Quick Reaction: Stanley Cup Finals

(Photo by Douglas DeFelice, USA TODAY Sports)

Let’s talk about the Stanley Cup Finals! It’s the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. the Montreal Canadiens. At the time I’m writing this, Tampa Bay is leading the series 2-0. They have had stellar goaltending, which isn’t much of a surprise. The Canadiens can hold their own, they are just struggling to find the back of the net. 

Montreal has been the underdog story the whole season and playoffs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up giving Tampa a run for their money. I want Montreal to win the cup. I think that would be a great story line, and I don’t want Tampa to get the two-peat, even if they deserve it. 

I know there is a lot of talk around Tampa’s salary cup playoff situation. I would be more upset about it if Chicago wasn’t able to also take advantage of it in 2015. I am upset that when the series heads back to Montreal that the arena won’t be at full capacity. I think that any team feeds off of the energy in the building, and they had to play in a full capacity Tampa Bay arena, so I think that Montreal would be able to gain some momentum with more people in the building. With all that being said, there will be fans in the building, so hopefully those fans can bring the energy of a full building. 

All of my predictions for this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs have been so wrong. I think that my biases toward big Chicago rivals definitely fog my vision. So, you may ask, what is my hope for this final? I won’t even call it a prediction because I don’t want to be wrong… again. I HOPE that Montreal wins the whole thing, and if they don’t, I HOPE they push it to a game 7. Shoutout to all my teams that lost and made me look bad (cough, Colorado, cough).