Tampa, Florida - The Tampa Bay Lightning have won the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, clinching the series at home over the Montreal Canadiens.

A 1-0 win in Game 5 was enough for their second consecutive Stanley Cup championship. This time, the Bolts were able to win the cup in front of their own fans, having raised last year’s trophy in the NHL’s Covid-19 bubble in Edmonton, Alberta.

Tampa managed to finally shut the door on the Habs after Montreal avoided the sweep in Game 4, when they squeaked by the Bolts in a much-needed overtime victory.

With such a low and close score, Wednesday's match was a goalie’s duel between Tampa’s Andrei Vasilevskiy (25) and Montreal’s Carey Price (33). To start, both teams were grinding things out with neither side being able to follow through on any offensive pushes, even though Tampa had noticeably more shots and offensive chances in Montreal’s zone.

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However, Vasilevskiy was the main man for the Bolts, earning another shutout to seal the deal for the Lightning. He stopped 22 shots and notched his sixth-career playoff shutout, the fifth of this postseason. Starting with last year’s Stanley Cup win, each round clinched by Tampa was by way of shutouts, all achieved by Vasilevskiy.

While both goaltenders practically put up walls in the nets, the one who finally found the fatal breach was rookie Ross Colton, who scored late in the second period. After that, the Lightning played a more controlled game, looking to preserve their small lead, while the Canadiens started to show signs of running out of gas in the final period.

Even though Price was pulled from the net for an extra attacker during the final minutes, it wasn’t enough to even tie the game as their Cinderella season came to an end.

Before the cup was presented to the champs, Andrei Vasilevskiy was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy, given to the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Canadiens, like they had been through most of the Stanley Cup playoffs, were considered underdogs, even more so once they were matched up against Tampa in Finals. Hardly anyone gave them a chance in the first round, but they took care of Toronto in seven games, swept the Jets in the next round, and got past Vegas to end up against the defending champs. This impressive run took them farther than anyone outside their locker room thought they’d get.

"The resilience that we showed; just a good team to be a part of," Montreal winger Brendan Gallagher said in his postgame comments to ESPN.

Meanwhile, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos spoke about his team's joy at clinching the title at home: "We didn’t get a chance to do that last year. This is redemption for them to be able to spend this time with us. We wanted to win in Game 4. It didn’t work out. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise, we got to do it in front of our amazing fans."

Having only won the Stanley Cup once in its history before last year, Tampa has managed to triple its haul in just 10 months. Time to talk dynasty?