Stamkos, Hedman, Coburn first to get Stanley Cup handoff for Lightning

EDMONTON -- Braydon Coburn may have been a role player for the Tampa Bay Lightning during their run to the Stanley Cup championship, but the defenseman was prominent in the Cup handoff celebration.

After the Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars 2-0 in Game 6 of the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Monday, Commissioner Gary Bettman handed the Cup to Lightning captain Steven Stamkos.
Stamkos took a brief skate, then came back to the group at center ice and gave the Cup to his close friend Victor Hedman, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Hedman then chose Coburn, the 35-year-old veteran who has played 964 regular-season games over 15 NHL seasons and 137 more in the playoffs, including three this season.
"With [Coburn], I think this is his third Final, and this is what I say about this group, that [Coburn] didn't play that many games in these playoffs, but he still kept this unbelievable attitude and he kept rallying the troops as well," said Hedman, who scored 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in 25 playoff games. "Everyone wants to play, but [Coburn] just had a great attitude, he kept cheering the boys on, he kept pushing us, he kept skating every day, he pushed the guys that were skating. He's just an all-around great athlete that has fought so hard.
"He went to the Cup Final with [the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010, losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in six games], he went to the Cup Final with us (in 2015, another six-game loss to the Blackhawks) and now we get to win together. A lot of guys have been a part of this for a long time, and [Coburn] is one of those guys."

Coburn handed the Cup to Ryan McDonagh, who was followed by Alex Killorn, Luke Schenn, Zach Bogosian, Pat Maroon, Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson, Brayden Point, Kevin Shattenkirk, Cedric Paquette, Yanni Gourde, Curtis McElhinney, Barclay Goodrow, Blake Coleman, Erik Cernak, Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev, Mitchell Stephens, Alexander Volkov, Jan Rutta, Carter Verhaeghe, Mathieu Joseph, Scott Wedgewood and coach Jon Cooper.
Stamkos, whose only game in the playoffs was Game 3 of the Cup Final, when he scored a goal in the first period but was limited to 2:47 of ice time because of a recurring injury, said he'd known for a while that if he ever got the opportunity, his handoff would be to Hedman, but after that it was about the veteran teammates who had garnered the respect of the locker room, including Schenn and Bogosian.
"It was a no-brainer for me," Stamkos said. "You dream about this forever. If we ever won a Cup with this group, I knew I was giving it to [Hedman]. We honestly did a video, an interview three years ago and we talked about that. So it was an easy choice for me. I knew I was going to give it to him. One of the best players I ever played with. My best friend on the team. We've come up together, so it was easy for me.
"As for the other guys, you try to give it to the guys who have grinded so hard in their career to get to this moment and just show respect for those guys. Obviously, some things get lost in the hype of winning, the happiness of winning, but we have so many guys that were so deserving on this team that have played in this league for a long time. Every single guy that got it obviously deserved it."