What a whirlwind day the Tampa Bay Area could be in for Wednesday: as many are waking up to see any damage left behind by Hurricane Elsa, hunkering down could turn to jubilation by the end of the night if all goes according to plan.
The Tampa Bay Lightning will hope to give their fans a reason to celebrate Wednesday night when they once again try to finish off the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Final.
The Bolts had a chance to do something truly rare if they would have been able to pull off a sweep, and they were arguably just a few inches away from doing just that. Tampa Bay hit the post three different times in Monday night's Game 4, and overcame a deficit twice before ultimately losing 3-2 in overtime.
But it's still a long road ahead for Montreal. The Habs will need to win three more games against the Bolts, two of them at AMALIE Arena.
Making the task even more difficult is the fact that the Lightning still have not lost back-to-back playoff games since 2019. That 14-game win streak in games following a playoff loss is the longest such run in NHL history.
Only one team in NHL history has rallied from a 0-3 deficit in the Stanley Cup Final and that was all the way back in 1942 when the Toronto Maple Leafs came back to defeat the Detroit Red Wings.
And should Tampa Bay close out the series, they'd become just the seventh franchise in the NHL expansion era to repeat as Stanley Cup Champions. The Pittsburgh Penguins most recently did it in 2016 and 2017.
There was originally talk of monitoring Hurricane Elsa to see if Game 5 would need to be rescheduled, but after minimal impacts from the storm, it looks like we are full steam ahead for puck drop at 8 p.m.
Though the Bolts didn't complete the sweep, you can bet AMALIE Arena will be rocking as the Lightning try to finish off the Canadiens and hoist the Stanley Cup in front of their home fans in Game 5.
