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.

Los Angeles Kings win Stanley Cup in double overtime nail-biter over Rangers

source : faceoff.com

The Los Angeles Kings won the Stanley Cup the hard way, ending their marathon playoff run with a double overtime thriller.

A post-season that started with the Kings having to dig themselves out of a three-game hole against San Jose ended Friday night in a 3-2 double-overtime triumph over the New York Rangers to seal their second Cup in three seasons.

The final lasted five games, with three going to overtime — including two double OT contests. It was the only playoff series that didn't go the distance for the Kings.

Alec Martinez's winner at 14:43 of the second overtime was a fitting conclusion to a post-season slog that saw the Kings run a gauntlet of Western Conference heavyweights before dispatching the speedy Rangers in the final.

It was the 26th game of the Los Angles playoff run, matching the single-year league record set by Philadelphia in 1987 and Calgary in 2004, who both lost seven-game series in the final. L.A. did set a record for most playoff games by a Cup winner.

The Kings had to go through a murderer's row in the West just to get to the final after finishing 10th in the league with a 46-26-8 record and 100 points. Los Angles had to get by San Jose (111 points), Anaheim (116) and defending champion Chicago (107) in one of the most gruelling post-season routes on record.

They overcame a 3-2 series deficit in the second round against Anaheim and rallied from 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 deficits in Game 7 of the Western Conference final in Chicago.

Their latest campaign lasted 115 games, counting seven pre-season, 82 regular-season and a record 26 post-season contests.

Los Angeles went 7-0 in playoff elimination games along the way. Only the 1975 Islanders won more (eight).

The Kings are only the fourth team in playoff history to overcome a 3-0 series deficit in rallying to beat the Sharks in the first round. And they are the first team to play — and win — three Game 7s on the road in a single post-season.

Throughout it all burned the belief that if the Kings played their game, they knew they were tough to beat.

"We really earned it," said forward Justin Williams, named winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP after opening the scoring with his ninth goal and 25th point of the post-season.

"It's been a wild year," said forward Jeff Carter. "A lot of hockey, a lot of ups and downs ... We had to dig deep. We really had to battle."

Like teammate Drew Doughty, Carter won Olympic gold and hoisted the Cup in 2014.

"A hell of a year," he said. "Couldn't ask for anything more."

Captain Dustin Brown hoisted the Cup first, then handed it off to veteran defenceman Robyn Regehr, a spectator since suffering an injury in Game 1 of the Anaheim series.

Brown sacrificed his body to get to the Cup, delivering 125 hits in the post-season. The native of Ithaca, N.Y., is the first U.S.-born captain to win multiple Stanley Cups.

Family and friends packed the ice as fans pressed their nose to the glass to watch the post-game partying. Coach Darryl Sutter watched with a smile, his son Christopher — who has Down Syndrome — hoisting the Cup in the celebration.

"You got to give these guys full marks," he said simply of his players.

The Kings squandered 3-0 series leads both times en route to hoisting the Cup. But they got the job done in five games — three wins coming via overtime — this time compared to six against New Jersey in 2012.

Los Angeles' remarkable road to this Cup was long and tortuous. It was an edge-of-your-seat record-setting ride though all-comers that will be hard to beat.

Martinez ended the longest game in Kings' history, surpassing Game 5 of the 2013 Western Conference final (91:40), by wristing home a rebound of a Tyler Toffoli shot to seal the Cup.

"I haven't been married and I haven't had kids but as far as I'm concerned so far this is the greatest feeling in the world," Martinez said.

"It came out pretty quick," he said of the rebound. "I just tried to get it on net then I blacked out."
It was the 17th Stanley Cup-clinching overtime goal in NHL history.

Martinez eliminated the Chicago Blackhawks in OT in Game 7 of the Western Conference final at Chicago on June 1. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he joins Martin Gelinas (Calgary, 2004) and Adam Henrique (New Jersey, 2012) as the only players in NHL history to notch two series-clinching overtime goals in one post-season.

Amazingly Los Angeles did not hold a lead in the first three games of the final. The Kings led for just 14.6 per cent of the first four games — a 40:01 stretch that was all in Game 3.

The Kings trailed 2-0 the first two games of the series but rallied both times to win in OT.
The Rangers probably deserved better.

"Obviously everybody's very disappointed in the outcome," said New York coach Alain Vigneault whose team went past Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Montreal en route to the Rangers' first final in 20 years.

