With all that has gone down both on the court and on the ice, I figured this would be a good time to size up the status of both The NBA Finals as well as The Stanley Cup Final. Just a quick one to give everyone a refresher to prepare for what could be a wild weekend for The Summer of Sports.
Our Stanley Cup Final is underway. The (Western Conference Champion) Vegas Golden Knights will host the (Eastern Conference Champion) Florida Panthers in what could be the literally hottest Final in NHL history. According to vegas.com, Las Vegas averages a high of 100 degrees & a low of 74, during June.
We have finally arrived. After months of back and forth between the NBA and NHL, we have reached the grand finale of both. And it does seem ironic that 2023 brings us two sets of finals that we can actually feel good about. In both finals, we have the clash of ultimate underdogs and ultimate opportunists. In both finals, we got teams that were not even supposed to be there.
I know Quebec City has been without a hockey franchise, since 1995, but the NHL would be foolish to not recognize that the city is experiencing a bit of a boom. Imagine the announcement of the Nordiques returning to the NHL.
Carolina Hurricanes & Florida Panthers in the eastern conference finals. Vegas Golden Knights & Dallas Stars in the western conference finals of the NHL Playoffs. Win 4 games and you play for the Stanley Cup. Lose and you end up so close, but so far away.
The Seattle Kraken are making some playoff history in the current NHL Playoffs. During round one of the NHL playoffs the Kraken was considered the number one Wild Card team and they had to face the defending Stanley Cup Champions Colorado Avalanche which was the number one seed of the West side of the bracket.
Time for some history about the Golden Knights and how they became who they are today. The Golden Knights is the 31st team that joined the NHL as an expansion team in the year 2017. This is not the first time hockey was played in Las Vegas; that was an NHL game.
The NHL draft lottery is filled with tons of young talent going into the draft. So we will stay tuned with the draft and what each team needs for the draft to build for the teammates before the free agency comes up this season and be prepared for the year 2023-2024 season.
Stanley Cup Shockers? Colorado Avalanche…the defending Stanley Cup Champion. Tampa Bay Lightning…Eastern Conference Champions for the past 3 seasons & winners of the 2 previous Stanley Cups. Boston Bruins…the team with the best record in the NHL, this season. Three teams that were favored by many to win their conference quarter-final series, yet…all of them are eliminated.