TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The Colorado Avalanche have won the Stanley Cup after dethroning the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Avalanche beat the Lightning 2-1 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final behind a goal and an assist from Nathan MacKinnon.

Tampa Bay fell two victories short of becoming the NHL's first three-peat champion since the early 1980s New York Islanders dynasty.

Colorado's core led by MacKinnon, captain Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and longest-tenured player Erik Johnson finally got the job done after years of playoff disappointments.

It's the franchise's third championship and first since 2001.

Joe Sakic joins fellow Denver icon John Elway as dual champ

DENVER (AP) — Joe Sakic was so busy relishing and reminiscing that he nearly missed the team photo with the Stanley Cup before racing over just in time to join the on-ice celebration at Amalie Arena.

The general manager of the Colorado Avalanche joined fellow Denver icon John Elway in leading his team to a championship from the front office two decades after winning a pair of titles during his Hall of Fame playing career.

A star captain and center when the Avalanche won it all in 1996 and 2001, Sakic secured a third Stanley Cup championship Sunday night as the architect of the star-studded firebolt of a team that dispatched the back-to-back defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning in six games.

Sakic joined Elway's exclusive club when the Avalanche completed their dominant playoff run with a 2-1 win in Game 6 in Tampa.

Elway led the Broncos to Super Bowl wins in his final two seasons as their quarterback in 1997 and '98 and he added one as an executive when Denver won the Super Bowl six years ago with a historically dominant defense and an aging but still masterful Peyton Manning.

Just as Elway returned his beloved Broncos to the top of the NFL world, Sakic built the Avalanche team just about from scratch. They shook off stumbles and heartbreaking early exits from the NHL playoffs over the last few years to outlast the Lightning and become the first team ever to clinch four best-of-seven series away from home.

Thanks to deft decisions by Sakic and the steady leadership of coach Jared Bednar, the Avalanche began the season as Cup favorites and lived up to those lofty expectations.

They swept Nashville and Edmonton and dispatched St. Louis in six games to reach their first Stanley Cup Final in 21 years. After a nine-day layoff, they vanquished a Lightning team that had won 11 consecutive playoff series, an astounding feat in the salary cap era.

With a deep roster filled with top draft hits like Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and key deadline acquisitions including Josh Manson, Artturi Lehkonen and Andrew Cogliano, the Avalanche twice beat the Lightning in overtime, routed them 7-0 in a Game 2 masterpiece and clinched their third Cup with another gem Sunday night.

Their 16-4 run in the playoffs, which included a 9-1 road record, was the second-best all-time, behind only Wayne Gretzky's 16-2 run with Edmonton in 1988.

Their 72 combined wins in the regular and postseason this year tied for most ever as did their 10 comeback wins in the playoffs. Their nine road wins are the second-most all-time.

Elway said that over the years he and Sakic occasionally commiserated over how it was so much easier on both of them to guide their teams to titles back when they were playing the games instead of sweating it out watching them.

“Being a GM was fun because you can’t play anymore and it’s good to keep close to the game,” said Elway, who has transitioned into a consultant role with the Broncos following the expiration of his contract earlier this year. “But I’ll tell you what, it’s pretty nerve wracking being the GM.”

Sakic had a major rebuild on his hands when his friend and former teammate Patrick Roy resigned as head coach on the eve of the 2016-17 season and Bednar, fresh off winning the Calder Cup, oversaw a 48-point slog through his first year as an NHL head coach.

“Yeah, we had the worst record but we had some really good young players that were about to become stars and a great core and we just built around them, we got a little bit younger and faster," Sakic said after hoisting the Cup for the third time.

Sakic stuck with Bedar after that initial 22-win season and then selected Makar, who at the tender age of 23 on Sunday night became the first player to win the Hobey Baker Award as the best college player, the Calder Memorial Trophy as the top rookie, the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenseman, the Conn Smythe as the playoff MVP and the Stanley Cup championship.

Five years after their crash-and-burn season, the Avalanche are preparing for a championship parade Thursday in downtown Denver after upending the Lightning and their superstar goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.

The Avalanche won it all even though they didn't have a superstar in net like most champions. Darcy Kuemper, however, went 10-4 in the playoffs and won twice in Tampa. Pavel Francouz won all six of his starts in the playoffs when Kuemper was sidelined after getting poked in the eye.

The Avs relied on their superior speed, enviable depth and defensive discipline, and while they certainly leaned on their star players, they also relied heavily on longtime veterans that Sakic brought to Colorado such as Jack Johnson and Cogliano.

Sakic said he was just as happy for them.

“These older guys have been around a long time and had the opportunity to win their first Cup," he said. "And being a former player, I know how happy they are right now and how relieved they are to finally have the opportunity to raise the Stanley Cup.”

As was Sakic himself.

Fastest 5 minutes in hockey: How speedy Avs won Stanley Cup

Playing hockey on fast forward, the Colorado Avalanche blazed their way to the Stanley Cup championship with a mix of speed and high-end skill that needed only a defined focus to get over the top.

There was never any denying a team featuring Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen has enough talent to win. But after four consecutive early playoff exits, the Avalanche authored a different ending and knocked off the back -to- back defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning by concentrating on something simple: winning each 5-minute burst at a time.

Coach Jared Bednar, in his sixth season behind the bench, is behind that strategy of breaking games down into 5-minute increments. It’s a lesson he learned from the playoff disappointments and one that served as Colorado’s internal mantra way more than the marketing slogan, “Find a way.”

