There's the fact that they have already won a Game 7 on the road this postseason, pulling out a 1-0 win in Pittsburgh in the opening round. There's the fact they've already won once in Boston in this Eastern Conference Final, beating the Bruins 5-2 in Game 1. And there's the fact that they have the momentum in the series after staying alive to force a seventh game with a 5-4 win in Game 6 in Tampa on Wednesday.
But the Lightning aren't interested in looking back. They're looking forward to the challenge of completing another playoff comeback.
"The six games mean absolutely nothing now," Lightning center Steven Stamkos said of the series that is deadlocked at 3-3 heading into Friday's deciding clash at the Garden. "We did our job. We gave ourselves a chance to play in this game by winning last game."
And the Lightning are all business when it comes to trying to finish the job they started with Wednesday's win.
"For us, it's business as usual," Tampa goalie Dwayne Roloson said. "It's another game for us. We've got to focus on what we've got to do to win a hockey game, that's all there is to it. Every play matters, so focus from shift to shift and go from there."
Roloson wasn't interested in discussing Wednesday's win, much less how the Lightning may carry over any momentum from that victory.
"Game 6 was a couple days ago, so for us as a team, it's something that we've done the whole playoffs is forget about what's happened in the past," Roloson said. "Let's focus on the things we can control now."
The Lightning are focusing on a chance to play for the Stanley Cup, an opportunity they know doesn't come around often, though it's happened more recently in Tampa than in Boston. The Lightning still have several players on their roster from their 2004 championship squad.
"You never know, you've seen in the past guys go their whole career without getting the chance to play for the Cup," Stamkos said. "We're definitely going to look at this as an opportunity and a good one. We've fought all year to get ourselves in this position. Not a lot of people thought we could be here today, but we believed as a group. It's a one-game series now and we're excited."
Tampa coach Guy Boucher is trying to temper that excitement a bit to keep his players' emotions under control, though he admitted that is no easy task with the stakes involved in this matchup.
"Well, to say no would be a lie," Boucher said. "But I think that's the challenge, is to be able to control the emotions. And we didn't want our players or ourselves playing the game last night or this morning or this afternoon. It's our job to make sure that we stay focused on what we've got to do, not the hype of everything else that this game means.
"We feel that we can be better than the last game, definitely," Boucher added. "We've done some good things. We want to keep those, but I think we need to focus on what we need to improve for tonight."
