Vegas advancing to the Stanley Cup Final has many believing that the league made it happen. If so, you can argue the Montreal Canadiens got the bad end.
Who thought that the Vegas Golden Knights would be in a Stanley Cup Final? The only person I’d believe is the man who put $200 on it happening back in September. It’s safe to say that he’s going to come away with a lot of money when everything wraps up. And if the Montreal Canadiens couldn’t make the playoffs, tracking this story is a decent fallback.
However, there is a growing following among fans of the NHL who think the shot to stardom is a little fishy. Some can’t just accept the fact that a team who had absolutely no expectations got further than the Nashville Predators, Winnipeg Jets, and Pittsburgh Penguins. The narrative has moved on from the Golden Knights being a group of players who caught lightning in a bottle. Now it is whether the NHL is rigging it for them to succeed.
Going to start off by saying that this is a ridiculous take. Don Cherry gave it some life after his thoughts on the reffing and the supposed pro-Vegas calls.
Let’s think of everything that fell into place for the Golden Knights. They were given a second-round pick to take Marc-Andre Fleury. Additionally, they got Jon Marchessault from Florida to take Reilly Smith, Alex Tuch to take Eric Haula, and a first and second-round pick to take William Karlsson.
All have proven to be key contributors on Vegas’ roster, and those teams gifted it to them. As far as how well they play, it’s amazing what a player can do once given an opportunity. Fleury already established himself as a top-goaltender in the league, but the others came into their own this season.
Truth be told, it’s a lot of frustrated people who want to say that the NHL rigged their season to have an expansion team make the final.
What if it’s true?
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There’s only one circumstance where I would believe those claims. If the Vegas Golden Knights were rigged to win, then the Montreal Canadiens were rigged to lose. Think about it.
Shea Weber was injured from the first game of the season. Adding on to the injured list was Jonathan Drouin, Artturi Lehkonen, Carey Price, Al Montoya, Nikita Scherbak, David Schlemko, Victor Mete, Max Pacioretty, Charles Hudon, Andrew Shaw, Rinat Valiev, and Ales Hemsky. The locker room injury bug was running wild, but you know what, the league probably wanted that to happen.
They were all planned, every single thing. Pacioretty went from being a consistent 30 goal-scorer to only reaching 17. Price, who many still believe to be the best goalie in the world, struggled to make simple saves at times despite the team’s defensive breakdowns.
It continues. How many times did the Montreal Canadiens lose by a single goal? How many times did they give up two goals in less than 30 seconds? Definitely not their fault. The NHL made it so.
Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? The league got it’s wish in implementing a strong sense of parity. Not to mention the fact that weird things happen in the playoffs every season. Nothing like this has happened, but it was a matter of time before it did.
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Instead of looking for a reason to reject the story, accept it and see where it lies. Next season could be someone else’s turn to duplicate the Golden Knights. And if you ask the fans in Montreal, it’ll be the Habs that do just that.