As They Celebrate Another Stanley Cup Title In Champa Bay Wednesday, Back In Las Vegas They Could Only Be Thinking, What If?
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
In the 11 PM darkness of the Channelside section of downtown Tampa where Amalie Arena sits with a giant metal lightning bolt on its plaza, they went crazy. The Tampa Bay Lightning had just won its second straight NHL championship.
But 2,322 miles to the west, where the light was fading in Summerlin, Red Rock Canyon and Las Vegas, the Vegas Golden Knights could only be thinking, “What if.”
The four-year-old Golden Knights knocked out two tough teams, Minnesota and Colorado, before losing to the upstart and unheralded Montreal Canadiens — the scrappy, gritty Stanley Cup finalist squad that lost, 1-0, to the Lightning in game five in Tampa Wednesday evening. The Lightning, anchored by the Stanley Cup playoffs MVP, goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, was expected to play Vegas in a final for the ages before Montreal threw cold water on that idea in the semis.
In the end, Tampa Bay won its Cup in five games over Montreal, ending a bizarre COVID-19 pandemic season that began with no preseason games and a 56-game regular season that had realigned teams playing only teams in their own division.
The Golden Knights normally play in the Pacific Division, which does not included the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche.
But the VGK ended up beating the Wild in seven games in round one and the Avs in round two. Most of the handicappers and pundits thought the Knights, which tied Colorado with most points during the regular season (and had the most wins), would dispatch a Montreal team that was seeded 16th out of 16 playoff teams.
The Knights, however, lost four of the final five games against Montreal after winning game one at T-Mobile Arena. The VGK never did seem to regain their swagger and mojo after an embarrassing puck-handling gaffe by popular goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury allowed Montreal to tie the score with less than two minutes to go in game three. The Habs eventually won that game, 3-2, in overtime and defeated Vegas in six games.
Who knows whether Vegas could have defeated Tampa if the Knights had reached the Cup final.
Instead, Tampa Bay owner Jeff Vinik — one of the best team owners in all of major league sports — celebrated for a second consecutive NHL season. Vinik donates thousands of dollars to community groups at every Lightning home game and is redeveloping the Channelside area around the team’s arena in downtown Tampa.
He’s a model team owner, one that VGK owner Bill Foley would be wise to emulate.
And maybe one day, Foley will celebrate Stanley Cup titles like Vinik did tonight, too.
