Lightning forward Pat Maroon was recently interviewed by the Athletic, and he thinks that the Lightning can accomplish a feat that hasn't happened in almost 40 years.
That very difficult task is winning the Stanley Cup three consecutive times. This has not been accomplished since the New York Islanders did so in 1982, winning their third of four consecutive Stanley Cup Championships. That will be 40 years ago next year, so it is something that you definitely do not see every day.
"I truly think we can run it back again," the Lightning forward told The Athletic on Friday. "It depends on our health, how guys are feeling, our attitude. But we've been texting together as a group and thinking, we've brought our top two lines back, our big four on 'D,' the best goalie in the world (Andrei Vasilevskiy). We added (forward Pierre-Édouard Bellemare), we've got (forward) [Ross] Colton, (forward) [Mathieu] Joseph. You add (forward) Taylor Raddysh and those guys can fill in. Why not?"
"(Center) Brayden Point, 'Kuch' (forward Nikita Kucherov) and (forward Ondrej Palat) are coming back. There's no doubt in my mind we can run it back. Guys want to do it again. That's why we play."
Maroon as already won the Cup three times in a row, as he was on the St. Louis Blues when they won the cup three years ago before signing with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Lightning will have to go through a full regular season this year in order to win the Stanley Cup, since both of their most recent Stanley Cup came in shortened years due to COVID-19.
