If You're George McPhee, Do You Kill The Capitals Right Away Or Let Them Die Slowly?
There couldn’t possibly be a worse matchup for the Washington Capitals heading into their first Stanley Cup Final since 1998 than to have to go up against the first year Golden Knights. Think about what this team has done all season long. They’ve been the most ruthless squad full of savages the league has ever seen. From every player to ever coach to every person within the upper management of the organization. All these guys have been doing this year is letting their former clubs know they made a huge mistake by letting them go in the most vicious way possible. You’ve got Marc-Andre Fleury playing for his 3rd straight Cup while the Penguins are out on a golf course. You’ve got the Florida Panthers having to watch Jonathan Marchessault be a potential Conn Smythe winner and Reilly Smith be a top-line stud for a Stanley Cup Final team all while Gerard Gallant is leading the way behind the bench. The Panthers, in the meantime, have had their asses planted on the couch since early April. It was Brayden McNabb who ended up scoring the series-winning goal against his former LA Kings in the first round of these playoffs.
This Vegas Golden Knights team is out for blood. They’re like Arya Stark just keeping a list of names of everybody who has ever wronged them and not only is revenge coming, but it’s going to be gruesome as fuck. So it only makes sense that the mastermind behind this whole thing, George McPhee, gets to go up against the organization that fired him as General Manager back in 2014 in the Stanley Cup Final with his first year team. This is some serious Game Of Thrones shit right here.
So now here’s the question that GMGM has to ask himself. What would he rather do? Would he rather sweep the Caps right away? Not even let them get an ounce of joy out of being in the Stanley Cup Final? Not let them gain any shred of confidence in this series and wrap things up before it even gets started? Or would you rather draw this thing out a little? Let Washington win a few games. Allow them to come as close as possible to actually winning Lord Stanley’s Cup. And then you rip that shit right out of their hands at the last second. It’s gotta be an extremely difficult decision to come to. This is a revenge that has been 4 years in the making. For 4 years, GMGM has been waiting for this day to finally arrive. And now here he is. It needs to be perfect because who knows when he’ll ever get the chance to do this again. Personally, I’d love to just see the sweep. I’d love to see the Caps finally get over that 20 year hump only to get their dicks kicked in and never come close to actually making this a series. And I especially don’t want any Caps fans to be able to enjoy winning a game in the Stanley Cup Final. But I could see McPhee being a little more ruthless than me. I could see him wanting to inspire that hope within the Caps organization while fully knowing that the Cup will never be theirs.
Either way, I very much look forward to what George McPhee has in store for all of us this series. I know I’ve been pretty down on the Vegas Golden Knights during their playoff run so far, but from here on out? We’re all #VegasBorn.