Stanley Cup Final preview: Stars, Lightning share mindset entering series

The Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning have gotten to this place in different ways, but they do share a mindset.
Dallas has been hardened by adversity that has been piled on one rock at a time, sort of like they did back in the Salem witch trials. Tampa Bay's burn has been more like, well, a lightning strike.
The results are the same -- they want this very badly.

The Stars are an interesting conglomeration of stories -- from Rick Bowness getting a chance to be a head coaching again, to Joe Pavelski leaving San Jose and getting a chance to finally win it all, to Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin proving that they are franchise cornerstones. The Lightning simply had one of the greatest seasons of all time in 2018-19 and then were swept in the first round of the playoffs by Columbus.
It was the ultimate kick in the gut, and it has stuck with the team throughout this odd and winding 2019-20 campaign. Of course, getting to beat Columbus in the first round was a great step.

"It's funny how the hockey gods work," said Lightning coach Jon Cooper after beating the Blue Jackets. "To go through what we did last year and get second-guessed on a lot of the things we did, go through the season and then have the pause, and everything that's happened. Then, during reseeding and new rules, still end up playing the same team. It's easy now to sit up here and say you wanted them, but it was good to get them and good to get this result."
It helped push Tampa Bay through series against the Bruins and the Islanders to the Stanley Cup Final once again. This is Cooper's second chance after losing to Chicago in 2015. His assistant coach on those teams was Rick Bowness, who said that losing in the finals sticks with you.
"I've only been there a couple times," said Bowness, who also made it with Vancouver in 2011. "You get to that Stanley Cup Finals, man, it stays with you the rest of your life. It's painful."
Ironic, eh?
It seems so much of what this series will be is based on overcoming the pain, using it as a positive, finding redemption. Bowness is 65 and has never won a Cup. Cooper is 53 and of coaches who have been behind the bench for 500 or more game, he trails only Scotty Bowman in points percentage. Bowman finished at .657, Cooper is at .645.

He is missing just one thing. To do it this year might be the perfect story for him.
"It might be one of the hardest Cups to ever win," Cooper said. "Whoever raises this Cup, they'll have earned this one, I'll tell you that."
Irony, again, eh?
These two teams have fought hard, they know each other well, they respect each other. Ben Bishop isn't playing right now, but he and Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy formed a pair in the past. Lightning forward Blake Coleman grew up in Plano and was a big Stars fan. This will be the first time in NHL history where a former assistant has faced his head coach in the Stanley Cup Final
"When I came into the NHL, I was a little green. I was comfortable as a coach, but I wasn't comfortable with the NHL yet, and Rick really helped me with that," Cooper said of the 2013-14 season when Bowness came on as an assistant coach. "He was kind of that mentor you needed -- or I needed -- and the nuances of the NHL that I didn't know about, he really helped me with."

After the Lightning missed the playoffs in 2016-17, Bowness was let go. He landed with the Stars and started mentoring a new young coach in Jim Montgomery. But when Montgomery was fired in December for "unprofessional conduct," Bowness took over as head coach for the first time since 2004 with Phoenix.
Hardship, right?
"There's no better satisfaction than what he's living right now," Stars general manager Jim Nill said. "It's because of hard work, how he treats people and who he is."
Dallas overcame the coaching change, grew from the NHL's pause in the season, and has become a resilient team in the playoffs. They are 10-1 in one-goal games. They have veterans who have never been to a Cup Final before like Jamie Benn, Blake Comeau and Andrew Cogliano, and that's part of the determination.
"It was a moment where I really felt something inside that I've been missing for a while, and it was pretty cool," Cogliano said of beating Vegas in Game 5. "It was something that I will never forget as a hockey player and probably the highest, at this point, moment of my career."

Of course, there is one moment that could make it better.
"I really feel like we have a really hungry team to make this happen," Cogliano said. "I think we've proven that over the course of the playoffs when we've been down in situations and when things haven't gone our way, and from young guys to old guys and from the coaching staff, I think our whole organization really wants to, like I said, put everything we got out there for this last series."
The guys on the other side feel the same way.
"You look at what happened last year - we took it on the chin, and rightfully so, we deserved to take it on the chin," Cooper said. "But to counterpunch the way we have this year, good on the guys."
Dallas beat Tampa Bay twice in the regular season, both times in overtime. Khudobin made 45 saves in one game, the top line of Jamie Benn-Tyler Seguin-Alexander Radulov was good in both. So there are definite storylines there.

Dallas has had the rest, Tampa Bay played overtime in Game 5 and 6 against the Islanders.
"As for gas in the tank, I guess we'll see," Cooper said. "This is unlike any other Stanley Cup Final where we'd get days to rest, but if you were going to tell me, 'Hey Coop, you get to play in the Stanley Cup Final. You're only going to get 45 hours to rest before the game, but you're going to get to play in it,' I'm taking that all day."
They both would.
And that's what makes this all so fun.
"We've got a great team…probably one of the best teams, if not the best team I've played on," said Stars captain Jamie Benn. "We just gel as a group. It's fun in that locker room, and we're going to try and keep this thing going."

Stanley Cup Final: Stars vs. Lightning, Game 1

Saturday, 6:30 p.m. CT
Where:Rogers Place, Edmonton
TV:NBC, Ch. 5
Radio:The Ticket 96.7-FM, 1310-AM
This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika, and listen to his podcast.