The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Toronto Maple Leafs have an extremely important date this Sunday night, as they will be playing Game 7 of their scintillating first-round series. The Bolts are looking to keep their hopes alive for a three-peat, having won the last two editions of the Stanley Cup Finals. But the job hasn't been made easy by Auston Matthews and the stubborn Maple Leafs, who's got the home-ice advantage in Game 7.

Lightning head coach Jon Cooper must be feeling the pressure, even with the success his team has had in the past couple of seasons. On Saturday morning, Cooper made it clear that he doesn't want to hear any potential post-mortem take about how losing in this Game 7 would be easier to swallow for this team.

Via Chris Johnston of TSN:

Jon Cooper: “I don't want anybody to sit here and say ‘Well, is it easier because we won two Cups if the #leafs get the best of us tonight? It's OK?' That's BS. We're standing here on the cusp of greatness and why the hell wouldn't we charge through that door?”

The Lightning are going after history, as no team since the New York Islanders in the early 1980s has won the Stanley Cup three times in consecutive fashion. In 2020, the Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars in the Stanley Cup Finals and successfully defended their crown in 2021 by besting the Montreal Canadiens.

Behind the old reliable in Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point, and Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning have the weapons to make another deep run in the playoffs, and all those players will have to show up tonight I Tampa Bay is to keep their three-peat dreams alive. It is worth noting that the Lightning are 6-3 all-time in Game 7s, going 2-2 as the road team.