St. Louis Blues: Drew Doughty Is Wrong About Potential Cup

The St. Louis Blues and every team in the NHL should feel honored to win the Stanley Cup no matter the circumstance. One player disagrees.

The St. Louis Blues and many other teams in the NHL are still hoping to play for a Stanley Cup once the weather warms up in 2020. The chance to win a Stanley Cup should be everyone’s goal, regardless of how it might happen.

However, Drew Doughty doesn’t see it that way. The Los Angeles Kings defender is always quite opinionated, but he is off the rails on this newest one.

On a conference call with media, Doughty was overly negative about the prospects of resuming the season in any form. “I don’t see how this season is going to return. I really don’t,” said Doughty in an ESPN report.

I’m not going to get into that opinion. That portion is too divisive and boils down to personal beliefs.

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However, Doughty continued. “I know they want to give out the Stanley Cup this year, but in all seriousness, it’s not going to be like winning a real Stanley Cup because the season wasn’t finished,” he said. “There are teams that couldn’t get in the playoffs, and I’m assuming they’d have to come up with a different format for it.”

Ok, I get the overall sentiment. If they simply end the regular season, it is not going to be fair to teams on the fringes of making the playoffs. Someone will be snubbed.

Technically, there is always a team snubbed though. Teams had opportunities to put themselves in a better position in the standings and did not get it done. The fact is not all teams have played the same amount of games, but even if you roll the standings back to 68 games, the playoff teams remain the same and the only thing that changes is minor tweaks in order, such as the Blues being in second in the division.

However, the main gripe all fans should have is with is ridiculous opinion that it would not “be like winning a real Stanley Cup…” That is completely asinine.

He can have that opinion now because he’s out of the playoffs no matter what format they chose. Even if they finished out the season, the Kings were not going to make it.

If the Kings were in a guaranteed playoff spot, I would put money on his opinion being different. Unless you’re a rival of the team that wins, nobody cares about the circumstances leading up to the winning of a 2020 Stanley Cup.

The New Jersey Devils won their first Stanley Cup in 1995 after the lockout wiped out half the season. Unless you’re a New York Rangers fan, I can’t imagine anyone putting an asterisk next to their win. I’ve never heard anyone say that Cup was cheapened because they did not play a full season.

You can say it’s not apples to apples since all teams still played an even amount of games. That’s not the point.

Maybe Doughty misspoke, but he is basically saying this Cup would not count. If anything, I would say this Cup would count more.

Ok, some teams might have a gripe about missing out on the playoffs. However, for the teams that make the playoffs, they have it tougher than any other year.

Everyone is forced to hit the ground running. While some argue that everyone is rested and they don’t have to deal with the grind of a season leading into the playoffs, the reality is that all 16 teams (or however many there are) are going in cold.

Nobody has the advantage of playing playoff-style hockey to get into the playoffs. Funny enough, that’s how the Kings got into the playoffs and won their first Stanley Cup as an eighth seed.

Imagine the inconsistencies of the start of any season, but not having an entire season to iron out the kinks. You have to start up, with no preseason games, and play mistake free hockey.

Blues goalless when they need goals most. dark. Next

I would argue the winner of the Stanley Cup in 2020, if there is a playoff, is just as deserving, or maybe more so, of calling themselves a champion. To suggest anything else is not thinking about the reality of the difficulty faced and completely shortsighted.

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