But the eye test from their 7-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday suggests otherwise.
In attempting to win the Stanley Cup for a third consecutive season, the Lightning have played 67 postseason games since the start of the 2020 playoffs. They looked slow and tired Saturday and trailed the best-of-7 series 2-0 heading into Game 3 at Amalie Arena on Monday.
"I think having the ultimate goal of the Stanley Cup in the building and there's only two teams left, that trumps everything," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said Sunday. "I'm not a believer in, 'You've played a lot of hockey.' Isn't that what you want to do? I'd rather be playing hockey than having a five-month summer every year. This is what we play for. This is what we coach for.
"The toll is taken in the playoffs. That's the toll. And the shot blocking, the groins, the hips, the cuts, the bruises, playing every second night. That's the toll. And so when you get to the end, even though it doesn't look like they're banged up, they're missing guys, we're missing guys. We've got banged-up guys. That's what the playoff toll does. It's not (about) what happened last year."
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The Avalanche have had less of a grind in the 2022 playoffs. They're 14-2. The Lightning are 12-7.
"You can use that as an excuse," Tampa Bay forward Corey Perry said. "But this time of year, there's only two teams and this is the best time of the year to play hockey and it's the finals. Why wouldn't you want to be here? Why would you want to just say, 'Hey, we play a lot of hockey.' There's no point saying that, so we're excited to be here. We want to be here."
Perry said the Lightning can use the lessons learned from their series against the the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final, when they lost the first two games on the road before winning the next four.
"We're in the same situation as we were against the Rangers, going home 0-2," he said. "And we found a way to win Game 3 at the end of the game there. It rejuvenated us, it got us going again and now we're going home."
The Lightning have won seven consecutive games at Amalie Arena. They hope the energy of the home crowd will help create momentum.
"We are not here thinking that oh, well, you know, we're just going to turn it up," forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare said. "We know that we didn't play the right way. We haven't shown what we can do, so we're just going to go home and play the game the way we want to play."
