Fansided

Lightning win Presidents’ Trophy for first time in franchise history

By Ben Ebert |
TAMPA, FL - MARCH 18: Steven Stamkos #91 of the Tampa Bay Lightning scores against the Arizona Coyotes for a franchise record in the first period at Amalie Arena on March 18, 2019 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)
TAMPA, FL - MARCH 18: Steven Stamkos #91 of the Tampa Bay Lightning scores against the Arizona Coyotes for a franchise record in the first period at Amalie Arena on March 18, 2019 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images)

The Tampa Bay Lightning sealed the deal in their home arena on Monday night, defeating the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 and securing the Atlantic Division, Eastern Conference and NHL regular season titles for the season.

What started off as a come-from-behind scenario – after a Clayton Keller one-timer put the Coyotes ahead just over five minutes into the first – quickly changed less than two minutes later on a record-setting goal.

Steven Stamkos deflected a Ryan McDonagh shot past Darcy Kuemper to tie it up at 1-1 and, more importantly some might say, officially passed Vincent Lecavalier as the all-time leading goal scorer in Lightning franchise history. The Tampa Bay captain has now scored 384 goals in just 737 games as a Bolt. Wow.

Although the second period saw the most recorded shots on goal, the rest of the scoring came in the third period which started with Victor Hedman’s goal just 44 seconds in. Anthony Cirelli dished a gorgeous, no-look feed to the other side of the crease which Hedman easily put past the open blocker side of Kuemper.

Cirelli logged an empty-netter on a shot he launched from his team’s own right circle to put the Bolts up 3-1 with under a minute remaining. Andrei Vasilevskiy attempted to pull off a Evgeni Nabokov-style move by launching a shot towards the empty net, as Kuemper was pulled again for an extra attacker, only to have the puck die short just beyond the Coyotes blueline, leaving it for Yanni Gourde to finish off.

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The Bolts earned their fifth-straight win as well as the franchise’s first-ever Presidents’ Trophy. This locks the Lightning in with home-ice advantage throughout the Stanley Cup playoffs, which is great for a team that holds a 31-6-2 record when playing at Amalie Arena.

Although the Lightning have accomplished what seems like nearly everything imaginable for this season, including player, franchise and NHL records, the road ahead for the remainder of the regular season will be a bumpy one.

The Bolts will play seven of their remaining nine games on the road and eight of the nine against playoff contending teams. The first stop of this upcoming three-game road trip: Washington D.C. on Wednesday night.

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