{"id":566867,"date":"2026-05-04T19:45:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/566867\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:45:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:45:45","slug":"lightning-eliminated-in-the-first-round-for-4th-straight-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/566867\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning eliminated in the first round for 4th straight season"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 When the clock his zero on Sunday night inside Benchmark International Arena, the faces of the Tampa Bay Lightning players were all expressing disbelief.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s just a lot of blank stares,\u201d Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. \u201cEverybody is wondering how that one got away from us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lightning lost 2-1 in a do-or-die Game 7 against the Montreal Canadiens.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you win the game and not the score,\u201d Cooper added.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay was unlucky in many ways \u2014 outshooting the Canadiens 29-9 but allowing a pair of fluky goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hockey Gods have been in my corner many, many times, and tonight they\u2019re in the other corner. That\u2019s what happens,\u201d Cooper said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sucks. Not much you can do,\u201d Lightning forward Brandon Hagel said. \u201cYou give up zero shots in the second period. Three shots in the third period. And you lose a hockey game. You can\u2019t look at one guy in the room and say he didn\u2019t do his thing. Yeah, I guess we didn\u2019t score more goals, obviously. It\u2019s a tough feeling, but that\u2019s the reality of hockey. It\u2019s Game 7, you lose, you\u2019re out.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s now four straight years with four first-round exits in the Stanley Cup playoffs. This team was supposed to be different. So what was missing with another first-round exit?<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought maybe throughout the series we probably weren\u2019t at our best for some games,\u201d Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli said. \u201cWe were giving up chances and looks. Just dialed in for seven games each and every night. We can probably dissect and think about it a lot during the summer about how we let it get away.\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t supposed to happen against, especially to a team with Stanley Cup aspirations every season.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it sucks, you don\u2019t get any younger, that\u2019s for sure,\u201d Hagel said. \u201cI got one goal on my mind every single year\u2026I just want to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Share Your Story with Kevin

Tampa Bay 28 Sports Anchor Kevin Lewis knows what happens on the field ties us together. From parents coaching kids to young athletes achieving life-long dreams, Kevin shares stories we can all celebrate. Reach out to him below.
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<\/p>\n

Lightning fans share cheers and tears in Thunder Alley amid Game 7<\/p>\n

Thunder Alley was jumping off the decibel level Sunday night as more than 2,500 fans crammed together to cheer on the Lightning during game seven. However, Tampa Bay 28’s Robert Boyd witnessed what started off with cheers and ended with tears.<\/p>\n

Lightning fans share cheers and tears in Thunder Alley during Game 7<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 When the clock his zero on Sunday night inside Benchmark International Arena, the faces of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,63256,63257,189,4,540,32946,38116,92,7138,5168,5167,7139,7140],"class_list":["post-566867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-hockey","tag-kevin-lewis","tag-kyle-burger","tag-lightning","tag-nhl","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-28","tag-tampa-bay-28-sports","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-tampa-bay-sports","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabaylightning","tag-wfts","tag-wfts-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116518029499086386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}