Good ole' Covid Cup talk rearing its head again. Damn straight bro.
Here's five reasons why those cups were cheap and don't really count:
1. Tampa assembled their best ever team just as COVID hit. Coincidence? I think not.
2. Other teams didn't care as much about winning the COVID Cup because they knew it was Mickey Mouse. Evidence? Well, they didn't win it, did they?
3. To win the Stanley Cup in any season you have to 1) Qualify for the playoffs 2) Win four series of best of sevens against the other teams that advanced. Sure, Tampa did that... but COVID.
4. COVID favoured Tampa. The outcome shows that Tampa somehow thrived most in that environment so they must have had an advantage.
5. If there had been no COVID something else might have happened. So, we can logically surmise that COVID likely allowed Tampa to win.
BTW- Everything else that happened during the COVID seasons was legit -- scoring leaders, award winners, game stats, and so on. But the Stanley Cup? Nah. There was a disease out there in the public, so in that case, winning that trophy doesn't really count.
1. I dont even know what youre arguing here. The fact that a lot of Tampa players happen to be in their prime in that specific year? That their cap situation was at its best in that specific year? What does that have to do with Covid. They may have won the Cup in a normal 2020 too.
2. Its not that they didnt care, but yes some players opted out of the bubble. A lot was off that year. Hell Montreal, who literally won the lottery the next year, made the finals. Politically and if you want to say scientifically, Florida was in a much better situation than a lot of other states and especially Canada to train for the Bubble Cup.
3. They did and they won the next year too. No one is taking that away from them, but a lot of people dont consider them on par with a normal season because it simply wasnt. Its not Tampa's fault.
4. Id argue Toronto with that awful Canadian division, but like Toronto does, they shit the bed. You can make the same argument for Dallas, Nashville, Florida, etc etc. Acting like being in a lenient state where teams/players can train like normal is an advantage where Canada was triple masked up staying inside.
5. Youre making it a Tampa thing where it was a league wide thing
If Colorado won in 2020, 2021, and 2022 I'd be saying 2022 was the "real" one. Its not Tampa's fault for winning nor the circumstances of the world, but those Cups in my eyes no matter who won would never be on par with a normal season.