"You go into this hoping that you don't regret anything. We put it out there," he added. "We gave our best shot, best effort. Three games here all went to OT. What can I say?"

The never-say-die Kings, who trailed by two goals four times in the first two games of the final, proved once again that the third period is their domain. They have four victories this post-season when trailing after two periods. And in mounting the latest comeback, they put an end to New York's remarkable 5-0 record in elimination games.

The win improved the Kings' playoff overtime record in 2014 to 5-2.

Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist kept the Rangers in the game for the second outing in a row. The elegant Swede stood on his head for much of the evening, especially when push came to shove.

"During the regular time he made some big saves. I thought in the overtime, though, that's when we played our better hockey of the night," said Vigneault. "Had some real good looks. Both goaltenders were outstanding."

Lundqvist ended the evening face down in disbelief. He may still be shaking his head.

The contest started slowly and took its time to boil, but finished in nail-biting, adrenalin-pumping end-to-end fashion.

The third period was all Kings as a goal by Marian Gaborik pulled Los Angeles even at 2-2 some eight minutes in. Gaborik knocking in a rebound of a Doughty wrister from the point at 7:56. It was his 14th of the playoffs — following a season in which he had 11 goals in 41 games.

Los Angeles outshot New York 12-3 in the period and 29-15 in regulation time. The shots were 42-25 for L.A. after four periods of hockey and 51-30 when the dust settled.

Overtime was a thrill ride as both teams hit the post and Los Angeles poured it on. The Kings also had to kill off a minor penalty in each overtime.

New York defenceman Ryan McDonagh hit the post with a blast from the blue-line in the first OT period. Toffoli also rang a shot off the post, some 13 minutes in. Lundqvist stopped Williams twice at point-blank range during one sequence late in overtime as the Kings turned the screws.

Then the Rangers mounted two assaults on the L.A. goal before Chris Kreider fired wide on a semi-breakaway.

In the second overtime, a Dan Girardi shot clipped the outside of the Kings post and L.A. goalie Jonathan Quick make several key saves.

Kreider and Brian Boyle scored for the Rangers in a 3:53 stretch late in the second period — the first on the power-play, the second short-handed — as New York clawed its way back to lead 2-1 after 40 minutes that saw just 12 shots on the L.A. goal.

That New York outburst silenced the sellout crowd of 18,713 at Staples Center.

The Rangers were 11-1 when leading after two periods in the playoffs and had won 39 of 43 games in that scenario including the regular season. But L.A. refused to go quietly.

The Kings have outscored their opponents 30-16 in the third period this post-season, including 3-0 in the Cup final.

Friday's game was the 93rd game of the 2014 playoffs, surpassing the previous single-year record of 92 established in 1991.

It was also the 63rd post-season game for the Kings dating to 2012, tying the NHL record for most games over a three-year span (Dallas, 1998-00; Detroit: 2007-09).

It was the 25th post-season game for the Rangers, who finished 12th in the league at 45-31-6 and 96 points but still made it to their first final in 20 years by eliminating Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Montreal.

Going into Friday, the Rangers were 5-0 when facing elimination. Lundqvist led the way in such games with a 1.00 goals-against average and .971 save percentage.

The Rangers' record in elimination matches is now 11-3 dating back to 2012.

New York hadn't got a shot on target by the time the Kings went ahead at 6:04, with Williams scoring on a deft backhand as linemates Jarret Stoll and Dwight King poked away at Lundqvist after a shot from the point by Willie Mitchell.

It took New York almost eight minutes to record a shot on goal. That followed a third period in Game 4 in which they only managed one shot.

It took the Kings some 27 minutes to crack double digits in shots. New York, frustrated for stretches by the L.A. forecheck, was stuck at seven.

The New York power play, 1-for-19 in the final up until then, finally clicked at 15:37 of the second period as Kreider tipped in a McDonagh feed from the faceoff circle to tie it at 1-1. McDonagh threaded the pass through three Kings to set up the goal, which came on the Rangers' 11th shot of the night.

McDonagh, who turned 25 on Friday, becomes the first player to record a point on his birthday in the Cup final since Jari Kurri did it in 1990 for the Oilers.

Boyle then scored shorthanded to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead at 19:30. The big man deftly roofed the puck after a nice curl-and-drag past Doughty, with New York's Dominic Moore in the penalty box for hooking. The speedy Carl Hagelin triggered the play, beating defenceman Slava Voynov to the puck, as Boyle notched his third of the post-season.

