The Knicks answered pent-up dreams of half a century, and the World Cup is off to an entertaining start for its 5 billion or so followers, but you can’t sleep on the drama of North Carolina and Las Vegas facing off for the Stanley Cup.
Expansion and relocation and sunbelt and other jokes aside, a pretty entertaining Stanley Cup final has now concluded with the Hurricanes completing the smothering of the Knights with a shutout win in Game 6 in Vegas.
It also featured some compelling stories, with Brandon
Bussi’s out-of-nowhere turn at age 27, plus an endearingly parental Rod Brind’Amour winning the Cup as player and coach of the same franchise for the first time since names like Toe and Punch were common.
Also: unexpected reminder that briefly-an-Isle Mike Reilly was on the Hurricanes, so he gets a Cup ring, too.
Mitch Marner’s three-round Conn Smythe case fizzled in the final round, so the full Toronto Haunting story is not complete, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had there.
With that all done though, the offseason can now truly begin. The RFA qualifying offer deadlines, the pre-draft rumors, the coaching carousel (will Bruce Cassidy ever be released, or will they call him back to replace John Tortorella?), and the big-name trade speculation for guys like Dylan Larkin now take the focus. To say nothing of the Islanders’ biggest UFA, longest-serving captain Anders Lee.
Islanders News
- Hilariously, unanimous Calder winner Matthew Schafer was not a unanimous First-Team All-Star selection. [Newsday]
- Recorded during the season, but still timeless: the Weird Islanders episode with Arthur Staple unpacking the Nino Niederreiter saga. [LHH]
- While one Sebastian Aho is winning the Cup, the other one is signing back in Sweden. [THN]
