I will submit that if you're not a fan, you're getting sports wrong. Sports is ENTERTAINMENT and, as wonderfully cheesy as it is, the pre-game is about entertainment.
It's also not about you, it's about getting the crowd in the stadium amped up. And it does it's job.
After we get past that however, when the hockey starts, this series as really started off about two things.
Passing and Power.
In game One neither team played all that well, but the goals that were scored were done so through either deft passing, or mistakes made in the power game. Washington is certainly the more powerful team, but they have a propensity to royally screw things up at the most inopportune times.
Yes, Ovechkin is great. But Tom Wilson is no more than a lobotomized gorilla on skates, TJ Oshie is supremely talented but has a two-cent head, and Smith-Pelley is a turnover or missed pass waiting to happen.
All of this and we haven't even discussed the officiating as of yet.
Without spending too much time on it, the officials have not shined. Reaves' game-winning goal in the first game should not have been allowed, and Carlson's penalty in Game two (that gave the Knights a 5-3 that they failed to take advantage of) should have resulted in a penalty shot.
The thing is, the bad calls have, for the most part, evened out, which is why both team's fans are screaming about "conspiracy theories" and other such nonsense.
Open letter to Vegas fans: Stop it. This is not a good look.
There is no conspiracy against the Knights. Just stop it.
The Knights won the first game because they took advantage of more Capitals errors than the Capitals took advantage of Knights errors.
The Capitals won game 2 because of the opposite, and the fact that Braden Holby had the game of his life.
Alex Tuch missed an open net chance that might haunt him for the rest of the series. Marchessault played a terrible game, Fleury is not acting like the Desert Flower right now.
However, there's good news for the Knights.
Vegas came into last night's game riding a 5 game win streak. And they played like a team that thought they couldn't lose. It took outstanding performances by Ovechkin, Eller and an all-time game by Holtby to beat them. Of those three only Ovechkin is likely to continue to perform at that level. The Great Eight is an all-time great player.
So, the series moves on to the Nation's Capital, Washington D.C., possibly the only city in America with a reputation worse than that of Las Vegas. A city full of bureaucrats, lobbyists, lawyers and politicians. A city that has fabricated a myth of long-suffering sports fandom.
Las Vegas doesn't operate under that myth. It knows what it is and it should know just how lucky it is to be here.
The Golden Knights need to stop trying to out physical the Capitals and get back to their speed game. They need to start remembering that there is an off-side to the play and Fleury cannot stop everything. You have to cover the back-side.
Most of all they need to remember this: It took a lifetime best performance from an average goalie last night to finally beat them by a single goal. The series now heads to the Capitals house, where they aren't exactly lighting it up.
Ironically, the ice in D.C. should better suit the Knight's game, they struggled on the slush (especially Marchessault, who seemingly forgot how to handle a puck) and their speed game should be better in D.C.
This loss should be a wake-up call.
If it's not then this team, as great as they've been, don't deserve to hoist Lord Stanley's Cup.
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