To win the Stanley Cup the eventual champion has to win sixteen games and four separate series. Last year’s Cup Final went to a Game 7 in Boston on June 12th.
Today on August 12th… the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs got going with five games played between the Toronto and Edmonton tournament sites.
Both Boston and St. Louis have both struggled since the restart. The defending champion Blues have yet to win a game in either the qualifying tournament or tonight in a 5-2 Game 1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
Boston won its first game since the restart with a 3-2 win in the second overtime over the Carolina Hurricanes.
It’s just so tough to get back to the Finals let alone repeat…in a normal year.
Goaltending, power play efficency, and penalty killing are paramount to a team’s chances of hoisting the Cup. Defending champion St. Louis was horrific in all three categories in the Game 1 loss to the young Canucks. The Blues appear to be in a coma of sorts. I’m sure coach Craig Arube will point this out to his team in private.
The Pittsburgh Penguins and Sid Crosby did not make the eight team field in the East. Alex Ovechkin has yet to score a point since the reboot. I don’t consider either Boston or St. Louis as overwhelming favorites at this point. The tournament would appear to be wide open for a team say like the young upstart Colorado Avalanche or the tough Philadelphoia Flyers.
Tomorrow four games will be played.
Let the road to the Stanley Cup Championship take us to a magificent two month journey of glorious hockey.
May the hockey gods bless each of us in our own way and remind us why we love to take this journey every year even in August.