When THN staffers gathered Monday morning and began the process of picking our Stanley Cup favorite for our Playoff Preview edition, the usual suspects were naturally mentioned. Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Vancouver and more were discussed, but at least one member of the team tried to make a case for the Washington Capitals.
Most of us didn’t buy it.
But it says a lot about the turnaround of this team that they’re even in the conversation again. I don’t even think they’re a good dark horse pick because of their poor record against the Northeast and Atlantic divisions. But when I linked the phrase dark horse with the Capitals on Twitter, one reply defended the Caps as a threat. Now, most teams in the playoffs should be classified as a threat, but the point he was making was that the Caps are a level above the bottom rung of Stanley Cup candidates and can’t be ignored because of their recent run. Fair comment.
The Los Angeles Kings had trouble scoring all last season and squeaked into the playoffs because they got hot at the end of the year, and ran the table to a championship. The popular thing these days is to look for the team most like last year’s Kings and jump on them now as Stanley Cup favorites.
But the Caps are just not last year’s Kings. They don’t have the proven depth, the sheer amount of top-tier offensive weapons, or the quality of netminding L.A. did. Last year’s Kings were an anomaly and there won’t be one of them every year.
Still – these Caps have the hockey world on notice once again. And that’s exciting.
