2004 Stanley Cup Final

Paths to the Finals

Tampa Bay Lightning

Tampa Bay finished the season with 106 points and entered the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s top seed. They defeated the eighth, seventh, and third-seeded teams, beating the New York Islanders 4–1, the Montreal Canadiens 4–0 and the Philadelphia Flyers 4–3, in order, and they advanced to the Finals for the first time in franchise history since their establishment in 1992. It was also the third year in a row in which a team made their debut Finals appearance, after the Carolina Hurricanes and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim.

Calgary Flames

Calgary finished the season with 94 points, qualifying for the playoffs for the first time since 1996. As the sixth seed, they defeated the Western Conference's top three seeded teams, which were the Vancouver Canucks 4–3, the Detroit Red Wings 4–2 and the San Jose Sharks 4–2, in order, and made it to the Finals for the first time since 1989. This also marked the first time a Canadian team made it to the Finals since the Vancouver Canucks lost to the New York Rangers in the 1994 Stanley Cup Final.

Game summaries

Game 1

The first game, at St. Pete Times Forum, saw the Flames win 4–1. Dave Andreychuk began the game with a record 634 career goals without a Stanley Cup Final appearance. Calgary only got 19 shots off against the Lightning defence, but more than one-fifth found the net. Martin Gelinas got Calgary on the board early, and they extended the lead to 3–0 in the second period on goals by Jarome Iginla, his 11th of the playoffs, and Stephane Yelle. Chris Simon added the fourth and final Calgary goal after Tampa Bay's Martin St. Louis scored the lone Lightning goal.

Game 2

Game 2 saw the same final score, but this time, it was Tampa Bay winning a clutch game to tie the series, 1–1, headed to Calgary. Ruslan Fedotenko's 10th goal of the postseason got the Lightning on the board first, and Tampa Bay used three third-period goals, coming from Brad Richards, Dan Boyle, and St. Louis, respectively, to blast the game open. The lone Calgary goal was scored by Ville Nieminen.

These Finals would be the last until 2013 to be tied after two games. The team with home ice in games one and two held a 2–0 edge in every Final between 2006 and 2011. In 2012, the Los Angeles Kings won the first two games at New Jersey.

Game 3

The series shifted to the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary, where Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff and the Calgary defence completely stonewalled the Tampa Bay attack, which only took 21 shots in a 3–0 Flames victory. Simon scored the first Calgary goal in the second period, and Shean Donovan and Iginla added goals to ice the game.

Game 4

With a chance to take a commanding 3–1 series lead, Calgary was shut out by Lightning goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, who recorded his fifth shutout of the postseason, a 29-save shutout, in a 1–0 Tampa Bay victory, with the game's lone goal being scored by Brad Richards three minutes into the game on a two-man advantage.

With 4:13 left in the game, Ville Nieminen checked Vincent Lecavalier into the boards from behind, drawing a five-minute major penalty for boarding, a game misconduct penalty, and an eventual game five suspension. Meanwhile, fans at the Pengrowth Saddledome angrily booed referees Kerry Fraser and Brad Watson throughout most of the contest. They were originally also scheduled to work game six in Calgary but the league eventually decided to replace them.

Game 5

The series returned to Tampa Bay tied, 2–2, for a critical game five, and Calgary pulled off a 3–2 overtime victory to move within one win from the Stanley Cup. After Gelinas and St. Louis traded goals in the first period, Iginla scored for Calgary late in the second period. However, Fredrik Modin tied the game for the Lightning 37 seconds into the third period. The 2–2 score held until after 14:40 had gone by in overtime, when Oleg Saprykin's first goal since the first round won the game for the Flames.

Game 6

Back to Calgary for game six, each team scored two second-period goals, with Richards scoring two for the Lightning and Chris Clark and Marcus Nilson for the Flames. In the third period, there was a dispute over a Martin Gelinas redirect that appeared to have gone in off of his skate. A review from one camera angle appeared to show the puck crossing the goal line before Khabibulin's pad dragged it out, though some (including Lightning Tim Taylor) argue that the puck had not only been knocked several inches above the goal line (thus making there appear to be white ice between the puck and the goal line) in front of Khabibulin's pad, but that it was also "kicked" by Gelinas. The play was never reviewed. However, the ABC broadcast of Game 7 showed a CGI video analysis of the play, which estimated that the puck did not completely cross the line, and that the call on the ice was correct. The CGI company that did the analysis of the video was based out of Calgary. The game entered overtime with the Flames needing only a goal to win the Stanley Cup. However, thirty-three seconds into the second overtime, St. Louis put in the game-winner for the Lightning to force a winner-take-all seventh game in Tampa.

Game 7

In a tense Game 7, Fedotenko scored goals for Tampa Bay late in the first period and late in the second period for a 2–0 lead. After Conroy scored to narrow the deficit to 2–1, Calgary bombarded Khabibulin after taking only seven shots in the first two periods. After the Conroy goal, Khabibulin stopped 16 Calgary shots. The series ended as Flames center Marcus Nilson missed a last-second opportunity to force overtime. Tampa Bay won the game, 2–1, and the Stanley Cup.

Team rosters

Years indicated in boldface under the "Finals appearance" column signify that the player won the Stanley Cup in the given year.