The Rangers' third short-handed goal of the playoffs had Moore celebrating in the box.

The Kings ranked 26th in the league in average goals per game during the regular season, averaging
2.42 a game. It helped that they led the league with just 2.05 goals against per game.

They found their scoring touch in the playoffs, leading all teams with an average of 3.40 goals a game going into Friday.

It was the 26th overtime game of the playoffs, tied for the third-highest total in one year (the record of 28 was set in 1993).

Los Angeles is the 17th team in NHL history to win the Cup in overtime and the first to do so at home since the 1908 Islanders

Henrik Lundqvist brilliant (and lucky) as New York Rangers force Game 5 with 2-1 win over Los Angeles Kings

source : faceoff.com

Hands up, anyone who thought the Los Angeles Kings, after toiling the maximum 21 games getting to the Stanley Cup final, were going to finish it in four.

You, Henrik Lundqvist?

No?

King Henrik of Sweden votes no.

Lundqvist, who faced 41 shots, including a lopsided third period in which the Kings outshot the home side 15-1, was both brilliant and incredibly lucky — yes, there’s that word again — in erecting a wall that just barely held, allowing the New York Rangers a 2-1 victory that let them live to see another day in the Stanley Cup final.

They still trail the series 3-1, with Game 5 in L.A. on Friday, but the journey of a few thousand miles begins with a single step and Lundqvist, so downcast after the Rangers’ 3-0 Game 3 loss, rebounded with a performance for the ages Wednesday before his adoring constituents at Madison Square Garden.

Martin St. Louis’s second-period goal, on a puck that deflected onto his stick between the pads of Jonathan Quick, was the winner in a game that saw two similar deflections elude Lundqvist but sit on or within inches of the goal line before being spirited away by Ranger skaters.

New York managed just 19 shots at Quick.

It was, after three games of ill fortune, probably only fair that Alain Vigneault’s team should profit from a couple of breaks.

“Maybe,” said the former Vancouver Canucks coach, “the luck is changing a little bit.”

The Rangers were outshot 11-8 in the first period, but two events gave them hope that they might finally get their share of bounces.

The first was a point shot by defenceman John Moore that struck two sticks on its way past Quick for the period’s only goal. It hit L.A. defender Jake Muzzin’s stick shaft, then was tipped out of the air by Benoit Pouliot with a borderline high stick that the league evidently never even looked at twice. Not before the puck was dropped again, at least.

The second was an Alec Martinez shot that squeezed between Lundqvist’s pads but lay on the goal line, where the Kings’ Jeff Carter whiffed on it before Anton Stralman swept it out of danger.

Then, 6:27 into the second, St. Louis was at the corner of the crease to shovel in a pass that had gone off both his linemate Chris Kreider and, possibly, Martinez and between Quick’s legs and New York had the dreaded two-goal lead.

Sure enough, two minutes later, New York defenceman Dan Girardi, who’s had one of the all-time hard-luck finals, had the handle of his stick break off in his hands at the L.A. blueline and Dustin Brown blew past him to break in on Lundqvist and beat him with a pretty forehand deke.

From that point on, the Rangers knew they were in for a war. Nor were they mistaken.

The Kings swarmed them in the latter half of the game, rolling in on the New York defence in waves, but time and again Lundqvist — usually in heavy traffic, with bodies strewn around in heaps — held firm against the tide.

“He’s been our best player all year, one of the best goalies in the world. It’s huge to have him be the backbone of this team,” said forward Rick Nash, who played a big, strong game for the Rangers.

“We were that close. If we tap those in, it’s a whole different hockey game,” said Kings rookie Tanner Pearson, who was the most dangerous skater on either team, and had eight shots on goal. “We were trying to close it out, we knew they would come with a pretty big push. We bounced back but we just couldn’t get that second one.”

“We had a lot of good opportunities,” said L.A. coach Darryl Sutter. “But you got to finish. Only going to get a handful most nights against the New York Rangers. You got to finish a couple of them.”

With Quick on the bench for an extra skater, the Kings attacked feverishly trying for the equalizer, and with 1:11 left another deflection trickled between Lundqvist’s pads but, so late in the game, ground to a halt a couple of inches short of the line in the snowy ice and forward Derek Stepan swept it under Lundqvist’s pads with his glove.

