The Wraparound: Nothing seems to slow down the Lightning

If the Tampa Bay Lightning can win one more game against the Florida Panthers, they will be back in the Eastern Conference Final for the sixth time in the past eight seasons and continue their quest for a third consecutive championship. They have a chance to get that win, and complete a Second Round sweep of the 2021-22 Presidents’ Trophy winners, on Monday night (7 p.m. ET; TNT, Sportsnet, CBC, TVA Sports).

They enter Monday’s game with a commanding 3-0 series lead following Sunday’s 5-1 win, having taken complete control against the Panthers in a series that is suddenly becoming unexpectedly one-sided. Expectations were sky high for this series following the excitement of their First Round matchup a year ago, combined with the fact the Panthers had the league’s best offense and best record this season.

The Lightning, though, have completely squashed out that offense allowing just three goals in the first three games of the series, while also running the Panthers’ power play goal drought to eight consecutive games. It is total domination by a team that has become the gold standard for winning in the NHL right now. And that standard remains in place no matter what they seem to be dealing with or who they have to play without.

Since the start of the 2014-15 season, when this current run by the Lightning began, no team has won more regular season games (384) or playoff games (77), with the latter number being 22 more than the second-place team (the Pittsburgh Penguins with 45 playoff wins). They are also making a serious run at being the first team to win back-to-back-to-back championships since the early 1980s New York Islanders dynasty.

Coming into the playoffs there was every reason to believe the Lightning run might