Calgary Flames

Tampa Bay Lightning

Stanley Cup engraving

The 2004 Stanley Cup was presented to Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman following the Lightning's 2–1 win over the Flames in game seven

The following Lightning players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup

2003–04 Tampa Bay Lightning

• 8 Martin Cibak
• 9 Eric Perrin*
• 19 Brad Richards
• 27 Tim Taylor
• 11 Chris Dingman
• 17 Ruslan Fedotenko
• 25 Dave Andreychuk (Captain)
• 26 Martin St. Louis
• 29 Dmitry Afanasenkov
• 33 Fredrik Modin (A)
• 36 Andre Roy
• 61 Cory Stillman
• 5 Jassen Cullimore
• 13 Pavel Kubina
• 21 Cory Sarich
• 22 Dan Boyle
• 37 Brad Lukowich
• 38 Darren Rumble*
• 44 Nolan Pratt
• 55 Darryl Sydor
• 47 John Grahame |player-notes=
• • Exemption granted to engrave the name of a player who did not automatically qualify. |non-players=
• William Davidson (Owner), Thomas Wilson (Governor), Ronald Campbell (President)
• Jay Feaster (Vice President/General Manager), John Tortorella (Head Coach), Craig Ramsay (Associate Coach), Jeff Reese (Asst. Coach)
• Nigel Kirwan (Video Coach), Eric Lawson (Strength-Conditioning Coach), Tom Mulligan (Medical Trainer), Adam Rambo (Asst. Medical Trainer), Ray Thill (Equipment Manager)
• Dana Heinze (Asst. Equipment Manager), Jim Pickard (Asst. Equipment Manager), Mike Griebel (Massage Therapist), Bill Barber (Director-Player Personnel), Jake Goertzen (Head Scout)
• Phil Thibodeau (Director-Team Services), Ryan Belec (Asst. General Manager), Rick Paterson (Chief Pro Scout), Kari Kettunen (Scout)
• Glen Zacharias (Scout), Steve Barker (Scout), Dave Heitz (Scout)
• Yuri Yanchenkov (Scout), Bill Wickett (Sr. Vice President-Communications), Sean Henry (Exe. Vice President-Chief Operating Officer)}}

Engraving notes

• #9 Eric Perrin (C) played in 4 regular season games and 12 playoff games (4 in the Eastern Conference finals). #38 Darren Rumble (D) played in 5 regular season games and did not play in the playoffs (he was a healthy scratch). #2 Stanislav Neckar (D) played in 2 games in the Eastern Conference finals. Neckar was on the Nashville Predators injured reserve list for most of the season, before joining Tampa Bay in a trade on March 9, 2004. As they did not automatically qualify, Tampa Bay successfully requested an exemption to engrave their names.
• Ruslan Fedotenko was the first player who was born and raised in Ukraine, and exclusively trained in the country to win the Stanley Cup.
• All 52 members were included with their full first and last names on the presentation Stanley Cup, filling the last spot on it. When the engraver Louise St. Jacques went to engrave the replica Stanley Cup, there was less space available. There was more space between each winning team on the replica Stanley Cup than on the presentation Stanley Cup. Louise decided to keep each member's name in the same order on the same line on the replica Stanley Cup, so all names were engraved with their first initial and full last name. This is another way of telling the presentation Stanley Cup from the replica Stanley Cup. (see 1984 Stanley Cup Final and 1993 Stanley Cup Final)
• #24 Shane Willis (RW – 12 regular season games) and #40 Brian Eklund (G – 0 regular season games, 62 for Pensacola of the ECHL) did not play in or dress for the playoffs (both were healthy scratches). Both were on the roster during the Final, but left off the Stanley Cup engraving due to not qualifying. They were not in the team picture.

Broadcasting

In the United States, this was the last Stanley Cup Final to air on ABC and the ESPN family of networks until the 2022 Finals. ESPN televised the first two games while ABC broadcast the rest of the series. Due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout, which suspended play for the next season, this marked the end of ESPN's third run and ABC's second run as the main NHL broadcasters. NBC and OLN would pick up the rights to broadcast the NHL for the season. The Comcast-owned OLN would later be renamed Versus for the season, then re-branded as NBCSN on January 2, 2012, following Comcast's 2011 acquisition of NBC, effectively moving to the NHL on NBC banner. The Finals would also be the last time a Canadian team played a game on ABC (regular season and postseason) until 2024.

In Canada, the CBC's broadcast of game seven of the Finals drew 4.862 million viewers, making it the highest-rated NHL game on the CBC since game seven of the 1994 Final, which drew 4.957 million viewers. However, those numbers include both pre-game and post-game coverage. The game itself drew 5.560 million viewers, up from 5.404 in 1994.

Notes

References

References

1. "Tampa Bay Lightning Franchise History".
2. "2003-04 Tampa Bay Lightning Roster and Statistics".
3. "Calgary Flames Franchise History".
4. "2003-04 Calgary Flames Roster and Statistics".
5. (May 20, 2004). "Flames reach Stanley Cup finals". [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]].
6. "NHL playoffs 2018: Alex Ovechkin, Capitals join Golden Knights in unlikely Stanley Cup Final".
7. (May 31, 2004). "Richards nets record seventh winning goal". ESPN.
8. (June 4, 2004). "A faint whiff of panic: Lightning tightly wound with Flames nearing first title in 15 years". SI.com.
9. Lapointe, Joe. (June 7, 2004). "The Gamesmanship Is Over: It's One Game for the Cup". New York Times.
10. "Martin Gelinas Phantom Goal, Did The Puck Go In?".
11. "A better look at Martin Gelinas 'goal' in game six Stanley Cup Final 2004".
12. [https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2004/08/21/willis-re-signs-with-lightning/ Willis re-signs with Lightning]
    [https://www.patriotledger.com/story/sports/nhl/2020/11/25/abingtons-eklund-moving-up-coaching-ranks/6420599002/ Braintree native Brian Eklund making the move back to pro hockey]
13. (June 9, 2004). "game seven scores with Canadian viewers". The Calgary Herald.