It's
been almost a week since the Pittsburgh Penguins stunned the heavily
favored Washington Capitals in Six games in the Eastern Conference Semi
Finals.
I
might be in shock that it happened but I was pulling for the Penguins
all along as the Presidents Trophy curse remains as the last team to win
both the Stanley Cup and Presidents Trophy was the 2008 Detroit Red
Wings.
This
year, Washington was as big of favorites to win both since the 2011
Vancouver Canucks. That team made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final
before they lost to the Boston Bruins in what was the most controversial
of Stanley Cups in recent memories.
As
a Canucks fan, I love seeing the Presidents Trophy winners lose in May
and fall way short of expectations. To see the most explosive player in
the NHL Alexander Ovechkin not win the Stanley Cup really sits well with me as well.
In
comparison to the 2011 Vancouver Canucks, they had the two most
interesting players skill wise the NHL has ever seen. They are overrated
in the city of Vancouver, underrated everywhere else in the world. To
this day, people still can't get over how that 2011 team didn't win that
year. The fact that peope still call the durable Swedish twins sisters
speaks volumes of how uneducated American hockey fans are.
That's
why, it should give comfort to North America's most hard done by fans
that Ovechkin has never competed in the Cup Finals. At the age of 30, Ovechkin needs to win a Cup in the next few years, or else, he will be crowned NHL's best player ever to never win a Cup.
At
some point, the Capitals might want to start thinking of trading the
Russian superstar before his trade value diminishes significantly. The
Capitals have never won the Stanley Cup in their 42 year history and
only one appearance in the Stanley Cup Final.
This years
team won't be in tact forever. Eventually, they will run into salary
cap issues if they want to try to improve their team. That's why it was
so important that they won it all this year. Evgeny Kuznetsov will need a pay raise at some point.
At
the end of the day, the Stanley Cup is the hardest North American
Trophy to win, every bounce needs to a teams way to win the Cup. Ovechkin
will have a chance to win the Cup again, but how many great
opportunities will he have going forward to win like this year will be
the question going forward.
Remember when Ray Bourque was one of the greatest NHL players to have never won a Stanley Cup until he finally did with the Colorado Avalanche in his final NHL season back in 2000-01? I agree with you that the Capitals are going to have to eventually trade Ovechkin if they want to remain competitive over the long term. But the question is who should they trade them to? And what should the Caps expect to get in return?
ReplyDelete