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With Ovechkin also carrying the Prince of Wales trophy, let's put an end once and for all the superstition and stigma of lifting the semi-final trophy. Only the NHL has the unique superstition that should come to an end now. There's nothing wrong at all to celebrate advancing to the final.

Las Vegas take game 1 of the Stanley Cup final in a very exciting game.

Washington finally ends their 40 year drought by winning their first Stanley Cup tonight.

I am happy for Ovechkin. He deserves it. And for Trotz.

The celebrations on the ice were amazing.

The NHL did it right with expansion team Vegas. Very, very competitive team.

I enjoyed the Stanley Cup playoffs more this year than I have in awhile. The outcome of the Final was going to be historic either way, but if VGK had won, that would have been monumental (especially for all those bookies who would have lost a lot).

WSH leaves the futility club (Halford & Brough call it the "sad club") status behind. They had been even worse than the Canucks--only 1 losing Final appearance in 44 years. At least VAN have made 3 Final appearances in 48 years.

Considering how they started the playoffs vs CBJ, with backup Grubauer in net losing the first 2 games, it was quite the achievement to stop VGK after no one else could. Unlike Sekeres (who railed against Sin City winning it all with no pain), I would have been fine with that spectacle too.

It's great that the Sedins ended off with one last positive note as co-winners of the King Clancy Memorial Trophy . This was the first time that there were co-winners and the second time for Henrik as he won it in 2016 as well, while Daniel became the third Canuck as Trevor Linden won it as well in 1997.

It's too bad that Brock Boeser lost the Calder Trophy to Mathew Barzal for rookie of the year. Hopefully his NHL All-Star MVP award would be good consolation for him.

Even now, can you tell who is who?

To nobody's surprise, Ramus Dahlin was selected first overall in the NHL entry draft

Canucks select the second defenceman in the draft - Quinn Hughes

hey, it is 2018 now

John Tavares the most conveted free agent finally signs a 7 year $77 million contract with his home town Maple Leafs.

LOL to anyone who really thought the Canucks were rebuilding. As heated as people get about Wally, Jim Benning is just plain incompetent. Dumbest GM in the NHL.

The_Pauser wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 01, 2018 5:34 pm

LOL to anyone who really thought the Canucks were rebuilding. As heated as people get about Wally, Jim Benning is just plain incompetent. Dumbest GM in the NHL.

Based on his free agency signing ?

TheLionKing wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 01, 2018 11:28 pm

Based on his free agency signing ?

His free agency signings were awful, but I'm basing my opinion on what he's done during his tenure here. Over the last 3 year period the Canucks are the worst team in the NHL, despite the fact that Benning has traded away futures (draft picks and prospects) for now pieces/veterans, signed a slew of veterans in free agency, and spent to the cap trying to build a playoff team.

People will comment on his drafting, but I will point to how the draft works to rebut that. Bad teams are rewarded with high draft picks, and thus, any GM of a bad team is going to put together a good prospect pool. It's not like Benning has done anything special here. The expected return of the draft picks this team has held is about what we have. I prefer to look at how the team ended up being this bad: was the GM executing a well planned rebuild strategy? or was the GM simply so bad at his job that he failed massively at what he was trying to do? Jim Benning falls into category B here.

There has never been a rebuild here, there is no rebuild, this is not a rebuild. This is simply an incompetent GM who has failed miserably at what he attempted to do.

Trevor Linden just stepped down as Canucks President of Hockey Operations after 4 years. Lots of speculation on 1040 that he was unhappy with the way the club has been managed (eg. decisions made by Benning and/or Aquilini).
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/trevor-l ... ident-2018