The Avalanche pose with the Stanley Cup after defeating the Lightning, 2-1, to win it all for the first time in 21 years Sunday at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla.

TAMPA, FLA. • After 21 years, the clock finally struck zero, as the Avalanche jumped off their bench at Amalie Arena and skated into hockey history.

Finally, the Colorado Avalanche have reached hockey immortality once again, etching their names onto the Stanley Cup alongside the greatest to ever don the burgundy and blue. The Avalanche are once again the kings of hockey and the owners of Lord Stanley, defeating the back-to-back champions Tampa Bay Lightning in six games, topped with a 2-1 win Sunday night.

“It’s hard to describe, honestly,” said Nathan MacKinnon immediately following the game, after he scored the Avalanche’s first goal and assisted on the second Sunday. “You just love sharing it with your teammates, your brothers, my family. It’s just unbelievable.”

The Avalanche’s third Stanley Cup comes after three straight seasons of second-round exits. And it wasn’t long before that that the Avalanche posted the worst statistical season in franchise history in 2016-17. Now, they’ve finally gotten over the hump and are back atop the mountain.

“I always used to laugh when people said ‘Well, you have to lose before you win,’ but I do think that in this case for our team that it was an important lesson learned and helped our team mature,” coach Jared Bednar said. “It’s getting tougher and tougher for me as a coach, because we had such high expectations, but I look back on it now and I’m thrilled with the way this season went. I think the maturity and growth of our players over the last couple of years fueled by heartbreak really made a difference for us this year in our resiliency and focus.”

On Sunday, after a disappointing Game 5 loss at home in Denver Friday, the Avalanche appeared to be on the brink of a possible blown 3-1 series lead, having to go back to Tampa with the Lightning holding the momentum. And three minutes into the first period Sunday, Colorado found itself playing catch up for the fourth straight game, as Steven Stamkos gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead.

But the second period was the Avalanche’s. MacKinnon tied the game on a laser of a shot just two minutes into the second and then assisted on Colorado’s second goal, scored by Artturi Lehkonen, to give the Avalanche the lead.

The Avalanche were stifling in the third period, allowing the Lightning few opportunities on goal while getting several key saves by goalie Darcy Kuemper, who finished with 22 saves. And eventually, the clock ran out and the Avalanche stormed the ice as Stanley Cup champions.

The Avalanche closed out all four of their playoff series on the road on their way to the Cup, beating the Predators in Game 4, Blues in Game 6, Oilers in Game 4 and the Lightning in Game 6. They were an incredible 9-1 on the road in the postseason.

“It goes back to our mentality,” said Cale Makar, who was chosen as the Conn Smythe winner with 29 points in the postseason. “We just shut out everything except for the room itself. That’s what we were able to do. We go into barns like Nashville, very loud, St. Louis, super loud, and into Canada and Edmonton — just for us to be able to have those experiences and be able to gain that throughout the road and win on the road, it was just a mentality.

“We wanted to be known as the ‘pesky Avs.’ And I think we showed that.”

For the “pesky Avs,” winning the Stanley Cup comes after an offseason that included several key acquisitions such as Darren Helm and Kuemper. And a regular season that included a busy trade deadline, dealing for Josh Manson, Nico Sturm, Andrew Cogliano and Lehkonen.

Colorado’s journey back to hockey glory wasn’t one that started in the summer of 2021, but over a decade ago, drafting Gabriel Landeskog second overall in 2011, now the team’s nineyear captain. Followed MacKinnon, who was drafted first overall the next year and who has now cemented his legacy in hockey lore, once again delivering as the Avalanche’s star in the biggest of moments. And not to be forgotten is Bednar, who was hired in 2015 and who has now won a championship at every level of professional hockey — ECHL, AHL, NHL — as a head coach.

“It’s really satisfying because, you know, that was a tough year and we’ve been building ever since,” Bednar said. “There’s a lot of heartbreak and a lot of good times along the way. To be able to do it with those guys — there are so many guys here that were with me when I first came in as a rookie coach. It’s a long journey. There’s a huge sense of satisfaction.”

Bednar and the Avalanche’s core — Landeskog, MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Erik Johnson, the Avalanche’s longest-tenured player — suffered through the worst season in franchise history (2016-17) and threestraight disappointing second-round exits in the playoffs (2019-21) before reaching this moment.

“We can from last place together — me, EJ, Mikko and Gabe. It’s unbelievable,” MacKinnon said. “Forever grateful to go through it with these warriors and the guys that we got at the deadline and the young guys. We needed a lot of character building over the years to get this done and it feels great.”

And it was only right Landeskog handed the Cup off first to Johnson during the Avalanche’s celebration, as the two have been through all the ups and downs the past decade and have waited the longest for this moment.

But the wait is no longer. Now, the names of Landeskog, MacKinnon, Johnson, and the other 20-plus players who skated for the Avalanche this season, will be engraved onto the Cup alongside names like Sakic, Forsberg, Roy, and the many others from the ‘96 and ‘01 Cup teams. And this time for Joe Sakic, it will be as the team’s general manger, working as the mastermind behind the Avalanche’s third cup.

“The guys that stuck around and wanted to be part of the rebuild back five years ago: Johnson, Landeskog, MacKinnon, Rantanen — these guys. I’m really happy for those guys,” Sakic said. “This group, it was a great group. They believed in each other all year and really stuck together and never let anything faze them, really. If they had a bad game, they got right up the next day ready to be better.”

The Avalanche are sure to face many questions this offseason, with several key players becoming free agents, but also a core group of young players returning. Some already consider them the favorites to repeat. And some believe this may be the starts of a dynasty in Colorado.

But for the 2021-22 Avalanche, they’re going to soak in this one for a bit. Because after a rollercoaster of 21 years, they’re once again Stanley Cup champions.

“I’m sorry, guys,” a tearful MacKinnon said to reporters on the ice. “I’ve got to go celebrate with my team.”