When the Tampa Bay Lightning lost the Stanley Cup finals against the Colorado Avalanche last season, the dream of the three-peat died, but through the way they have played so far this season, the idea of a potential dynasty lives on.
At 20-9-1, with the fifth-best record in a stacked Eastern Conference and now a five-game win streak, the Lightning have shown their Stanley Cup window is still wide open.
On Tuesday, veteran Tampa forward Pat Maroon discussed the team’s mentality after losing in the final last year and what’s changed this season in an interview on The JD Bunkis Podcast.
“We have a bad taste in our mouth last from last year,” said Maroon. “Once we got a taste of [winning the Cup], we wanted more … we want to find a way to get back there and achieve our goal again.”
In 30 games this season, Maroon has a goal and four assists, though his contributions to the winning culture go beyond what’s written in the box score.
“Our third line, our fourth line, we all know we all have a job to do, and the job is … to play the right way,” said the third-line winger. “Grinding them down low, being physical – once you have that, some will say it’s boring, but it’s simple hockey.”
Three straight seasons of playing over 100 games of NHL hockey – four for Maroon, who won a Stanley Cup with the St. Louis Blues in 2019 – can be physically and mentally taxing, which may have hurt Tampa last season. But this season, the team has found other ways to get energized.
“We tried to win game six against Colorado and force a game seven, maybe we didn’t have enough steam to pull it off – it was meant to be for Colorado to win,” said the 34-year-old grinder.
“The media say we look tired or sluggish. … It just motivates us with all the noise that goes on with it. You read that stuff and we’re like, ‘we’re not tired – we know what we need to do.’”
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On Tuesday, Tampa Bay will have a chance to increase its win streak to six games with a victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team they bested in the first round of last year’s playoffs.
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