2018 Stanley Cup Finals: Washington Capitals vs Vegas Golden Knights

On May twenty eighth, two thousand and eighteen. Arguably one of the most unlikely Stanley Cup Finals starts to take place with one NHL team that was playing its first season leading the Western charge in the Golden Knights, and the other looking for its very first Stanley Cuff being led by a future legend of the sport. The Washington Capitals represent the East in the twenty eighteen Stanley Cup Finals. It seems like it should have been written for the movies. Dive into this crazy matchup that no one could have predicted. Today on Daily Sports History, let's go Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reeves, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. So what made this an unlikely Stanley Cup. Well, the Capitals were relatively pretty good. They had Alex Ovechkin, who was a superstar in the game who could score up will, so they had twelve to one odds of winning before the season started. If you placed a twenty dollars bet on them, you would have won two hundred and forty dollars. But the Golden Knights were in their very first season. They were an expansion team. Nobody expected them to do anything, and they were given five hundred to one odds to win the finals. If you put twenty dollars down before the season started, you would win ten thousand dollars. So the likelihood of these two teams to win the finals was unlikely as neither team had actually won a championship. The Capitals, who had been rounds in nineteen seventy four, had never won, but they were a good team, so they could. But the Golden Knights nobody knew who they were or what they could be, and that's because you don't know with an expansion team, and how they really built was capitalizing on young players that were undervalued. See in twenty seventeen, they held an expansion draft, which is a process where the new franchise gets to pick one player from each team in the league that they left unprotected. Now each team can protect their main stars and their main players and basically the backups or the end of the bench guys can be picked up. And this left them with not the greatest options, but there was a lot of undervalued players that were just waiting for their chance. They were able to get Marc Andre Fleury, who was a three time Stanley Cup winning goaltender from the Pittsburgh Penguins that thought he was watched up. Then William Carlson was a backup while playing for the Columbus Blue Jackets, and he went on to lead the Golden Knights that season with forty three goals, and he would be helped offensively by Jordan Marsalt of the Florida Panthers, also joined by Riley Smith via trade from Florida, a top of the line offense, each contributing over sixty points that season. Then they were able to get Nate Schmidt from the Washington Capitols helped bolster their defense. These picks really shaped the team, and it was also the fact that this team was a group of people that other teams didn't want, and they came together because of that. They were the constanmate underdogs. Other teams didn't want them, and they wanted to show why they were wrong, and they went on not only to be a contender, but to be dominant, winning fifty one games in the Pacific Division, winning the division and having over one hundred and nine points that year, eight more than the second place team, giving them the number one seed in the playoffs, and they would have a lot of success. In the first round, they would breeze through the La Kings, sweeping them in four games, and in the second round the Sharks would put up a little bit of a fight, but they would take them down in six games, leading them to the Western Conference Finals against the Winnipeg Jets, who would win game one. Then the Golden Knights took the next four games, winning in five, becoming the first expansion team since nineteen sixty eight to make the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season, facing off another team that never won a championship but had been waiting a lot longer since the Golden Knights. See. This was the Capital's forty third season with high expectations after multiple heartbreaks in the playoffs, led by their captain Alexovekskin, who we all know now is the leader in NHL history in goals scored, and they would finish the season atop the Metropolitan Division for the third straight year, winning forty nine games and having one hundred and five points. Alex Joevenchin dominated the season, winning the Maurice Rockett Trophy with forty nine goals, while his teammate Eugene caused netschoffs led the team with fifty six assists. But despite their success, they actually began their playoff journey a little bit behind, losing the first two games in the playoffs, but they would rally to win the next four, taking out the Blue Jackets in the first. In the second round, they would face off against their nemesis for years, the Pittsburgh Penguins, who were the two time defending Stanley Cup champions, and they had eliminated the Capitals the previous two years. But the Capitals used that to their advantage and were able to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals in six games, the first time they've done so since nineteen ninety eight. And in the Eastern Conference Finals, they faced the Tampa Bay Lightnings in a series that's all. The series go back and forth, back and forth until they finally prevailed in Game seven with a shutout from their goalie, Brandon Holtebay and they were facing the Golden Knights, so Game one came. The gold Knights actually came out and set the tone early in a high scoring opener, scoring six goals, but Alexovichkin was not gonna let this go. He knew how to score, and he let the team and the Capitals ended up with four goals, but Marc Andre Flurry made some key stops down the way to help the Knights take the series one lead, fuelling their miracle run. But the problem was we're facing against the Capitals who had been through a lot of adversity. The Capitals came into Game two and would win a gritty three to two win, with their goalie Brandon Holdby making a legendary save in the final minutes to preserve their win and give them a one to one tie, and the series would go back to Washington, DC for Game three. It was the first time Washington had a Stanley Cup home win when they won three where Ovechkin opening goal overpowered them and they did not look back, taking the series lead two to one. Game four was also in Washington, and the Capitals came out and were relentless, scoring six goals, and the Golden Knights just could not keep up, scoring only two, giving Washington Capitals a three to one series lead, which is a hard number to come back from. And in Game five, the Golden Knights weren't ready to give up, but the Capitals had their past experience helped them drive to a win in the second period. No goal was scored until the second period by Jacob Rana, but Vegas responded with Nate Schmidt tying the game off a deflection, but Ovechkin took the lead back during a power play, giving him his fifteenth goal of the playoffs, which was a franchise record. Then the third period came DeVante smith Pilli tied the game at three to three at nine minutes fifty two seconds. Then Lars Eller of the Capitals was able to hit another goal at twelve minutes twenty three seconds off a loose puck from Flurry, giving them the lead four to three, and the Golden Knights had no answer, and it gave the win to the Capitols and gave Alex Ovechkin his first and only Stanley Cup. He would also win the Consmid Trophy for the playoff MVP, and the team was ecstatic as they had not ever won after being around since nineteen seventy four. Now it took away the Cinderella run by the Golden Knights seeing them it would have been literally a storybook run, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a storybook run for the Washington Capitals. Would you rather see someone that just started, or someone that's been grinding for years at a chance. The Capitals earned this after forty years of trial and tribulation. They were able to win something they'd always sought for. But sadly, that's the only time they ever won. They still haven't made it back to the Stanley Cup Finals since, and Alexoevechkin has since broke the record for the most goals scored in Intel history, beating out Wayne Gretzky, but it hasn't led to another championship. Sometimes all you need is just won and crazy enough, the Vegas Golden Knights didn't have to wait too long twenty twenty three, they would go on after winning four division championships in their life of their program, they would go on to win a Stanley Cup Final versus the Florida Panthers after just five years of being a franchise. Sometimes everything just falls into place, but that doesn't take away their historic and great for season. Any team would love to see that, defying expectations of everybody. It was a great story that would later end in success. I want to thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you like this, please head over to our YouTube channel there's a link in the description below. 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