HOCKEY COMICS!

So if you aren’t paying attention to hockey 1- Pay attention to hockey and 2- you may have missed out on one of the biggest upsets in sports history. Seriously. Hockey playoffs are the best (really, they might be legit the best playoffs of any major sport) and this year we’ve gotten some crazy shit that even hockey hasn’t featured before. Arguably one of the greatest teams ever went into the first round…and got fucked.

The Tampa Bay Lightning won 62 games. For reference, they play 82 games. They lost just 20 games. That is literally tied for the best regular season in NHL history, with the 95-96 red wings. They won a lot of their games by multiple scores. Their lead star, Nikita Kucherov, scored a whopping 128 points. They won the president’s trophy (basically the award for best regular season team) and waltzed into the playoffs against the 8th seeded Columbus Blue Jackets. A team that at this point in their (short, since 2000) history, hadn’t even won a playoff series yet. They didn’t even win a playoff game till 2014. This woeful 8th seed went against the titan of the 2019 season and stomped their asses like a cockroach under a boot. It wasn’t even a close series. The Blue Jackets swept them.

This officially makes the Lightning of 2018-19 the newest member of the BUST club, and quite possibly kicks out the Red Wings. At least the Red Wings made it to the conference finals.

I’m not sure if there is a bigger disappointment than this in team sports. The Warriors at least made the NBA finals and lost to the best player in the game in a stunningly close matchup. The 2007 Pats barely lost the Super Bowl thanks to perfect defensive play and a miracle catch. The 2001 Mariners at least made it to the ALCS and lost to the powerhouse that was the late 90’s early aughts Yankees (who barely lost a thrilling world series at the end of game 7). As stated before, the Red Wings also made it close to the finals, losing the conference championship series in 6 games to the Avalanche, who eventually won the cup. The Lightning didn’t win a single playoff game and got swept by the lowest seeded team, which had yet to even win a playoff series, ever. All I can say is…yikes.

I hope the following twitter post goes down in sports meme legend.

We don’t have any words and we know you don’t want to hear them. We understand your anger, your frustration, your sadness. Everything you’re feeling – we get it. This isn’t the ending we imagined, and certainly not the one we wanted. Thank you for being there the entire way. — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) April 17, 2019

Congrats to the Blue Jackets on a phenomenal upset, and I hope you get used to the fact that very few people will ever give you the credit you deserve and only talk about the other team’s failures. As a fan of one of the mighty upset teams myself, I know how it is. It’s irritating, but that’s how it goes. Best you can do is hope the team keeps it up and proves to everyone they belonged at the top anyway.

Also the Penguins got knocked out and any playoff in any sport with no Pittsburgh is good. The Avalanche are also close to knocking off another #1 seed in the Flames as of this writing.

Watch hockey.