A RECAP OF THE STANLEY & MEMORIAL CUP

STANLEY CUP RECAP

In October 2021 the National Hockey Leagues’s 32nd franchise took the ice for its inaugural season. Year One was mostly a bust for the expansion Seattle Kraken, who finished 27-49-6, third-worst in the league. Not so in Seattle’s second year in the NHL: On April 6, a day “Krakheads” (their fans) will never forget, not only did the Kraken beat the Arizona Coyotes 4-2 on home ice, they also clinched their very first spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

They would start in a very tough place as their inaugural playoff series was against the defending champion Colorado Avalanche. This first-round a series took a full seven games but the Kraken prevailed to get a second-round date with the Dallas Stars, who had just beaten the Minnesota Wild in six games in their first-round matchup.

Another fast-paces series also went seven games and Seattle fought till the very end, when they came up a goal shy and the Stars advanced with a 2-1 win in Game 7 for the right to face the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Finals.

On the Eastern Conference side of the bracket, the Florida Panthers offered another Cinderella story. They barely squeaked into the playoffs, and their first-round match would be with the President’s Trophy winning Boston Bruins, fresh off a record-setting 65-win regular season.

The Bruins went up 3-1 in that series before Florida fought back and forced a Game 7, and with just one minute to go in regulation scored the tying goal to force overtime, where center Carter Verhaeghe ended the series with the winner and bounced the best team in the NHL to the golf course, as it were.

Florida then breezed its way through the next couple of rounds, beating the Toronto Maple Leafs in five games and sweeping the Carolina Hurricane. The Panthers are playing in the Stanley Cup Final against the Golden Knights (down 2 games to none at Advocate press time on June 8). Either team will capture its first-ever Cup – the first finals matchup since 2018 (Washington vs. Vegas) where a new name goes on the famed trophy.

MEMORIAL CUP RECAP

Another Seattle hockey team many might not know of also went to a cup final this month. The Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League (competitors of the Portland Winter Hawks) made it to the 2023 Memorial Cup, where the best major junior teams across three different leagues face off.

Seattle breezed through the WHL playoffs, sweeping both the Kelowna Rockets and Prince George Cougars to advance to the West final against the Kamloops Blazers, who they beat in six games. In the WHL final, the Thunderbirds took care of the Winnipeg Ice in five games to, coincidentally, take a trip right back to Kamloops, B.C. where the Memorial Cup tournament was being hosted (the host team the automatic fourth entrant).

Out of those four teams – the Quebec Remparts, Peterborough Petes, the Thunderbirds and the host Blazers – Quebec and Seattle dominated in the preliminary round and placed as the top two seeds. Peterbourgh and Kamloops were forced to play in a tiebreaker game that the Petes won in overtime, moving on to face Seattle in a semi-final. The ’Birds once again were able to get past Peterbourgh and earn a rematch with Quebec.

Unfortunately, Quebec was the only team Seattle couldn’t beat in the round-robin – and they couldn’t beat them in the final, losing 5-0. Still, it’s one of the best seasons they’ve ever had in franchise history, and they were the first WHL team to make the Memorial Cup final since the Portland Winterhawks in 2013 (who lost to Halifax).