Combination of depth and luck helped Kings beat Rangers to win Stanley Cup

 source : faceoff.com

All the New York Rangers kept going back to was how it could've been different. Not necessarily regrets about how they played against the Los Angeles Kings in the Stanley Cup final but because of the 50/50 moments.

"A few bounces either way it could be a different outcome," Rangers defenceman Kevin Klein said earlier this week.

Enough didn't come to reverse the tide, and on Friday night the Kings finished off the Rangers in five games to capture their second Cup in three years. In the after light of this championship, there will be plenty of dynasty talk — and well-deserved — but in the rewind of this final, two major themes emerged as reasons they are again on top of the NHL: Luck and depth.

It's not necessarily better to be lucky than good in hockey, but for the Kings it was a combination of both. But their best pure game of the season was their only loss, thanks to Henrik Lundqvist, Antron Stralman, Derek Stepan and a pile of snow in the crease.

In Games 1 and 2, each one an overtime victory following a two-goal comeback, the Kings got their break before the Rangers could. No goaltender interference being called on Dwight King's Game 2 goal didn't hurt, either.

There were so many funky bounces that "puck luck" became a cliche before the series ended. After the Rangers won Wednesday to avoid the first Cup final sweep since 1998, coach Alain Vigneault wondered if "maybe the luck is changing a little bit."

That was wishful thinking, in part because these Kings turned out to be too deep and too strong to let luck send the series back to New York and make things interesting. The New Jersey Devils followed that pattern two years ago by winning Game 5 and forcing another cross-country flight after Los Angeles took a 3-0 series lead.

These Kings weren't nearly as much of a buzzsaw as the 2012 incarnation. In 2014 they needed seven games in each of the first three series, including a comeback from a 3-0 hole against the San Jose Sharks in the first round.

But depth ultimately defined Los Angeles's second Cup. In the final, 15 goals were scored by 12 different players, including two apiece by Conn Smythe winner Justin Williams, captain Dustin
Brown and deadline acquisition Marian Gaborik.

"Depth has been huge," No. 1 defenceman Drew Doughty said. "That's how you win championships."
Before the Kings took a stranglehold of the series, coach Darryl Sutter opined that "depth only matters when you win." Three straight overtime games from the end of the Western Conference final through the start of the final required it.

"We've moved guys around," Sutter said. "Obviously guys get banged up and things like that. But that is your biggest issue always in a series. It's not just playing guys, it's getting the quality, getting good minutes out of them."

In these playoffs, the Kings had five players — Doughty, defencemen Jake Muzzin, Slava Voynov and Willie Mitchell and centre Anze Kopitar — averaging over 20 minutes of ice time. Eleven different players had at least 10 points over the 26-game run.

"I think just believe that anybody can do it," Kopitar said. "It's not like when we get down, everybody looks at, I don't know, Carts to go do it. It's everybody taking pride, chipping in, helping each other out."

Rangers centre Brad Richards, the closest thing New York had to a captain since Ryan Callahan was dealt to the Tampa Bay Lightning as part of the package for Martin St. Louis, called the Kings a "cool, collected team that doesn't get rattled and it just seems that they're scoring at the right times and getting big saves at the right times."

Unlike in 2012, the Kings couldn't call goaltender Jonathan Quick their best player in the playoffs. On the way to that Conn Smythe, Quick went 16-4 with a 1.41 goals-against average, .946 save percentage and three shutouts.

Quick's numbers were more pedestrian this time around, but his 32-save shutout in Game 3 put Los Angeles on the verge.

Luck certainly helped in the clinching Game 5, when the Rangers hit the post not once but twice in overtime before Alec Martinez scored the winner.

Chicago : Bickell chose chasing Cup instead of World Series

Source : Nhl.com



Chicago Blackhawks forward Bryan Bickell has become a prominent figure during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, taking on a key offensive role for a team seeking to win its second championship in four seasons.

Bickell, 27, scored eight goals over the first three rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs -- one fewer than he had in 48 regular-season games. In the Western Conference Final, Bickell scored goals in three consecutive games, then added a pair of assists in the clinching Game 5 win against the Los Angeles Kings.

Bickell was shut out through the first three games in the Stanley Cup Final, but he came through with two assists in Game 4 on Wednesday as the Blackhawks beat the Boston Bruins 6-5 to tie the best-of-7 series at 2-2.

He has been gracious enough to agree to keep a player blog that will appear on NHL.com throughout the series against Boston.
In his latest entry, Bickell writes about how he got his start in hockey:

CHICAGO -- With the extra day off in between Games 4 and 5, I figured it would be a good time to actually introduce myself to all the readers in the proper way by giving my backstory for how I got into hockey and how I got to the National Hockey League.

