The Tampa Bay Lightning are looking to strike three times in a row in the Stanley Cup Finals. It's going to be easier said than done, however, against the Colorado Avalanche, who've done nothing but beat teams in demoralizing fashion in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. With that said, here are three reasons why the Avs will crush Tampa Bay's 3-peat dreams.
3 reasons Avalanche will beat Lightning in 2022 Stanley Cup Finals
3. The 3-peat is rare
You would have to go all the way back to 1982 to check out the last time a three-peat in the NHL had been completed. That was when the group of Mike Bossy and the New York Islanders swept Vancouver Canucks in the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals. (The Islanders actually won the Cup four straight times, as they would lift it again the following season by sweeping the Edmonton Oilers of Wayne Gretzky.)
Since then, the most consecutive Stanley Cup Finals series wins we've seen are two. Winning a Stanley Cup once is hard enough. Winning it back to back is legendary.
Raising it three years in a row is rare, to say the least. There's a reason the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs is arguably the most difficult of all postseasons in sports. Pure randomness can throw a wrench into the works of the best team in the NHL. (The Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2012 as an eighth seed). And while the Avs can be “upset” by the Lightning., Tampa Bay, has history going against it because of the rarity of the mission the team is trying to accomplish.
The best window for the Lightning to author a 3-peat might have already closed, too. Had the Bolts not melted in the first round of the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Columbus Blue Jackets despite putting together a sensational campaign that saw them tie the NHL record with 62 wins in the regular season, they likely would have taken the Cup that season and finished the 3-peat assignment last year when they only had the Cinderella-esque Montreal Canadiens in the final round. This time, the Lightning will be facing not just a no. 8 seed, but a 119-point Avalanche.
2. The Lightning's 3-peat dreams will meet its ‘Makar'
For a more tangible reason why the Avs will topple the 3-peat dreams of the Lightning, look no further than Colorado's ultra-talented defenseman, Cale Makar. The way Makar figures and makes a consistently big impact on both ends of the ice is jaw-dropping. No less than the Great One has gone on to legendary lengths to underscore just how tremendous of a two-way defenseman Makar is.
Via Mike Chambers of The Denver Post:
“The closest player we’ve ever seen offensively and defensively that can make an impact on the game that much — probably Bobby Orr,” Gretzky said of Makar on TNT. “We’ve got to go all the way back to Bobby Orr.”
The Avalanche are loaded with top-end forwards, but it's a blue liner in Makar who's leading the team in points in the offseason. Makar enters the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals against the Lightning with 22 points on the strength of five goals and 17 assists.
And since we are talking about the Avs' blue line, we should note that that unit is barely just all about Makar. This is where it gets scarier for the Lightning. While Makar is certainly the face of the Avs' defense, he's also skating alongside Devon Toews, Bowen Byram, and Erik Johnson. Among all defensive pairings in the playoffs with at least 30 minutes of ice time, the Bryan combinations with each Johnson are both in the top two overall in terms of xGoals against per 60 minutes, according to Money Puck.
There's a reason why the Avalanche just wiped out an Oilers team that featured the best player in the world in Connor McDavid and another 100-point-getter in Leon Draisaitl, and you just have to look at the body of work Makar and the Avs' defensemen to understand.
And here are the defencemen. Cale Makar is the king, Byram outstanding defending the line, Bouchard awful defending entries and Keith actually doing okay in that regard for once. pic.twitter.com/HuM2GL2oHB
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) June 7, 2022
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1. Forward depth
Okay, okay, but what about the real group that should be focusing on scoring goals for the Avs. The great thing for the Avalanche is that even though Nazem Kadri is a long shot to play in the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals, they are deep enough to find Kadri's offense somewhere else. Nathan MacKinnon is definitely a guy to watch out for on the attack for Colorado, which averaged 3.76 goals per game back in the regular season –good for fourth overall.
Then there's Mikko Rantanen, who's coming off a huge series against the Oilers, scoring four goals to go with a couple of assists. MacKinnon, for his part, found the back of the net in that matchup three times. Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, and Valeri Nichushkin are all having quite a playoffs.
The Lightning will always have Andrei Vasilevskiy to rely on, but the Avs have the firepower from the forward group and the blue line to make his life miserable at any given moment. And since possession and quality of shots always matter, it's worth noting that the Avalanche are second among all teams that made the playoffs with in CF% (57.72), xGF% (57.3) and HDGF (17) — all on 5-on-5 situations.
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