TAMPA — A young, talented nucleus of players surrounded by key veterans advance to the Stanley Cup finals.
The tale is a familiar yarn around these parts, told 11 years ago when the Tampa Bay Lightning advanced to the finals for the first time in franchise history, faced off against the Calgary Flames following a seven-game series victory against Philadelphia and captured an Eastern Conference crown.
In 2004, the young talent was represented by Vinny Lecavalier, Brad Richards, Marty St. Louis, Dan Boyle, Pavel Kubina and Ruslan Fedotenko, which was joined by veterans Tim Taylor, Darryl Sydor and Dave Andreychuk and got solid goaltending from Nikolai Khabibulin.