Avalanche dethrone Lightning to win 1st Stanley Cup in 21 years

Nathan MacKinnon could not find the words. Gabriel Landeskog cracked a smile and a joke.

After years of playoff disappointments, the Colorado Avalanche are back atop hockey's mountain after dethroning the two-time defending champions.

"It was all leading up to this," playoff MVP-winning defenceman Cale Makar said about the Avalanche's journey.

It's the first title for this core group led by MacKinnon, captain Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and Makar and it follows several early post-season exits — in the second round each of the past three seasons and the first in 2018.

"It feels unbelievable," MacKinnon said. "Some tough years mixed in there, but it's all over now. We never stopped believing."

WATCH l Stanley Cup presented to Avalanche captain Landeskog:

With a mix of speed, high-end talent and the experiences gained from those defeats, Colorado broke through this time — earning every bit of the championship by knocking off the team that hoisted the Cup the past two years. Like the Avalanche fully expected, it wasn't easy.

After an early turnover by Makar leading to Steven Stamkos' goal that put them in a hole and several more bumps and bruises, the Avalanche tied it when MacKinnon beat 2021 playoff MVP Andrei Vasilevskiy with a near-perfect shot and went ahead on another big goal by trade deadline acquisition Artturi Lehkonen.

WATCH l Lehkonen scores Stanley Cup-winning goal:

They locked things down by holding on to the puck and not letting Tampa Bay even shoot the puck on Darcy Kuemper in the third period.

When they did, he was there. Brought in from Arizona in a trade last summer to shore up the sport's most important position, Kuemper was solid again and made his most important save with under seven minutes left when he slid over to deny skilled winger Nikita Kucherov.

His teammates finished the job.

"That's 20-plus years of just dreaming and wanting and working for it and just finally coming to fruition after a lot of crazy years and a lot of hard work," Landeskog said. "This group is just amazing, all the way from the top to our third massage therapist to the wives to the fans to everybody working in Ball [Arena] right now. It's incredible.

Much like the Lightning went all in multiple times by trading high draft picks and prospects to load up for the best chance to win the Cup, Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic was not afraid to ante up in March to acquire Lehkonen, defenceman Josh Manson and veteran forward Andrew Cogliano. They became the perfect complement to Colorado's core that had showed plenty of playoff promise and until now hadn't produced a championship.