The Tampa Bay Lightning Are The Most Hockey Tough Hockey Team That Ever Hockey'd
Joel Auerbach. Getty Images.If winning a Stanley Cup was easy, then everybody would do it. Just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's hard enough to win games in the NHL but if you want to be the only team to win 16 extra games in the playoffs, you better be prepared to pay the price for every one of those wins. You can load up your roster with as many $10M players as you want, but that's not going to pay the bill. It's going to take blood, it's going to take balls, it's going to take putting your body on the line for the boys because you care about them more than you care about your own health and well being.
The Tampa Bay Lightning know how to win a Stanley Cup. They've done it in each of the past 2 seasons. And sure, it helps their roster is loaded with weapons all over the place. But it also comes down to being a bunch of goddamn lunatics who don't give a shit about eating shots and taking a few trips to the trainer's room after every shift.
Dude. Stamkos is a fucking wild man. He's already dealt with his fair share of injury troubles throughout his career. He is already a 2x Stanley Cup winning captain. You'd think at some point he'd say to himself that maybe he doesn't need to soak clappers from the blueline anymore. But he sees someone winding up from the point, it looks like he's begging to get drilled with that shot. If he can take the pressure off of Vasilevskiy just a bit, he'll eat one in the leg no problem.
Take a shot to the face, get cleaned up in the locker room, hop right back on the bench for your next shift. It's Tampa's favorite play to run. Well at least besides the "Kucherov is the best player on the planet once the playoffs roll around, just let him do the damn thing" play they always run.
What a pass. Guy's a hockey player.