end of the rink. With nine goals, Hedman is tied with Hockey Hall of Famers Bobby Orr and Brad Park for the third-most goals scored by a defenseman in a single playoff season. He leads the NHL this postseason at plus-19 and has averaged 26:31 of ice time per game, the high for each finalist.
"Dallas has to be aware of the best players on Tampa, but Hedman has had such a great playoff," Bowman said. "The Stars have to be on their defensive game, and they've got to contain the play of Hedman. He's so big on offense and defense. He's been that effective and scored so many important goals for this team."
Indeed, Hedman has two game-winners this postseason, including one in double overtime to eliminate the Bruins in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Second Round.

Scotty Bowman with the Stanley Cup won with Chicago in 2015, and in 2019 at a Montreal conference, wearing a Canadiens jersey.
Hedman was on Tampa Bay's blue line in 2015, ahead of Lightning coach Jon Cooper in a handshake line the latter still remembers for the words of encouragement he heard from Bowman, whose 1,244 regular-season victories makes him the winningest coach in NHL history.
Cooper vividly recalls speaking to Bowman on Chicago's United Center ice after the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, the Blackhawks having defeated the Lightning in six games. Bowman reminded Cooper, who then was in his second full NHL season, of his own playoff disappointment, having lost his first 12 Cup Final games with the St. Louis Blues before his first victory in 1973 with the Canadiens.
"When we lost out, Scotty was the last guy I shook hands with on the ice," Cooper recalled last season during a visit to Montreal, eight days before the start of the playoffs. "He pulled me in and told me to keep my head up, that my career was just starting, that we're going to be back here someday 'and never forget the fact that I (Bowman) was 0-12 in my first 12 Stanley Cup Final games.' That's always stayed with me."
The 2018-19 Lightning, whose 128-point season was four shy of the Bowman-led Canadiens' 1976-77 NHL record of 132, were swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round. But now Cooper has Tampa Bay four wins from a championship, and Bowness has Dallas from the same prize.

Scotty Bowman (front row, third from right) with the 1957-58 Memorial Cup-winning Hull-Ottawa Junior Canadiens. A decade from his first NHL coaching job, Bowman coached this team alongside future Canadiens GM Sam Pollock (front row, third from left).
As he has been throughout the playoffs, Bowman will be a devoted fan at his home in Amherst, New York, guessing that he's watched 90 percent of the postseason schedule.
"I didn't see every game when they were playing five games a day early on, but the last three or four weeks I've missed almost nothing," he said.
That includes every minute of the five-overtime game between the Lightning and Blue Jackets in the first round Aug. 11.
Bowman is eager to watch what could amount to a chess match, in part a duel between goalies Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning and Anton Khudobin of the Stars.
"There will be no home-ice advantage in the sense of having your fans in the building," he said. "And I'm not even going to guess how long the series will go. There have been sweeps when people said there'd be a long series, and vice-versa. I look at Tampa and Dallas and I believe they've both earned the place where they are now, and more. They've both gone through a lot just to get there.
"About now, in a normal year, I'd be heading to training camp. Now, imagine, they're about to play for the Stanley Cup."
Photos: Getty Images/HHoF Images/Dave Stubbs