Since he was the reason I got to see games two and seven live, it's only fitting that I publish his recap of a great year of hockey for the Tampa Bay Lightning. - Bird

The Year of the Lightning

The 2003-2004 NHL hockey season was the Year of The Lightning. The Tampa Bay Lightning. The same team that only a few years ago had been at the bottom of their division, the bottom of their conference, the door mat of the league. Yes, THAT team. Winning their division in 2002-2003, and going as far as the 2nd round of the playoffs, gained them little respect, if any, among the hockey pundits and experts. When the new season began, the Lightning were considered a young team with the potential to repeat as division winners, but little more.

After a promising start to the season and a challenge to division supremacy by a vibrant, emerging Atlanta Thrashers team, the Lightning seemed to have lost their scoring touch. The most newsworthy item about the team was the publicized rift between the coach and the star player. The offensive/aggressive system of play advocated by the coach was doubted by many experts. Even the team members showed doubts. And a goaltender issue would arise.

Who knew that a 6-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on January 3rd, 2004, would signal the beginning of a remarkable drive towards the Holy Grail of hockey, the Stanley Cup? From that date onward, the Lightning would surpass every team in the NHL in wins. Several players would rank in the top ten in scoring. A defenseman during that period of time would score more goals than any other defenseman in the league. And when the regular season came to an end, The Lightning were the highest placed team in the conference, beaten only by Detroit in the Western Conference for most points in the season.

Awards, voted on at the end of the regular season and to be awarded at the conclusion of the playoffs, went predominantly to Lightning personnel. Forward Martin St Louis won three awards, The Lester B. Pearson Award, the Art Ross Trophy, and the coveted Hart Trophy, awarded to the Most Valuable Player. Coach John Tortorella won the Jack Adams Award for Best Coach of the Year. Center Brad Richards won the Lady Byng Trophy for most gentlemanly player in the league. The team received the Prince of Wales Trophy for winning the Eastern Conference Finals. And the team was not yet through winning trophies.

Critics pointed out that the Lightning looked sub-par even as they beat the New York Islanders four games to one and advanced to the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The clean sweep of the Montreal Canadiens was explained as a series in which goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin excelled and a few Canadian born Lightning players happened to have good games.

The Philadelphia Flyers series was to be the downfall of the Lightning. An older, more experienced team, The Flyers were projected to out-hit and out-muscle a speedy but fragile Lightning squad. The series came down to a seventh game played on Lightning ice. The Lightning played a near picture-perfect game, Fredrik Modin scored the game winning goal, the Tampa Bay Lightning won 2-1, and found themselves in the finals for the Stanley Cup. An improbable for The Cup at the beginning of the season, they now stood on the threshold of hockey greatness. An even more improbable contender, the 6th seeded Calgary Flames, stood in their way. The Flames had vanquished the top three teams in the Western Conference with their hard-hitting aggressive style of play and had gained the support of an entire nation. Lord Stanley would either return to it’s country of birth or it would reside in a southern city known more for beaches, palm trees, and cigars than for championships on ice.

The Calgary Flames continued to outhit and out-muscle their opponents and took a three game to two advantage back home to Calgary. There, the Calgary and Canadian fans prepared to celebrate a Stanley Cup victory. The Lightning were on the brink of disaster and defeat. But within the first minute of the second overtime period, Martin St. Louis scored to send the series back to Tampa for a Stanley Cup Playoffs series 7th game.

A standing room only crowd of 22,717 watched in awe as the Lightning outplayed the Flames for two periods, and hung on tenaciously in the third. Ruslan “Rusty” Fedotenko had scored two goals for the Lightning, and when the final second ticked off on the game clock, the Tampa Bay Lightning had won the game 2-1, and the 2003-2004 Stanley Cup.

The lowly, last place team of several earlier seasons, small market, small budgeted team from the deep south, had secured the most prized trophy in all of sports, the Holy Grail of hockey, the Stanley Cup. The Conn Smythe trophy as Playoff MVP was awarded to Brad Richards.

Names such as Coach Tortorella, GM Jay Feaster, plus players St. Louis, Khabibulin, Andreychuk, Lecavalier, Richards, Modin, Fedotenko, Boyle, Kubina, and others are now known to hockey fans in all countries. As for respect, coach Tororella said that respect does not come with one win, or even with one season. It has to be earned over a course of years. But the Tampa Bay Lightning have taken a giant step towards earning that respect in this……The Year of the Lightning.

Rusty

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