Lightning edge Flames to capture first Stanley Cup

The Tampa Bay Lightning captured the Stanley Cup for the very first time, fending off the Calgary Flames 2-1 in Game 7 of the championship finals on Monday.

Ruslan Fedotenko tallied both goals for the Lightning before Craig Conroy replied for the Flames with 10:39 left in the third period.

Calgary applied immense pressure in the dying minutes, but failed to notch the equalizer.

"We were literally one shot away, one second away from winning the Stanley Cup," Conroy said.

"It's the toughest loss by a thousand times," lamented Flames captain Jarome Iginla. "One shot, one shot."

RELATED:
• Flames-Lightning boxscore
• Calgary-Tampa Bay series page
• CBC Calgary playoff page
• NHL Playoffs 2004

Receiving the Stanley Cup from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was a defining moment for Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk, who had played in a record 1,759 games before finally winning it all.

"It's awesome," Andreychuk enthused. "This is the pinnacle.

"This is what we play for and its taken me a while to get here. It was a moment that's gone through my head lots of times and it finally happened."

"Everybody was just hoping so much," noted Lightning defenceman Darryl Sydor. "If we were doing it for anybody, we were doing it for him."

Brad Richards, the pride of Murray Harbour, P.E.I., was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as top playoff performer.

"I'm so proud of where I'm from," he said. "They're behind me every day, every minute.

"This was for them. They appreciated it."

Calgary steamrolled over three division champions to reach the finals, eliminating Vancouver, Detroit and San Jose in pursuit of their first Stanley Cup since 1989 the last time they competed in the finals.

Defeating Tampa Bay, the top seed in the NHL Eastern Conference, would have made it four a remarkable feat considering the Flames failed to qualify for the playoffs the previous seven seasons.

"In the end, we ran out of gas," figured Flames general manager and head coach Darryl Sutter.

Trailing 2-0 and struggling to generate scoring chances, Conroy snapped a shot past a heavily-screened Nikolai Khabibulin for a power-play goal, his sixth goal of the playoffs.

The Flames then completely dominated the remaining seven minutes, but Khabibulin held them at bay with an array of stops.

"This is the ultimate low," Conroy said. "We worked so hard for two months and fell short when it came to the ultimate goal."

The save of the night came with five minutes remaining as Jordan Leopold found himself with a wide-open net to shoot at, only to watch Khabibulin range across the crease to block it.

"I didn't really try to put too much pressure on myself," Khabibulin explained. "I just tried to do my best and see where it took us."

Vincent Lecavalier had a chance to clinch it outright for Tampa Bay, but Flames netminder Miikka Kiprusoff made a spectacular toe save to deny him on a breakaway with three minutes left.

The Flames continued to press until defenceman Andrew Ference was assessed a charging penalty with 1:02 to go in the contest.

"We wore out hearts on our sleeves," Flames forward Ville Nieminen said. "And that's a sign of a great hockey club.

"Emotion doesn't go away. There's more great things to come from this team."

Fedotenko staked Tampa Bay to a 1-0 lead during a power play when he flipped in a rebound from the slot at 13:31 of the first period.

He upped it to 2-0 with 5:22 left in the second period, ripping Lecavalier's centring pass beyond Kiprusoff's reach.

"It is unbelievable," Fedotenko said. "To come here and win the Stanley Cup is a dream come true."

Lecavalier set up the second goal with some slick stickhandling, spinning away from two defenders in the corner and eluding a third by kicking the puck up to his stick before feeding Fedotenko in the slot.

Tampa Bay prevailed 3-2 in double overtime on Saturday to force a seventh and deciding game at the St. Petes Times Forum.

But to hoist the Cup for the first time in franchise history, the Lightning had to extend one trend and end another.

All seven games were won by the team which scored first, which, on Monday, was Tampa Bay.

At the same time, the Lightning snapped a puzzling streak of 13 straight games alternating wins and losses.

"I've never been through something so gruelling," Lightning head coach John Tortorella said. "It's a great feeling.

Calgary had already won twice at Tampa Bay and a record-tying 10 times on the road overall, but only two of 12 visiting teams have won the Stanley Cup in a seventh game Toronto at Detroit in 1945 and Montreal at Chicago in 1971.

That said, the Flames become the only team other than the 2001 New Jersey Devils to relinquish a 3-2 lead in the finals since that span.

"We know in the dressing room that we played as well as we could tonight," said Flames defenceman Robyn Regehr, who played on a badly sprained ankle.

"Even though it's a great disappointment, I'm very proud of each and every one here for the effort that we had throughout the entire playoffs. No one thought that we would be in the playoffs at the beginning of the year."

To their credit, the Flames overcame numerous injuries to extend their season to the absolute limit, losing key forwards Dean McAmmond and Steve Reinprecht prior to the playoffs, defenceman Denis Gauthier five games into the opening round, and forward Matthew Lombardi late in Round 2.

Defenceman Toni Lydman was sidelined until Game 5 of the finals and forward Shean Donovan sat out the final two games because of a right knee injury.

"In a way, winning Game 5 cost us, because of the injuries we sustained," Sutter concluded. "We did what we could to conserve energy.

"But in the end, they had more legs than we did."

with files from CP Online