I grew up in Orono, Ontario, and like most kids I wanted to learn how to play hockey. But when I was 4 years old my parents said they wanted me to learn how to skate first. They got me into doing what we call CanSkate, which is a learn-to-skate program.
 
It was almost like a carnival. We'd dress up in costumes and they'd teach us how to do certain circles and stop in certain places. The older kids in it were figure skaters and they did their thing, but I did it for a few years so I could learn how to skate. My parents wanted me to learn before I played hockey. 
It's probably the smart way to go about it.

It was about two years later when I first started playing the game. I was six now and I suited up in a recreation league in Orono. I had a blast and I played there for a couple of years before my parents were like, 'Oh, he's actually pretty good.' That's when we went up to Lindsay, Ontario, so I could play at the Triple-A level and see how it would work out.

Well, it worked out. I was around 12 at this point and I played there for another couple of years before I decided I needed to go play at a higher level, play with some better players and have some better competition. The only way to do it was to go to Toronto, so that's what we did.

When I was 14 years old, I moved in with a family in Ajax, Ontario, which is about a 45-minute drive from Orono, my hometown. I would live in Orono with my parents on the weekends and with one of my teammate's families during the week so I could go to school there.

I ran into Dave Bolland when I was in Ajax. We played for the Toronto Red Wings starting at 14 years old. I remember we went up to play in a Pee-Wee Tournament in Quebec, and that's where we first got to play against Alex Ovechkin. He beat us in a shootout. He was good then and he's good now.

I went back to Lindsay the following year to play at the Bantam level. I needed to do it to build my skill, etc. But then I went back to Toronto and played with Bolland on the Red Wings again. It was a real roller-coaster. We were 15 years old at the time and just starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, we could make a career out of this.

When you're playing hockey as a kid you just want to play because it's fun and you enjoy it with your friends -- but right around this time is when I could tell hockey could be more than just a game for me. My parents were behind me 110 percent and did whatever they had to do to get me on my long road trips to the next game. They would get me there and leave it up to me how I wanted to carry on.

We ended up winning the Bantam Cup with the Toronto Red Wings, and soon after I got drafted by the Ottawa 67s in the second round of the Ontario Hockey League draft. I played for the legendary Brian Kilrea for 3 1/2 years before he traded me to Windsor for the second half of my final year in the OHL.

The funny thing is I would also play baseball in the summer because my parents wanted me to shift my focus away from hockey for at least a little while. They didn't want me to be thinking about hockey all the time. I got pretty good at baseball, so much so that when I was 15 the New York 
Yankees came to scout me.

I tried out for Team Ontario at 15 even though most of the players on the team were going to be 16. They liked me but told me they were going with the 16 year olds and that I should try again next year, when I was 16. Well, next year came, but I went to the OHL Finals with the 67s so during the prime baseball and scouting time I was still playing hockey.

That's when I realized I needed to choose, and it was not really a choice. Growing up Canadian, you dream of becoming a hockey player, not a baseball player. If I didn't play hockey, maybe if the 67s didn't go to the OHL Finals that year, I'm not sure if I would have had a chance to make it as a baseball player. I was a pretty good centerfielder, though.

Baseball will come back for me after the Cup Final is over because the Cubs have invited me to throw out the first pitch and take batting practice.

Anyway, back to hockey: The Blackhawks drafted me and Bolland in the second round of the 2004 NHL Draft. They had four picks in that round. They were not a very good team at the time, but we knew it was a good opportunity to get started.

I started my pro hockey career in Norfolk of the American Hockey League, but after a year there the Blackhawks wanted to have their minor-league team closer so we moved to Rockford, Ill. I was up and down for a while before I became a full-time player here three seasons ago -- and now I'm trying to fulfill the dream of winning the Stanley Cup.

Habs : Gallagher won’t be cheering for Bruins in Cup final

Source : hockeyinsideout.com

Who will the Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher be cheering for in the Stanley Cup final?

“I don’t want to see Boston win,” Gallagher told Elliott Pap of Postmedia News.

Gallagher, who works out with the Bruins’ Milan Lucic during the offseason, added that the reason
he’d rather see the Chicago Blackhawks win the Cup has to do with the bitter Boston-Montreal rivalry.

“I mean, I’m happy for Lootch and I’m glad he’s doing well,” Gallagher said. “But I just don’t want to see Boston win.”

Gallagher said he wishes Lucic all the best in everything except winning another Cup.

Game 1 of the Cup final is Wednesday night in Chicago (8 p.m., CBC, NBC, RDS).