The NHL isn't really going to go through with it, are they?

There's been something percolating under the radar ever since the NHL season began last October...

#VegasStrong

I can tell you from being in Las Vegas last August that the expected outcome for the Golden Knights was to be a historically bad expansion franchise.  I believe the official over/under for points for the season was somewhere in the range of 40.

The Buffalo Sabres were the worst team in the NHL this year with 62 points.

Vegas' expansion team was near the President's Trophy for all but about the last month of the season.  They finished off with 109 points, first in the Pacific Division, third in the Western Conference, and fifth overall in the NHL.

By the current format of the NHL playoffs, the divisions, as much as possible, are kept together.  So the two teams better than Las Vegas in the regular season in the Western Conference (Nashville and Winnipeg) would have to play each other first before playing the Golden Knights.

But that's not the reason I write this post.

It's that we're already seeing a pattern of officiating in these playoffs which is indicative that the NHL wants to promote #VegasStrong...

Even Deadspin has picked it up: The officiating, so far, dangerously bad.

Just watch the animated GIF for a good idea.  It got NO PENALTY, and only a one-game suspension for Winnipeg's Josh Morrisey for trying to almost decapitate Eric Staal with a cross-check to the head.

If I were Player Safety, that's balance of the series at minimum, and maybe far longer than that!

Another suspension that go no on-ice penalty impacted the first Vegas series (a 4-0 sweep victory over the LA Kings, who only scored three goals in the series and were shut out twice):  Drew Doughty of the Kings was suspended for Game 2 (and didn't like the decision!) for a hit on William Carrier of the Golden Knights.  (Video is also in the Deadspin article.)

Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay was not penalized in Game 4 of their series with Detroit for a very similar hit.  Today, it was announced he was NOT suspended for Game 5.

Oh really, Player Safety?  That Kucherov hit was worse than the Doughty hit -- and the Deadspin article shows both!

I'm getting the sinking suspicion the NHL is on the bandwagon of national tragedy comebacks for sports propaganda purposes.  And, like baseball, a very real possibility that an improbable run here (locals have now pushed the Golden Knights to co-favorite status to win the Stanley Cup!) could be made on the back of a national tragedy.

Anyone with an understanding of things related to such events can only think of one thing: When does the next major domestic terror attack that ends up at the feet of some whackjob come with the attached expectation that same whackjob is doing it to get his obsession a championship?

We've already seen it once.  We may well see it twice.

(For the record:  However, I will NOT put the Houston Rockets in the same boat here unless the NBA officiating gets crazier than the NHL stuff is getting.  #HoustonStrong may well push them over the top, but the fact is that, unlike the other two cases, the Rockets have been on that next tier, ready to ascend, a couple of years now.)