This lot is closed. Bidding ended on 12/1/2011.
The 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning rolled through the regular season, finishing with 106 points, and earning the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the playoffs. In the first round the Lightning faced off against the New York Islanders. Tampa Bay’s goaltender, Nikolai Khabibulin, posted three shutouts and the Lightning would take the series in five games. In the second round, Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalie, teammates since the age of 14, led the Lightning to a four-game sweep of the Montreal Canadiens. Tampa Bay would go on to face the Philadelphia Flyers in the Eastern Conference Finals. In a tightly-fought seven-game series in which neither team was able to win consecutive games, Fredrik Modin notched the winning goal of the seventh and deciding game, sending the Lightning on to face the Calgary Flames in the franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup Finals. The Flames, a six-seed out of the Western Conference, put up a hard fight against Tampa Bay. The series would go to seven games with each team winning two of their three games on the road. In a tense Game 7, left wing Ruslan Fedotenko scored both of Tampa Bay’s goals giving them a 2-0 lead going into the third period. Craig Conroy scored Calgary’s first goal after his team took just seven shots in the first two periods. After the Conroy goal, Khabibulin put up a wall, stopping a barrage of 16 shots and the Lightning would win 2-1, the franchise’s first Stanley Cup in just their 12th year of existence. This size 10.5, 14k white gold executive ring weighs 70 grams with an approximate total diamond weight of 3.6 carats. The top panel reads “STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS” in relief and features a casted image of the Stanley Cup emblazoned with approximately .60 carats of blue diamonds. The Stanley Cup is engraved “TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING” along with the lightning bolt logo encrusted with seven round-cut diamonds. Surrounding the face of the ring is a perimeter made up of 28 princess-cut diamonds. The right panel reads “TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING” in relief above a casted NHL logo with four round-cut diamonds. To the left and right are the logos of the four teams that Tampa Bay defeated on their way to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup, along with the record for each series. Below that is “2004” in relief, along with “1ST CHAMPIONSHIP”. The left panel reads “WICKETT” above a casted image of the Lightning’s Championship logo with two lightning bolts on each side above “PR” in relief. The inside of the ring is stamped “GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF GREAT”, “SAFE IS DEATH”, “JUNE 7 2004” and “INTERGOLD 14K”. The ring is in NRMT condition.