“I knew I couldn’t cover the puck with my hand,” said Stepan, who managed to get the job done with Kings’ bodies and sticks all around him.

“I saw it on the Jumbotron,” said Kings defenceman Drew Doughty. “There were two like that tonight. That was the difference in the game.

“Our team game was good. We had a lot of good opportunities. We didn’t really give up too much against. Both (New York) goals were pretty bad bounces. But the bottom line is that we didn’t score goals when we needed to and that’s why we lost the game.”

“Don’t fool yourself. Hank stood on his head,” Stepan said. “He’s a big part of why we’re going back to L.A. He just competes. That’s one thing I’ve learned about Hank, that he never seems to stop competing. He loves to win and he hates to lose.”

“I knew it wasn’t in because the light wasn’t going on,” Vigneault said, of the last of the Rangers’ great escapes. “I didn’t know exactly where it was. I was able to see the replay after.

“Thank God for soft ice.”

Los Angeles vs New York - Kings take stranglehold on Cup final #hockey #playoff #kings #rangers

source : faceoff.com

Preconceptions about the lopsided potential of this Stanley Cup final — hastily revised after the first two games — appear to have been correct after all.

The Los Angeles Kings, arguably lucky to win either, let alone both, of their home games to start the series, dominated every phase of Game 3 Monday night at Madison Square Garden.

It was 3-0 on the scoreboard, it is 3-0 in games, and soon, to use an old newspaper symbol for “end of story” it will be -30- for the New York Rangers.

Jeff Carter supplied the dagger — opening scoring with 0.8 seconds left in the first period — and goalie Jonathan Quick the exclamation point.

Jake Muzzin and Mike Richards added second-period goals, and the Kings shut it down after that.
New York outshot the visitors 32-15 and it couldn’t have mattered less, because the Kings got three exceptional bounces, one on each of their goals, and Quick was there to clean up their rare mistakes with a performance reminiscent of his 2012 Conn Smythe Trophy form.

“That was our hockey, that was our team tonight,” said Kings centre Jarret Stoll. “We wanted to get the lead and stifle them, stay on top of them.

“The games have been so back-and-forth and nail-biting, I’m sure for fans, people watching the games. But we were feeling it, we were rolling our lines, 25-35 seconds (shifts), just keeping the tempo high.”

The coast-to-coast change of venue altered the tone almost immediately, and the teams settled into a tight-checking pattern more familiar to both.

“This is the game that we want to play,” said defenceman Matt Greene. “We don’t want to get into shootouts. Obviously the come-from-behind wins are not going to last.”

The shots were 3-3 through the first period until its very last split-second when Justin Williams — yes, him again — found Carter unchecked in the slot and Carter’s snap shot glanced off the skate of a sliding Dan Girardi and in and out of Henrik Lundqvist’s glove.

The clock showed 0.0 but the red light was on, and the replay revealed the puck crossed the line with 0.8 seconds left. The Garden went quiet as 18,006 jaws dropped simultaneously. Make that 18,007, because New York coach Alain Vigneault’s did, too, and he cast his eyes heavenward as if to say:
“Aren’t you finished yet?”

On Muzzin’s goal, his shot glanced off Rangers’ Marty St. Louis, who was trying to block it, and handcuffed Lundqvist. Richards scored on a 2-on-1 late in the period when his attempted pass to Kyle Clifford was batted right back onto his stick by defenceman Ryan McDonagh and Lundqvist could ony watch helpessly as Richards buried it … and very likely, buried the Rangers along with it.

“Well, you try to stay positive right now, but it’s tough,” said Lundqvist, who simply has not got a break in this series. “We are doing a lot of good things but you look at the goals and we put two in our own net and it was just a tough play on the third one.

“At some point, you are going to need some puck luck and we don’t have any right now. It feels like they have all of it.

“It doesn’t matter what you think you deserve out there, you just have to find a way to win games, and that’s what they have been doing.”

Quick, meanwhile, made two other-worldly stick saves, one on Mats Zuccarello in the first period, another on Derick Brassard in the second, and was all over the puck, tracking it through traffic, gambling and winning when he charged out to cut angles, never giving up on scrambles.

Zuccarello could have changed the feel of the game had he scored 12 minutes in, with Quick down and out. But with an open net at his feet, the diminutive Norwegian was foiled by Quick’s desperate dive, and the puck glanced off the goaltender’s paddle and out the other side.

