It’s been a while since I put a hockey post out there, but after reading a melodramatic response from a Pittsburgh Penguins’ beat writer, I have an itch to scratch.
But first, let me say that these 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs have been among the best I’ve seen in nearly a decade.
At the forefront of what’s blown me away about them is the Cinderella story of Cinderella stories; the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights.
I’ll spend the majority of the time here, as I have quickly become a fan, and readily admit I have been on the band wagon this whole season. As an expansion team, the Knights were expected to be a doormat for at least their first three years. That’s just how it works. In all sports that’s how it works. Expansion teams are stuck drafting the outcasts from the rest of the already established teams in the league. Then they wallow in or below mediocrity for the first few years.
That’s how it works!
Right?
Right?!?!?!
Apparently whoever came up with that rule forgot to tell the Golden Knights.
They basically came into the league saying “This whole thing about expansion teams being a doormat isn’t going to work for us. We’re changing the system. Deal with it!”
Vegas started with signing Gerard Gallant as their head coach. Gallant has had a prolific coaching career at almost every level and took the hapless Florida Panthers to nearly the top of the league from 2014 to 2016. His coaching style has fit the “Golden Misfits”, as they refer to themselves, perfectly since being named the team’s first ever head coach in 2017.
What has really made Vegas great, against all odds is their core of players. They have banded together as a team, in the truest sense of the word. Superstars happy to drop to the second and even third line and take on a lesser role. The right kind of veterans to lead such a brilliantly put together group of outcasts and cast-offs. Young guys with a level of humility you don’t often see in younger players. This is what has made Las Vegas an anomaly in the sports industry.
It started with possibly the biggest steal in expansion draft history.
The Knights selected Mark-Andre Fleury—“Flower” as his teammates refer to him (Fleury is French for flower)—with their first pick. The former Pittsburgh goalie—one of the best in the world—was the hockey heist of the century. I’m short-changing them. Drafting Fleury is the greatest hockey heist in the last 40 years. Add to the team elite veterans like James Neal and David Perron, pepper in young upstarts like Malcolm Subban, Riley Smith (still mad Dallas traded him), William “Wild Bill” Karlsson and Shea Theodore, and throw in cast-offs like Jonathan Marchessault and Brayden McNabb, and this ragtag band of misfits has had every reason to believe they could do something few expansion teams have ever done. Win in their inaugural season.
And win they have. 8 straight to start the season; an NHL expansion team record. They also held first place in their division all season; an NHL expansion team first and record. They even held the top record and point total in the league for a time; an NHL expansion team….you get the point. They broke the Expansion team record for wins with nearly two months left in the season. That’s impressive!
Fast forward to their first ever playoff series against former two-time Stanley Cup champion Las Angeles.
The Knights committed regicide on the Kings to the tune of a 4-0 sweep, made all the more impressive by shutouts in games 1 and 4, to start and clinch the series. Round two saw them facing the Sharks. Where LA was supposed to have the size and strength advantage, but was out-sized and out-strengthed by Vegas, The Shark were supposed to have the speed advantage. Tell that to the Golden Misfits. Vegas started the series against San Jose as they ended it against LA; a 7-0 good ol’fashioned mudhole stomping. They saw the speed San Jose had and raised them. Turned to be too rich for San Jose’s blood.
This series would end up going to six games, but the Knights once again ended the series as they started it, with a shutout, thus bookending both series with shutouts—you guessed it—a first for an expansion team in its first two playoff series. Cody “Ginger Ninja” Eaken (still mad Dallas let him go) scored the goal that would be the final nail in the Sharks’ coffin, and Mark-Andre Fleury did what he does best in the playoffs; DOMINATE.
Vegas now awaits the winner of Thursday’s game between The Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets. Either they face a team with a speed advantage, or a physical advantage. Clearly, they’ve proven that means nothing to them.
Vegas needs a win. The city needs a win. The people need a win. The Golden Knights rallied around Las Vegas, playing their first home game just 9 days after the tragic and horrific shooting that happened in the city. Just as so many were on board for the #houstonstrong movement for the Astros, many are on board for the #vegasstrong movement for the Golden Knights. I’m definitely on board to see an Expansion team do the impossible. Win their sport’s championship in their inaugural season. I hope they end their Cinderella story by hoisting Lord Stanley’s Cup and prove the sports world, and fans everywhere outside of Las Vegas (including me) wrong. Hockey not only can survive in the desert. It can thrive. GO KNIGHTS!!!!
