Follow @james_tanner123 The Washington Capitals have won game seven and will now play the Las Vegas Golden Knights in the most improbable Stanley Cup Final in history.
If you care about hockey, you watched the game, so don't expect a recap from me.
Outside of the massively obviously, I have few observations:
Andre Burakovsky is perhaps the all-time best player to be healthy scratched in the playoffs (outside of course, from his teammate, Braden Holtby).
Tom Wilson - arguably the fifth or sixth best Washington forward - fighting one of Tampa's worst players is incredibly dumb, even for Tom Wilson. That could have cost the Capitals the game, but luckily it didn't.
Braden Holtby is the perfect example of how wins and losses and even GAA are very poor ways to judge a goalie. Now, I'm not saying that he didn't struggle towards the end of the season, because he did. But, the Capitals wouldn't have even made the Playoffs if he didn't have an amazing October-February.
The Capitals were one of the worst defensive teams in hockey and so, while the numbers weren't looking too hot, Holtby was one of the NHL's most valuable players through most of the season. This gets lost in the popular narrative because people only remember the OK numbers and the mini slump.
Back to back shutouts make him, If I'm not wrong, the all-time save % leader in the Playoffs for his career. (Turns out I'm wrong. He's third. By four one-hundredths of a percentage point. He's also played 25 and 43 more games than the guys ahead of him).
Barry Trotz, the guy who chose not to start him, and the guy who healthy scratched, at various times, two of his best players in Jakub Vrana and Andre Burokovsky, will be venerated as a great coach because 99% of hockey analysis extends only to wins and losses. (And everyone will pretend that he wasn't going to be fired after the playoffs).
It's why Trotz, a 100% sure thing to be fired (or, technically, to not have his contract renewed) when the playoffs started, will be back next season. Then again, who knows? Brian McLellan was re-upped during the season for some bizarre reason, and his performance between last year's playoffs and today is somewhere around sub-John Ferguson Jr.
But hey playa, why you gotta bring reality into the celebration?
The odds in the Finals will favor the Knights, which means the Capitals are a great bet. The knights, I don't care how lucky they get, have something like the 20th best roster in the NHL. They are unlikely to make the playoffs next year. They will turn into a pumpkin at any moment. (How annoying are the "nobody saw this coming takes"? Yeah, of course no one did because anyone who said anything like that would be harassed for days. Trust me, as one of the only hockey "analysts" who veers from the shockingly obvious, you take a lot of heat if you say something that isn't cookie-cutter friendly, and saying the Knights would go to the SCF would have been dumber than anything I've ever said).
One more interesting thing (to me at least): The Capitals had to face Columbus, Pittsburgh and Tampa to get here, which is the hardest path anyone in the league could have taken. People forget how good Columbus and Pittsburgh are. That's - on paper at least - probably three of the four best teams in the conference.
This is a great accomplishment. As for Ovechkin, how amazing is it that he scored the game winning goal to go to the Finals on his trademark one-timer? Even more amazing: that anyone lets him shoot from there anymore.