Hi, this is Fred Wallace with ” Off the Wire “.
Two months of Summer Stanley Cup Playoff action concluded Monday night when the Tampa Bay Lightning prevailed by blanking the Dallas Stars 2-0 to win the 2020 National Hockey League Championship 4 games to 2.
Tampa Bay was the better team, no question.
The first loss for the Lightning in the Final came just 2 days after Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final when they vanquished the Islanders.
The second loss in the series for Tampa Bay came in double overtime in a game that the Lightning dominated but didn’t finish.
For their part, Dallas was valiant but appeared to be a bit over matched and simply didn’t have much left in the tank to extend the series or win it.
Regardless, the Stanley Cup was compelling to watch, as was most of this unique post season with the possible exception of the Colorado-Phoenix series.
And now we look ahead……
The initial target date for the ” next ” NHL season WAS December 1st.
There’s been some waffling on that date and with the NBA stating they won’t commence until January of 21 at the earliest, I’d expect the NHL to follow suit.
There was also talk this week that multiple bubbles for next season could be implemented, but the logistics, let alone the negative financial impact on various clubs makes it hard for me to visualize.
So for the time being we’re left with the images of Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and the 2020 Stanley Cup Bubble Champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
I’m Fred Wallace