“I don’t know how … did he save it?” said Stoll. “Empty net, it was 0-0 at the time, those are saves you need, and that’s the type of goalie he is. He’s the best in the world. He’s going to come up with those saves sometimes, it doesn’t surprise us.

“He was great for us tonight, he did everything we needed him to do, when we needed it. The power plays that they had (Rangers were 0-for-6), coming up with pucks, battling like he was, side to side and out, challenging …”

L.A. captain Dustin Brown thinks the size of the stage appeals to Quick.

"I think it definitely plays a part, being on this type of stage, being from this area," said Brown. "I think it's a big deal to anybody who plays here. I think also the guy at the other end of the ice is a very good goaltender as well and I think that motivates Quickie because he's a competitor."

The Kings, looking fresher than in either of the two games in L.A., kept the pedal down in the third period and didn't allow the Rangers even a breath of life.

“Well, we’re used to the travel the day before. Obviously, being in the West, we do it a lot. We moved past all that fatigue part of it a couple of days ago,” said L.A. coach Darryl Sutter.
Now, it’s just about finishing.

The Kings had New Jersey down 3-0 in games two seasons ago, and had to go six games to win it.
“I haven’t even thought about that,” Sutter said. “Has nothing to do with this series. I mean, hell, we
got thrown under the bus by everybody on earth seven weeks ago.”

That’s when they were down 0-3 to San Jose, the first of their seven-game marathons.

They hadn’t done anything the easy way yet … until Monday night.

Vigneault was asked what he would tell his players, considering what they face in Game 4.

"Well," he said, "I'm going to take the night to figure it out."

Los Angeles vs New York : Puck luck? Kings masters of the breaks #hockey #nhl #playoffs #rangers #kings

source : faceoff.com

The topic was luck. Puck luck, hit-the-goalpost luck, go-in-off-a-defenceman’s-skate luck, referee’s-mistake luck.

Craig Simpson tells the story of the 1990 Stanley Cup final in Boston, Game 1, the Bruins and Edmonton Oilers tied 2-2.

“It was the long game, remember?” said Jim Hughson’s Hockey Night in Canada sidekick.
“Sure, the Petr Klima, triple-overtime game,” a reporter said.

“Yeah, well in the second overtime, I was backchecking on, I think, Randy Burridge, and I remember being behind him on the perfect angle to see his shot going toward the net, and I said, ‘S—t, it’s over,’” Simpson said late Saturday evening.

“It was going in, Billy (Oiler goalie Ranford) never saw it coming, and all of a sudden it hit the knob of his stick…”

The conversation had started because of the Los Angeles Kings’ seemingly inexhaustible resourcefulness in winning from behind in these playoffs — coming from 2-0 down in three straight games now, and winning them all, including Games 1 and 2 of the Stanley Cup Final over the luckless New York Rangers.

But what about the Kings? If the Rangers are luckless, what part of the bigger picture of L.A.’s fairy tale series of comeback wins is played by pure, unadulterated luck?

Reporters are reluctant to give it the credit it deserves now and then, when it is a particularly integral part of turning a key game or even a whole series on its ear.

And it always sounds a little weak when a player or coach on the losing side speaks of luck, so not many go there. But every one of them knows it decides plenty of games.

Two playoff seasons in a row, Chicago captain Jonathan Toews has referred to bounces, and how the Hawks just had to keep grinding on, because sooner or later the bounces were going to go their way.

A year ago, they finally did, in the final against Boston.

This spring, not so much. Not against the Kings, anyway, who won Game 7 of the Western Conference final out of nowhere, it seemed, on a random Alec Martinez shot through a maze of bodies in overtime that struck Chicago defenceman Nick Leddy on the hip and deflected upward, over goalie Corey Crawford, sending the Kings on to the Cup final.

This, after going down three games to none against San Jose in the first round, and trailing Anaheim 3-2 in the second.

And now, they are doing it again — not lucking their way to 4-3 and 5-4 overtime wins in the first two games against New York, exactly, but ….

Think about the odds of Ranger defenceman Dan Girardi losing his balance and falling down, handing the puck to Mike Richards, who changed his mind while heading for the bench and accepted the gift, feeding Justin Williams for the winner in Game 1.