“We have a good five minutes and we’re moving on to the next,” Bednar said. “It just helps guys stay focused and in the moment and committed to what you’re trying to do.”

Even before the final against Tampa Bay, Bednar praised his team for buying into that philosophy, and players acknowledged echoing it on the bench during games. The chatter became a soundtrack to the Avalanche cruising through the playoffs with 16 wins in 20 games.

“We want to make sure that every five minutes is a focus: No matter what happens, we’re resetting and we’re going again because we want to be taking the game to teams,” said defenseman Josh Manson, a key trade deadline acquisition by general manager Joe Sakic. “We have a lot of speed, and our forecheck is a big part of our game, so we want to be resetting every five minutes to do exactly what we need to do.”

Behind all that speed, the Avalanche swept Nashville in the first round, took out St. Louis in six, swept Edmonton in the West final and finished off Tampa Bay in six on Sunday night, handing the Lightning just their second defeat in their last 13 series.

Those watching from outside the final could see the extra hockey taking its toll on Tampa Bay — no team has played more games since 2020, the price that comes with winning two straight titles and playing for a third — and only marvel at Colorado's pace. That includes Bryan Trottier, who won the Stanley Cup six times as a player and again as an Avalanche assistant in 2001.

“Holy cow, they’re quick," he said. "Their speed is really incredible.”

That was no accident. Sakic, the captain of that title team in 2001 and also in 1996, had a blueprint of how to win and went about finding players who fit. The Avs were not just fast on offense — they were in your face on defense, on the forecheck and along the boards. Opponents had little time to think.

Taking MacKinnon with the first pick in 2013 was about finding what Sakic called a “game-changer.” Same with Makar (fourth pick in 2017), and Sakic along the way added grit in trades for Manson, center Nazem Kadri and depth forward Andrew Cogliano.

But the key to Colorado’s game was always speed.

“We’re a fast-paced team,” Sakic said. “We train at altitude. And for our group, the faster the pace is, we feel we can take advantage of that.”

Augmented by the rest players got from finishing two of the first three series in four games, that speed was a significant advantage against the two-time champs, who were built to manage just about everything this time of year but couldn’t handle the way Colorado used it.

A 7-0 Avalanche blowout in Game 2 was a perfect example. The Lightning, from 2021 playoff MVP goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to the dependable veteran skaters in front of him, made one uncharacteristic mistake after another because of Colorado’s sharp, aggressive skating and playmaking.

“Our skating has to be a factor for us regardless of opponent,” Bednar said. “And then playing fast is more than that: It’s execution and getting to the right spots and doing the right things so we’re predictable to ourselves.”

The Avalanche winning the Cup was predictable to four-time Cup-winning Hall of Fame goaltender Grant Fuhr. He said Colorado being the better team in the final followed the path that has been set out since October.

“They’ve been great all year,” Fuhr said. “They looked like the best in the West from the start of the year, and they’ve basically been the best in the league the whole time.”

It began in September, when the Avalanche began shaking off their most recent playoff defeat. Bednar said he and his team did some experimenting during the season on the way to earning the top seed in the West.

When it was time to finish the job, Colorado was ready.

"You don’t preach it all year long and practice it all year long to throw it away at the most important time of the year,” Bednar said. “It’s why we started preaching it Day One of training camp: Focus on the process and what we have to pay attention to, to have success.”

MacKinnon shines in clinching win, helps Avs win Stanley Cup

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Nathan MacKinnon saved his best performance in the Stanley Cup Final for when it mattered most.

MacKinnon scored a goal and set up another to help the Colorado Avalanche win the Cup by beating the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 6.

MacKinnon had a good feeling as soon as he checked into his Tampa hotel and found out his room was 1787.

He comes from the same Nova Scotia town as famous No. 87 Sidney Crosby. Now MacKinnon like Crosby is a Stanley Cup champion.

Avalanche D-man Cale Makar wins Conn Smythe as playoff MVP

Cale Makar has won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP after leading the Colorado Avalanche to their first Stanley Cup title since 2001 and third in franchise history.

Makar is the second defenseman to win the award over the past three years. He follows Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman.

Makar and the Avalanche beat Hedman and the back-to-back defending champion Lighting in the final.

Makar led Colorado in scoring and trailed only Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in points this postseason. The 23-year-old who also won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defensemen this season.

Defending champion Lightning's bid for 3-peat falls short

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t relinquish their stronghold on the Stanley Cup without a fight.

Andrei Vasilevskiy rejected shot after shot, keeping the two-time defending champions’ quest for a three-peat alive, but another superb performance by the star goaltender wasn’t enough to keep the Colorado Avalanche from wresting the title away.

The Lightning were 3-0 when facing possible elimination before Sunday night’s 2-1 loss stopped a bid to become the first team to win three consecutive Stanley Cup championships since the New York Islanders captured four in a row from 1980-83.

Daly hands Stanley Cup to Avalanche in Bettman's absence

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly presented the Stanley Cup to Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog in Commissioner Gary Bettman's absence.

Bettman previously tested positive for the coronavirus and was unable to produce enough negative results to get back to the series in time.

It's the first time someone other than Bettman handed out the Cup since he took over in 1993.

The Cup was quickly handed to some of Colorado's older players like Erik Johnson, Jack Johnson and Andrew Cogliano who had never won it before.

Some like Nazem Kadri hoisted it with battered and bruised hands from various playoff injuries.