The Colorado Avalanche are back atop hockey’s mountain after dethroning the two-time defending champions.

Behind a goal and an assist from Nathan MacKinnon, the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup for the third time in franchise history and first in more than two decades by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Game 6 of the final on Sunday night.

It’s the first title for this core group led by MacKinnon, captain Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar and it follows years of playoff disappointment. The Avalanche lost in the second round each of the past three seasons after getting knocked out in the first round in 2018.

“It feels unbelievable,” MacKinnon said. “Some tough years mixed in there, but it’s all over now. We never stopped believing.”

With a mix of speed, high-end talent and the experiences gained from those defeats, Colorado broke through this time, earning every bit of the championship by knocking off the team that hoisted the Cup the past two years.

Like the Avalanche fully expected, it wasn’t easy.

After an early turnover by Makar leading to Steven Stamkos' goal that put them in a hole and several more bumps and bruises, the Avalanche tied it when MacKinnon beat 2021 playoff MVP Andrei Vasilevskiy with a near-perfect shot and went ahead on another big goal by trade deadline acquisition Artturi Lehkonen.

They locked things down by holding on to the puck and not letting Tampa Bay even shoot the puck on Darcy Kuemper in the third period.

When they did, he was there. Brought in from Arizona in a trade last summer to shore up the sport's most important position, Kuemper was solid again and made his most important save with under seven minutes left when he slid over to deny skilled winger Nikita Kucherov.

Much like the Lightning went all in multiple times by trading high draft picks and prospects to load up for the best chance to win the Cup, Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic was not afraid to ante up in March to acquire Lehkonen, defenceman Josh Manson and veteran forward Andrew Cogliano. They became the perfect complement to Colorado’s core that had showed plenty of playoff promise and until now hadn’t produced a championship.

Sakic, who captained Colorado’s first two title-winning teams in 1996 and 2001, used a familiar recipe to get his team over the hump. Much like Pierre Lacroix, the architect of those Avalanche teams that had so much success after the organisation moved to Denver, Sakic prioritised skill, speed and versatility.

That speed overwhelmed every opponent along the way, from an opening sweep of Nashville through a hard-fought, six-game series against St. Louis, another sweep of Edmonton and then Tampa Bay, which staved off elimination once but ended up two victories short of becoming the NHL’s first three-peat champions since the early 1980s New York Islanders dynasty.

“They’re a team that’s looking to become a dynasty,” Makar said. “We’re a team that’s looking to start a legacy.” (AP)