Has any city ever rooted harder against its own NHL team to LOSE in a Stanley Cup final than Las Vegas is right now with the Las Vegas Knights?

The plucky expansion team, filled with rejects and has beens who pulled themselves up from their skate straps to appear in the Stanley Cup finals during its inaugural season, is set to TOPPLE everything Las Vegas was built on if it captures the cup in the coming weeks.

Why? Because sport books had  the Knights at 500/1 prior to the start of the season to win the NHL championship.

Well, okay, fine….those are insane odds, but who would have actually bet on them prior to the start of the year? Did Pierre-Édouard Bellemare really instill that much confidence in bettors? That roster sucked, and it sucked hard at first glance.

Well, one betting expert told Forbes it could be the biggest futures sports betting loss in the history of Las Vegas:

“It could still end up being the biggest futures loss in Las Vegas history,” Murphy said. “In my experience, it’s unprecedented.  I’d have to go back to the 2011 Daytona 500, where Trevor Bayne won at 80-1 odds to find anything remotely close, but even so restrictor-plate racing produces longshot winners now and then.”

As someone who has lost far more money than I’ve won in several Vegas trips during my lifetime, I say good. Fuck them.

I’m rooting so hard for these people to cash their tickets:

Obviously this isn’t going to bust any of the books, but it’s always sweet to watch them take a complete bath on bets, all due to their hometown team crushing the hopes and dreams of every other NHL team and causing such hand-wringing of old-school NHL die hards.

You can bet your ass the heads of those casino sports books will all be in the stands with laser pointers aimed squarely at William Karlsson’s retinas every time he touches the puck.

It’s awesome for the NHL, certainly not a black eye as so many are claiming, but oh my god does it look terrible for a team like the Flyers, who haven’t captured a cup since the 70s and are preaching patience when an upstart group of rag tags are four wins away from giving Las Vegas their first Stanley Cup in their first year of existence.

The Las Vegas Knights will be hoisting the cup in less than a month and all we’ll have to look forward to Dave Hakstol’s inexplicable healthy scratches of Travis Konecny and Nolan Patrick next year.

God damnit. I’m getting depressed. Go Vegas, go Knights, fuck the Flyers.

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