TAMPA, June 8: Ruslan Fedotenko scored a pair of goals as the Tampa Bay Lightning clinched their first Stanley Cup in franchise history on Monday with nail-biting 2-1 Game Seven win over the Calgary Flames.
Just the second team since 1971 to erase a 3-2 series deficit to lift the title, the Tampa comeback drove an icy spike through the hearts of hockey-mad Canadians who had been primed to celebrate the nation's first Stanley Cup champion since the Montreal Canadiens in 1993.
While Fedotenko and goalie Nikolai Khabibulin were Game Seven stars and Brad Richards picked up Conn Smyth honours as the playoff MVP, it was 40 year-old captain Dave Andreychuk who had the honour of hoisting the Cup and parading around the St Pete Times Forum to thundering applause.
In the history of the NHL, no player had endured more frustration in the pursuit of hockey's holy grail than Andrey chuk, the veteran playing in an NHL record 1,758 games over a 22-year career before finally realising his childhood dream of winning a Stanley Cup.
Fedotenko, who missed Game Four of the finals after being slammed into the boards in Game Three, tallied once in each of the first two periods and Khabibulin did the rest stopping 16 of 17 shots.
Craig Conroy fanned the Flames fading Cup hopes spoiling Khabibulin's shutout bid with a power play goal midway through the third but the "Bulin Wall" would not be breached again saving some his most acrobatic stops for a final, all-out, Calgary assault. -Reuters
