I'm Of Agreement That The Ghosts Of Failures Past Make No Difference Once The Playoffs Start

I don’t believe in jinxes. I don’t believe in curses. I don’t believe some teams are winners and some teams are losers. If that was true the Red Sox would have never won another World Series. They had the most famous curse in all of sports, the Curse of the Bambino. It took them 86 years, but they finally did it. They didn’t shake any curse, that’s just the way sports are.

Now, the Caps have gone 41 years without a Cup. Despite making the playoffs the majority of those years, they have 1 Stanley Cup Finals appearance, where they were then swept by the Red Wings. Since then, they have rebuilt and spiraled out of the playoffs in heartbreaking fashion multiple times. From running into Halak and the 8 seed Canadiens, to losing to the Rangers in 7 games the last 3 playoff appearances, shit has not been fun.

But I’m not of the belief any of that matters. I do not think this current team has anything to do with the 09-10 team that won the Presidents’ Trophy and lost in the 1st round.  I don’t even understand the argument people attempt to make about that. A team from 6 years ago has an affect on how a team does now? I don’t buy it.

I don’t even think last year’s heartbreaking loss to the Rangers carries over to this season. These guys are professionals. The best in the world. If anything, it motivates them to get better and to prove it won’t happen again. I’m not of the belief last year’s playoff loss matters one bit to this year’s team. There was no Oshie, Kuznetsov was not the same player he is now, and so on and so forth. I view each season as an individual entity. Once the puck hits the ice in this year’s playoffs, nothing that happened last year, or any other year, matters.

I say all of that to say this: Am I scared? Fuck yeah I am! How could I not be!? This is sports, man. If there’s one thing everyone agrees on, it’s that sports are wildly unpredictable, full of heartbreaks and triumphs, underdog stories and crazy twists. The story right now is that the Caps dominated the regular season but have never taken that next step during the playoffs. As much as I just wrote about not believing any of that matters on the ice, as a fan it creeps into your head. It’s just the way life works.

My official picks were Caps over the Flyers, Pens over the Rangers, Caps over the Pens, Caps over the…I don’t even know. Islanders? Panthers? That top half of the bracket is so wack. The fact they don’t re-seed and the top 2 teams in the East can meet in the semis is so dumb.