DENVER • Take a bow, Tampa. Heckuva run.

Now the Avs have next.

With a flood of goals during another pop-punk concert at Ball Arena, the Avalanche whupped the Lightning 7-0 Saturday night in what hockey historians will recognize as the passing of the torch. ABC analyst and Hall of Famer Mark Messier, 61, called it “the best team game performance I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.” It was the most dominant playoff performance these hills have seen from any Denver team, any sport, too.

The Avs are two wins from a Stanley Cup title, while somehow picking up speed down the stretch. Now they go on the road, where the Avs are 7-0 in the postseason.

With 17 minutes left in regulation, 18,000 believers chanted “We want the Cup!” — a refrain that will seep into Amalie Arena at Game 3 Monday. Nobody in Tampa’s going to believe it. The Avs hold a 2-0 series lead, and Nathan MacKinnon hasn’t scored a Stanley Cup Final goal yet. All the other guys are doing the damage. Makes you wonder how this would be going with a healthy Sam Girard and Nazem Kadri, too.

Strange things and comebacks happen in sports. It’s not that the Lightning can’t overcame an 0-2 deficit in a series. Shoot, they just did it in the previous round against the Rangers. But there hasn’t been a whole lot through two games to suggest the Lightning can beat the Avalanche four times in five games. And that’s the task now.

The nice thing about traveling with hockey sticks is you can pack a broom and nobody’s going to notice. Can the Avs finish off the Florida sweep for a second time in the Stanley Cup Final? This Avs postseason has been even more impressive than the 1996 sweep of the Florida Panthers that turned Denver into a hockey town with a football problem. The Avs are averaging over five goals per game in the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final. They’re turning the NHL’s best teams into skills exhibitions. And now goalie Darcy Kuemper is tossing shutouts. God bless it.

Tampa’s reign is expiring in real time. You know it, I know it, the Lightning know it.

Still in the first period, Tampa’s actions spoke the truth. The Lightning started three separate skirmishes away from the puck, poking, and bumping Kuemper at every chance. Who knows? Maybe all the nonsense kept Kuemper from falling asleep back there. That funny business was the most dangerous action Kuemper saw all night.

Watching the back-to-back champs resort to cheap stuff told the same story as the scoreboard — 3-0 after the first period, 5-0 after the second, 7-0 when Coors Field erupted across town and the baseball videoboard flashed the final seconds of the hockey game. A wild crowd that belts out Blink-182’s “All the Small Things” like it’s a church hymn is days away from witnessing the biggest thing.

Tampa’s frustration showed itself in scrum after scrum as the score got out of hand.

“You go through spells through the year when you’re playing well and when you’re not,” Tampa coach Jon Cooper said after.

Props to a championship coach, but this isn’t a spell. This is the next great team staking out its territory. Tampa shouldn’t take offense. The Avs do this to everybody. They’re 4-0 against the Lightning this season. At this rate, the Avs played their final home game.

Just in case some lucky person was attending his or her first Avs game, Ball Arena’s DJ (DJ Triple T) dropped a friendly reminder that blowouts are a norm: Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It.”

The Avs are 14-2 in the playoffs. To put that in perspective, according to ESPN Stats, only five teams have done that. The other four won the Cup. Not saying, just saying.

Just 2:57 into the game, Valeri Nichushkin scored to make it 1-0. He’s with the second power play, not the headliners, and it hasn’t mattered for the Avs. Scoring comes from everywhere. Take the next goal, a wrister from Josh Manson. He’s on the second defensive pairing, not the headliner, and Manson was assisted by Andrew Cogliano (welcome back, sir) and Alex Newhook. They’re on the fourth line.

The Lightning are down 0-2 while keeping MacKinnon relatively quiet. The Avs scored at even strength, on a power play, even shorthanded, the final one a Cale Makar goal.

Makar’s next goal made it 7-0 at 8:32 p.m. local. Tampa had an early Saturday night.

There was no cheering in the press box at roof level of Section 326. But as a fan of greatness, the Avs had me on my feet the entire game, the advantage of having only a wall behind you. Witnessing the greatness of Nikola Jokic over two MVP seasons was a thrill a night (when the games were on normal-people TV). Nolan Arenado at third made Rockies losses worth a ticket.

What the Avs did is one of the toughest tasks in sports, breaking the heart of a champion. And it is breaking. You know it, I know it. After an Avs show for the ages, the Lightning know it.