Washington Capitals Stanely Cup Conspiracy Theory

[TheFugitive]

So the Washington Capitals have finally won their first Stanley Cup.
(I was in grade school when they were born, and they were SO bad the team
was widely known as either the Crapitals or the Handi-Caps).

There is a conspiracy theory floating around which claims their win was not
entirely on the up-and-up.

Their opponent in the Stanley Cup Final was the first-year Vegas Golden Knights.
(Not the first time an expansion team has gone to the final, as when the NHL expanded
in 1967 they put all of the expansion teams in one division, ensuring that one of them
would get to the final.  In that case the St. Louis Blues got to get their heads handed
to them by the Montreal Canadiens).

The conspiracy theory goes that at the start of the season the Las Vegas bookmakers had the Golden Knights at 500-1 odds to win the Cup.  Likely a safe bet as most expansion teams range anywhere from borderline incompetent to truly awful.

Well, it started looking like the Golden Knights COULD win the cup.  And that Las Vegas residents, eager to show support for their first major-league franchise. went out and plunked down a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY at 500-1.

Which caused the entire bookmaking community to start sweating bullets (to coin a phrase) when the Golden Knights actually made it to the final.

Supposedly the sports books in Vegas were looking at financial disaster if they had to pay off on all of those 500-1 bets. So they called in a bunch of guys named Louie and Vinnie the Schnozz to make sure that the Golden Knights would NOT win.

Conspiracy says either the Golden Knights were pressured to tank it or the NHL was pressed to see that they would not get any calls.    Interesting theory.  What do you think??