Stamkos, Hedman display leadership for Lightning in Game 3 of Cup Final

TAMPA — Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman were the first players to address the media after the Tampa Bay Lightning had no answers for the Colorado Avalanche in a 7-0 loss in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final in Denver on Saturday.

They didn’t hide. They didn’t mince their words. They didn’t make excuses.

“We have to man up,” Stamkos, the Lightning captain, said.

Forty-eight hours later, Stamkos and Hedman helped the Lightning to a convincing 6-2 victory in Game 3 at Amalie Arena on Monday.

Tampa Bay trails 2-1 in the best-of-7 series. Game 4 is here on Wednesday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, CBC, SN, TVAS).

For Lightning coach Jon Cooper, the accountability shown by Stamkos, also their first-line center, and Hedman, their top defenseman, after the lopsided loss came as no surprise. Their leadership, he said, was a big reason Tampa Bay is three wins away from a third straight championship.

“On our play, and especially with the guys you mentioned, there’s a reason why we’re here and there’s a reason why we won tonight,” Cooper said. “There’s a reason why this has gone on for the last couple of years. The guys you need to lead you have been doing that, and then everybody falls in line.

“You watch ‘Stammer’s’ growth and Hedman’s growth through the years, and it’s probably not a coincidence that winning has followed us.”

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Stamkos and Hedman combined for one point in the first two games of the series, an assist by Hedman in a 4-3 overtime loss in Game 1. Depth scoring is obviously welcomed, but it’s difficult to win against a skilled team like Colorado when your stars aren’t producing.

But they did on Monday. That the Lightning won for the first time in this series was no coincidence.

Stamkos (one goal, one assist), Hedman (two assists), forward Nikita Kucherov (two assists) and forward Ondrej Palat (one goal, one assist) each had two points and sparked an offense that had not scored more than three (excluding empty-net goals) since a 4-1 win against the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Second Round.

In the process, the team’s leaders did, as Cooper said, exactly what they’ve done throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They remained calm when they trailed 3-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round. It was the same story in the conference final, when Tampa Bay trailed the New York Rangers 2-0 but came back to win four in a row.

The Lightning look to Stamkos and Hedman for composure when times are tough, and that’s what they got again Monday.

“It’s tough if you panic,” Hedman said. “That’s when you grip your stick a little too hard.

“Face it, it’s not ideal to be down 2-0, obviously. But at the end of the day, you can’t change what happened. You can only look forward, and we’ve been in this situation many times before. Maybe not just being down 2-0, but facing elimination. You’ve got to stay cool in those situations. And all this experience helps a lot with that.”

So does the example Stamkos displays for his teammates. The 32-year-old never shies away from being harsh in his analysis, either of his teammates or especially of himself, when he feels it’s applicable. Such was the case after Game 2, and he wasn’t about to back down from that.

“Everyone needed to play better, including myself,” Stamkos said. “So, not a lot needed to be said after that, I don’t think. You go in, you watch the tape.

“I mean, it wasn’t pretty last game, obviously. But we believe in this group.”