LACKLUSTRE FINAL MAY BE TOUGH SELL
In crowded sports market, Tampa-dallas is not the championship series the NHL needs
And then there were two.
Almost five months after Gary Bettman outlined a wildly ambitious return-to-play plan that seemed like something he scribbled on the back of a beer-soaked cocktail napkin, the NHL is now one round away from pulling it all off.
Congratulations to everyone involved. The bubble never did burst. There has not been a single case of COVID -19 in the hub cities of Toronto and Edmonton. Those qualifying teams that had no business being in an expanded 24-team post-season never did make it out of the first round.
Whoever ends up winning the Stanley Cup, which begins on Saturday between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars, will not have an asterisk attached to their name — although maybe they should, based on everything they went through and how hard it was to get to this point.
Of course, the hardest part is still to come: convincing Canadians to care about a final played between two southern U.S. teams that don't have a prepackaged star player to build a marketing campaign around.
Whether you live in Canada or the U.S., this series won't be an easy sell.
Hardcore hockey fans will no doubt love this series, which will pit Russia's Andrei Vasilevskiy against Anton Khudobin, four-time Norris Trophy finalist Victor Hedman against future Norris winner Miro Heiskanen, and the likable Jon Cooper against the even-more-likable Rick Bowness.
But hardcore hockey fans also probably sat glued to their TV sets watching the six-hour, five-overtime marathon between Tampa Bay and Columbus in the first round.
It's the casual sports fan whose wandering eyes the NHL should be worried about.
The sporting landscape has never been this crowded, this competitive. The Toronto Blue Jays are in the midst of a playoff run. Unlike last year, the Toronto Raptors are out of the playoffs. But the NBA western final still has Canada's Jamal Murray up against Lebron James.
The NFL is in Week 2. Golf's U.S. Open is this weekend. Tennis's French Open begins on Monday.
Up against all of that is Tampa Bay versus Dallas.
It's a matchup many hockey fans might have predicted, but not likely one Sportsnet executives had been hoping for.
With six Canadian teams in the mix, they wanted some Canadian content in the final. They wanted Toronto against Edmonton or Montreal versus Vancouver. They wanted Crosby, Ovechkin and Price. Or Pettersson, Tkachuk and Scheifele. If not Matthews and Mcdavid, then they would have at least settled for Matthews versus Mackinnon.
The closest they got was the Canucks reaching Game 7 of the second round.
The Maple Leafs, Oilers and Winnipeg Jets all failed to get past the qualification round. The Habs, who provided the playoffs' biggest shocker by upsetting the Pittsburgh Penguins, went out in the first round along with the Calgary Flames.
And so, here we are: Dallas versus Tampa Bay.
This, like last year's final between Boston and St. Louis, has the potential to be a great series. Then again, it's not exactly like the previous four rounds raised the bar.
For all the uniqueness of an expanded post-season that featured a best-of-five qualification round, this has been a rather unremarkable playoffs.
What was the most memorable series? Was it the kids in Vancouver going the distance against a bigger and meaner team out of Vegas? Was it Colorado nearly beating Dallas with a third-string goalie? Was it the roller-coaster battle of blown leads between Toronto and Columbus?
It definitely wasn't the defensive slog between the Lightning and New York Islanders. Or the seven series that were over and done in just five games.
There's no telling if Dallas and Tampa will go the distance. At the very least, the Stars and Lightning should put on a far more exciting show than what we've seen so far.
It has the potential to be a good final. One without an asterisk attached.
The question is, with so many other sports competing for airtime, how many casual sports fans will bother watching it all unfold.