The Colorado Avalanche Are Stanley Cup Champs!

I tweeted it last night - only a great team could end the Bolts dynasty. And the Colorado Avalanche are that great. 

Cale Makar is that good. Nathan MacKinnon is that good. Gabriel Landeskog is that good. Darcy Kemper, even with all his doubters, is that good.

And this team is that good. You weren’t going to fluke your way to beating Tampa Bay four times in a series. Nobody had done it in three years. And when Tampa Bay beat Colorado in Colorado on Friday night, you knew it would be even tougher. 

And then Tampa Bay got out early last night.

Steven Stamkos scores early and it felt like it was going to be a long night for Colorado. Tampa Bay was swarming early. If they got out to multi-goal lead and put that away early, there was going to be a world of pressure on the Avs going back home.

But that never happened. Tampa Bay never got out to that two-goal lead. In fact, they didn’t score again. Not only did they not score, they didn’t get many looks. Down 2-1 in the third, they went ten minutes without A SINGLE SHOT ON GOAL.

Do you know how good you have to be defensively to hold the Lightning without a shot ON GOAL for ten minutes of the final period with their season and their dynasty on the line? I’ll tell you – damn good.

Tampa Bay was hitting Colorado with everything they had and the Avs never flinched. Guys were throwing themselves in front of pucks, losing skate blades, getting dragged off the ice, and Colorado still refused to crack.

They allowed a total of two shots ON GOAL in the third period, according to The Athletic. Two shots, with a one-goal lead, in a Cup-clinching third period. That is how you close it out. That’s Mariano Rivera stuff right there. That’s Dennis Eckersley in his prime, slamming the door, repeatedly.

And that led to the final seconds, on the road, in the home of the two-time defending champs.

I’m not going to say the Avalanche were built to beat the Lightning, but they were built to beat the Lightning. They’ve got youth, they’ve got experience, they have incredible speed. They have Nathan MacKinnon. They have Cale Makar. And they have a massive chip on their shoulders.

This was Nathan MacKinnon just over one year ago after they were bounced in the playoffs.

You’ve won bleep now, Nathan. And even in winning, he was tipping his cap to Tampa Bay. 

"It's crazy how they went back-to-back. I might get fat as bleep right now, so I don't know if we're going back-to-back. But I'm going to enjoy it for sure." 

From not winning bleep to getting fat as bleep after winning, that is the dream.

But it wasn’t just MacKinnon who was out to prove something. Nazem Kadri also had some motivation and a message for his critics after the win.

Raising the Stanley Cup is the greatest feeling in sports. Raising the Stanley Cup and then getting to tell your critics to “kiss my ass” has to be even better.

To illustrate how great this team is, just look at Cale Makar. I could do a whole take, I could do a whole hour on Cale Makar. If you win the Norris Trophy, the Conn Smythe, and the Stanley Cup, you’re something special. But that doesn’t even do him justice.

The list of players who’ve won the Norris and Conn Smythe in the same year is: Bobby Orr and Nick Lidstrom. As the old cliché goes: that’s it, that’s the list.

And now Makar is on the list. And the Bobby Orr comparisons are only going to get louder. It used to be blasphemy to talk about someone in the same breath as Orr, but not anymore.

He led the team in points in the playoffs. That was the easiest Conn Smythe vote of all-time. He’s not just the best defenseman in hockey, I’m open to the argument that he’s the best player in hockey. And I might just be the guy who’s making that argument.

How many other people who have ever walked the planet can defend Connor McDavid and initiate offense? 

And he’s not a one-man team. This was a group effort. They won 56 games in the regular season, 72 overall. They aren’t just great. They are all-time great. 

Andrew Cogliano, who’s played more than 1,200 career games, and had never won a Cup, played with pins in his broken finger to get the Cup last night. He was asked if it was worth it and his answer was exactly what you’d expect: “Bleepin’ right.”

Bleepin right it’s worth it. And bleeping right they’re worthy champs.  And it might be the bleeping start of another bleeping dynasty.