Think about the width of the goal’s frame by which two Rangers failed to score on Jonathan Quick in Game 2, and the two non-calls that went L.A.’s way: the goalie interference on Dwight King’s goal early in the third period, and the puck-over-the-glass by Martinez moments before Dustin Brown deflected Willie Mitchell’s point shot past Henrik Lundqvist in double overtime.

It has happened over and over again. The Kings are being outplayed badly early, then like magic the puck’s in the other team’s net, and they rally.

And they know it’s playing with fire, and they keep on doing it.

“I guess you look at the results, but … are we playing good or are we not?” veteran centre Jarret Stoll said, in a near-confession Saturday.

“Right now we’re doing a lot of things that aren’t in our game, haven’t been in our game for years here. We’re getting away with it, I think, right now. We’ve got to be honest with how we’re playing.”
One man’s luck is another man’s moxie, but what the Kings are doing is historic. They’re the first team ever to win three straight playoff games after being down 2-0. They’re the first team to be up 2-0 in a Stanley Cup final without ever having held the lead. They have not led in their past 229 minutes and 15 seconds, since midway through the third period of Game 6 against Chicago.
That’s no formula for success, and neither is playing the maximum 21 games to get to the Cup final, then going to overtime in the first two against New York.

Both teams looked dead on their feet in the second OT Saturday, and even L.A. coach Darryl Sutter said he was concerned about fatigue.

“Darn right. Thought about it late in the third, and I thought about it in the first overtime,” Sutter said. “Takes its toll. Always does. There’s a lot of guys that played a lot of minutes. It’s like, what have we played, 23 games? That’s a lot.”

By any fair standard, the Rangers ought to have at least split the games in L.A., if not won them both.
They have put the Kings on their heels early with speed and opportunism, forced them to turn over pucks and mishandle routine passes, and like every other team L.A. has faced in these playoffs, they have exposed a shockingly ordinary team defence — shocking, because L.A. won the Jennings Trophy as the league’s top defensive team in the regular season.

“I don’t know what the heck is going on,” admitted defenceman Jake Muzzin. “I don’t know what it is. Having a lot of experience, a lot of belief and confidence that we can come back. And we’ve been doing it.

“Having Quickie in the net helping us when we need him is huge, and gives us momentum and we’ve been able to capitalize.”

But even Quick has been porous by his 2012 Conn Smythe Trophy standards. The same goalie who backstopped the Kings’ run to the Cup with a 1.41 goals-against average and .946 save percentage, allowing just 29 goals in 20 games that spring, is now sitting at a 2.80 GAA, .906 SV percentage and has surrendered 65 goals in 23 games.

The one thing he has done is make timely saves late.

But two games in, this year’s final has been a gloriously error-filled, randomly-played treat to watch, and much like the Kings’ previous series, has featured a spate of end-to-end trading of chances and precious little defence.

“They’ve been in three Game 7s and come out on top. They were Stanley Cup champions a couple years ago. They know what it takes to win. They’re getting those good bounces, those good plays in front,” said Girardi.

“We’re just going to have to find a way to, when we have the lead, to hold on to it. We know they’re going to be coming. We need to be ready for that.”

“We played a much better game than in Game 1,” said Ranger D-man Marc Staal. “We had a lot of chances. We hit a couple of posts, a couple that went cross crease and we were an inch or two away from putting the game away.”

There’s an expression curlers use, and golfers: “We were just on the wrong side of the inch.”
That’s the Rangers, two games into this Stanley Cup final, wondering if the luck really does even out in the end.

Of course, there’s another expression that goes: “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”
The Kings ought to have that one painted on their dressing room wall. It’s their stock in trade, and the stock is trending upward.

Williams strikes in OT as Kings rally past Rangers for Game 1 win #kings #rangers #nhl #hockey #stanleycup #playoffs

 Justin Williams #14 of the Los Angeles Kings and teammates celebrate Williams overtime game-winner against the New York Rangers during Game One of the 2014 NHL Stanley Cup Final at the Staples Center on June 4, 2014 in Los Angeles, California.

source : faceoff.com

 The L.A. Kings didn’t have much time to come down aftertheir Sunday night, Game 7 overtime win in Chicago.

Just enough to catch their breaths, appear at a StaplesCenter media day for the Stanley Cup and read, hear and see everywhere theyturned that they would certainly make short work of the New York Rangers.