Moving on to the series between the Penguins and Capitals.
For twenty years the Caps have had what has become an 800-pound gorilla on their backs. They had never beaten the Penguins in the Alexander Ovechkin era. Sidney Crosby and his Penguins have always bested his incredibly gifted rival. That all changed last night. In overtime of game 6, Crosby did what he never does; make a mistake in a big game situation. He coughed up the puck in the neutral zone and subsequently sprang the wicked fast and immensely gifted Evgeny Kuznetsov on a breakaway that seemed to play out in super slow-mo. Even the desperation flung stick of defenseman Kris Letang would not thwart Kuznetov in his goal; scoring the series clinching goal.
I would be remiss not to show you Kuznetsov’s goal celly. It’s a sight to behold.
Now, where was I? Oh yeah…..
What came next was jubilation among Caps fans. For Pens fans, what came next was the shock of seeing Sid shake the hand of Ovi as the loser. For the first time in their two storied and constantly intertwining careers, satisfaction belonged to Ovi, not Sid.
No one really expected Washington to get here. The Caps limped into the playoffs with an elite goalie having a less than stellar season. Brayden Holtby went from tying the record for wins in a season to a plus 3 goals against average and a win-loss record little better than 500. Clearly the great young goalie had something to prove. He did not start the first three games of the series against their first round opponent, Columbus, but once he was in, he was in to stay. Holtby’s playoffs have not been spectacular, like the before mentioned Fleury, but when he’s had to be, he has been clutch.
At the beginning of this, I mentioned that a melodramatic article from a Penguins’ beat writer bade me scratch my itch. Here’s my response. I will refrain from naming said writer, but I do want to address his response to Pittsburgh not becoming the first team to win three straight Stanley Cups since the 1980 to 1984 New York Islanders won four. Of the loss, he likened it to what Miracle On Ice coach Herb Brooks (God rest him) said to his misfit Team USA players. They had just done the impossible by beating the juggernaut USSR Olympic hockey team that was thought to be unbeatable. They were facing Team Finland in the Gold Medal game, and down 2-1. Brooks said if they didn’t win the monumental win against the Russians would be for not, and the team would “Take this loss to their f___ing graves.” Spoiler alert, Team USA won!
Likening the series against the Caps to the game against Finland is a mistake. Being so melodramatic as to say the Penguins are done and will take the loss “To their f___ing graves” is just ridiculous. Pittsburgh is built to last as a perennial contender, and they are only getting younger and more talented as they build young superstars-in-waiting through their center-of-the-earth deep farm system. Pittsburgh will be just fine. This just wasn’t Pittsburgh’s year. The Caps finally felled the Goliath to their David. After nearly 20 years in the Ovechkin vs Crosby era, their aim was true and the giant has been defeated. Everest has been conquered.
I think that’s enough metaphors for now.
The win, the implication behind it, and the monkey off the back for Washington reminded me of 1999 when I watched as my Dallas Stars finally got “That f___ing monkey….” off their backs—as put by the Stars heart and soul, Guy Carbaneau. My first ever Stars game was a 3-2 loss to the Goliath to their David, Detroit Red Wings. There were basically three teams in the Western Conference race back then; Dallas, Detroit and Colorado. One of those three were always on top, with the other two trying everything in their power to un-seed number one. When Dallas beat Detroit to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1999, it was Everest finally being conquered after years (more than a decade) of an exercise in futility against the juggernaut Red Wings.
That year was Dallas’s year. This year is Washington’s.
It remains to be seen if that means Washington will win it all. They have a heck of a mountain to scale, facing the white-hot and heavily stacked roster of the Tampa Bay Lightning. They also face a goalie who has been an impenetrable wall when he’s been called upon to be. If anyone can break through the Andrej Vasilevksy wall it’s Alex Ovechkin. At just 32 years old, Ovi will likely become the most prolific sniper since Wayne Gretzky, by the time he hangs up the skates. He has the right team behind him now. This could be Washington’s year to finally capture the franchise’s first Cup.
Of the teams remaining, only the Tampa Bay Lighting have drunk from Lord Stanley’s Cup. If Washington beats them in the Conference Finals, someone will be writing their names on the Cup for the first time in their franchise’s history. I’m good with any of the remaining teams winning it all, but I am casting my vote in this order: Las Vegas, Nashville, Washington, Winnipeg, Tampa Bay.
One thing is certain; these playoffs are going to be worth remembering for decades to come.
Good luck to all the teams remaining, but….GO KNIGHTS!!!!
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