from Rob Longley of the Toronto Sun,

Steven Stamkos says he can barely remember when the playoffs began some 62 days ago, never mind the start of the regular season.

But the Tampa Bay Lightning captain is well aware of what remains on the NHL schedule and he’s determined to take it to completion.

“There’s no excuses for our group, we’re here,” Stamkos said late Sunday afternoon after his team breezed into the Windy City focused on extending the Stanley Cup final to a seventh game.

“There’s two games scheduled left in the season. We can be apart of that. That’s the mentality we have.”

If they feel like a boxer on the ropes trailing the best-of-seven final 3-2 and heading into what will be one of the more electric buildings in NHL history with the Blackhawks a win away from the Cup, the Lightning aren’t showing it.

But they are not without worry, given that they have scored just two goals in the last two games, may be without their second leading scorer, Nikita Kucherov, and have seen the early playoff magic of unheralded Tyler Johnson start to fade.

So, naturally, the attention shifts to Stamkos, the team leader and a former 60-goal scorer who has yet to beat Chicago netminder Corey Crawford in this series.

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