It was the perfect formula for a hangover and the Kingshad a beauty in the early going of Game 1. They were outskated, outhustled,outbattled and in all ways outplayed by the Rangers, who raced to a 2-0 leadthat could have been much, much bigger if they had buried some of their Grade-Achances.
“I think they had a lot of energy and were fresh. If youlook at their playoffs in the first periods, they've had really good firstperiods every game,” said L.A. coach Darryl Sutter. “I think … I know that wewere not on full tanks.”

But this was, after all, the Kings.

As reliably difficult to put away as ever, the team thatsurvived three straight Game 7s on the road just to get here eventuallyrecovered its legs and screwed its head back on and then poured it on againstthe Eastern winners, finally prevailing 3-2 on Justin Williams’ goal at 4:36of overtime.

The Rangers let it get away and they know it. They werethe fresher team and this was the game they had to have.

It’s going to be all uphill from here.

“I liked the waywe played the first two periods. It was a hard-fought first 40 minutes by bothteams. Not quite sure what happened there in the third,” said Rangers coachAlain Vigneault.

“Not sure if it was them being that good or us stoppinggoing north-south. I feel when you play against such a good opponent that hasall that strength, you need to play a full game and for whatever reason,tonight we just weren’t good enough in the third.”

The game-winner was a comedy of errors: first L.A.forward Tanner Pearson fanning on a pass 3-on-2, then New York blueliner DanielGirardi doing the same after falling down. The puck ended on the stick ofthe Kings’ Mike Richards, who was trying to get to the bench to change — and withGirardi’s defence partner Ryan McDonagh cheating on offence, Williams was allalone to accept Richards’ pass and fire a short wrist shot over HenrikLundqvist’s shoulder.

“He’s a really good player for our hockey club. He’s ourbest right winger every night, consistently,” said Sutter.

But he wasn’t the Kings’ best player.

That was goalie Jonathan Quick, who stopped 25 of 27shots, early and late, many of them dangerous. The Kings fired 43 at Lundqvist.

In a third period in which the Kings outshot the visitors20-3 and really ought to have won the game in regulation time, Lundqvist wasthe Rangers’ best player by a mile.

“He was the reason we went to overtime. He gave us achance,” said Vigneault. “A lot of times in overtime, it’s a bounce, a shot,and tonight, they got it.”

The Kings were sloppy and slow to start and the Rangersjumped on them for a breakaway goal by Benoit Pouliot, who took the puck offDrew Doughty and another by speedy Carl Hagelin, whose first shot was stoppedby Quick but the rebound was kicked into the net by L.A. defenceman SlavaVoynov.

“We kind of got away with an ugly one,” said Kings defencemanWillie Mitchell. “Quickie was outstanding to let us find a little bit of legs.I think maybe the trainers put gumboots in our stalls instead of skates today.

“Sometimes, there is no rhyme or reason behind it. We justbattled. Like I said, we relied on our goaltender way too much. We need to getbetter in that.”

The first twitch of life the Kings showed was whenfourth-liner Kyle Clifford converted Jeff Carter’s pass from behind the net toget L.A. out of the first period down only a goal.

By then, Sutter had already put his lines and defencepairs in the blender, trying to produce some semblance of energy.

Then Doughty atoned for his earlier mistake, weaving inaround the Rangers defence and beating Lundqvist at 6:36 of the second to tiethe game.

The Rangers hung on through the second half of the gameto get it to overtime, although the few shots they managed in the third allseemed to be gold-plated chances that required big saves by Quick, notably onMarty St. Louis, who could have had a handful of goals on the night, andHagelin, whose speed gave the Kings fits.

In the end, the least surprising event all evening wasthat it was Williams getting the job done with the game on his stick.

“We screwed up a 3-on-2 royally, fortunately theirdefenceman couldn’t get the puck out, and I was sitting right in front,” said Williams,who has been the hero of so many Game 7s, he wears the nickname.

“It was certainly not our best game by any standards,especially ours, but we were able to get it done.”
"I'd like to call him Mr. Game 1, 2, 3 and 4. Ittakes four wins,” said Mitchell. “If he can do that three more times, thatwould be really nice."

It was not, in any way, a convincing win, but it showedthe truth of what Chicago Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville had said after histeam lost the Game 7 heartbreaker.

“I know one thing: they find a way, L.A.,” saidQuenneville. "They're never out of ahockey game, they're never out of a series. They're dangerous.”

They could be even more so after two off-days before Game2.