2004 Stanley Cup Playoffs - Stanley Cup Final - (E1) Tampa Bay Lightning Vs. (W6) Calgary Flames

(E1) Tampa Bay Lightning Vs. (W6) Calgary Flames

The 2004 Stanley Cup Finals pitted the team with the second-most points, the Tampa Bay Lightning, against a team that barely made the playoffs, three points from the bottom of the playoff qualifiers, the Calgary Flames.

Tampa Bay had cruised through the first two rounds against the New York Islanders and Montreal Canadiens before running into stiff competition from the Philadelphia Flyers, who they nevertheless defeated in seven games. Calgary had beaten the Western Conference's top three seeded teams, the Vancouver Canucks, Detroit Red Wings, and the San Jose Sharks, in that order.

Game 1, at St. Pete Times Forum, saw the Flames win the game, 4–1. Calgary only got 19 shots off against the Lightning defense, but more than one-fifth found the net. Martin Gelinas got Calgary on the board early, and they extended the lead to 3–0 in the second period on goals by Jarome Iginla, his 11th of the post-season, and Stephane Yelle. Chris Simon added the fourth and final Calgary goal after Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis scored the lone Lightning goal.

Game 2 saw the same final score, but this time, it was Tampa Bay winning a clutch game to tie the series, 1–1, headed to Calgary. Ruslan Fedotenko's 10th goal of the postseason got the Lightning on the board first, and Tampa Bay used three third-period goals, coming from Brad Richards, Dan Boyle, and St. Louis, respectively, to blast the game open. The lone Calgary goal was scored by Ville Nieminen.

The series shifted to the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, where Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff and the Calgary defense completely stonewalled the Tampa Bay attack, which only took 21 shots in a 3–0 Flames victory, and Calgary was halfway home. Simon scored the first Calgary goal in the second period, and Shean Donovan and Iginla added goals to ice the game.

With a chance to take a commanding 3–1 series lead, Calgary was shut out by Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who recorded his fifth shutout of the postseason, a 29-save shutout, in a 1–0 Tampa Bay victory, with the game's lone goal being scored by Richards three minutes into the game.

The series returned to Tampa Bay tied, 2–2, for a critical Game 5, and Calgary pulled off a 3–2 overtime victory to move within one win away from the Stanley Cup. After Gelinas and St. Louis traded goals in the first period, Iginla scored for Calgary late in the second period. However, Fredrik Modin tied the game for the Lightning 37 seconds into the third period. The 2–2 score held until after 14:40 had gone by in overtime, when Oleg Saprykin's first goal since the first round won the game for the Flames.

Back to Calgary for Game 6, each team scored two second-period goals, with Richards scoring two for the Lightning and Chris Clark and Marcus Nilson for the Flames, respectively. In the third period, there was a dispute over a Martin Gelinas shot that appeared to have gone in off of his skate. Although not officially reviewed during the game, the NHL would later rule the video was inconclusive. The game entered overtime with the Flames needing only a single goal to win the Stanley Cup. Thirty-three seconds into double overtime, St. Louis put in the game-winner for the Lightning to force a winner-take-all game seven in Tampa Bay.

In a tense Game 7, Fedotenko scored goals for Tampa Bay late in the first period and late in the second period for a 2–0 lead. After Conroy scored to narrow the deficit to 2–1, Calgary barraged Khabibulin after taking only seven shots in the first two periods. After the Conroy goal, Khabibulin stopped 16 Calgary shots. Tampa Bay won the game, 2–1, and the Stanley Cup.