Jon Quick saw this coming, we all should have as well. |
It's been a short, enjoyable and relatively uneventful ride for the Los Angeles Kings, far from the normalcy of any Stanley Cup run let alone an eighth seed's playoff run. But here they are, these Kings from Hollywood, and they're writing about as surprisingly undramatic story as there could be written in sports.
As an eighth seed any series win would have to be dramatic, since they would have to knock off the first seed in the first round and then probably the second seed in the second round. But this Los Angeles squad has seen its low seed as nothing more than a formality on their road to one of the greatest Stanley Cup runs in NHL history. Can we even call them an eighth seed? In the last week of the season they were the third seed on the verge of clinching the Pacific Division title, but after two dramatic OT loses versus their division rival San Jose Sharks, the Kings fell all the way to the eighth seed. They were a mere two points short of Phoenix, yet they sat five seeds behind them. Not that it mattered to L.A., who easily dismantled the first seeded Canucks in five games, swept the second seeded St. Louis Blues and easily took care of the Coyotes in another efficient five games. Now they sit on the verge of lifting Lord Stanley for the first time in franchise history. Really we should have seen it coming, but not in this manner, not with this sort of confidence and swagger that has this team in a sort of mid-to-late eighties Oilers type of zone.
Yeah, six of their 12 games have been decided by one goal or less. Yeah, they're 4-0 in OT contests. But they've done it with such methodical precision and relative ease that we should have known by the end of their shellacking of the Canucks, that this team would be
All the ingredients were sitting there nicely for this team to make a run, just no one thought it would have been this sort of no-BS attitude that have them a ridiculous 15-2 and on the verge of tying Gretzky's '87-'88 Oilers as the most efficient team to ever win the Stanley Cup. Johnathan Quick acquired a bad case of the "hot goalie" syndrome and the team has ridden him all the way to this point. Dustin Brown has been the sort of gritty leader that NHL coaches salivate over, scoring big goals, but yet at the same time grinding like a fourth liner. Drew Doughty has all of the sudden rediscovered why he was widely considered the best offensive defenseman in the game. Add to the that the scoring balance the Kings have seen-17 out of 18 players have scored in these playoffs- and you've got a volatile beast. But then you have to add in an element no one can predict; this team gelled from day one of the playoffs. They all bought into newly hired Darryl Sutter's philosophy, but more importantly they bought into each other. Once this chemistry really got a foothold in the locker room, the team just started feeling it. Everything began clicking and they got a little luck on their side too.
But last night was the coming together of everything for this Los Angeles Kings squad. For a low seed to have a 10-0 record on the road is absolutely outstanding, but for that same team to put forth its most suffocating effort of the entire playoffs in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals with a 2-0 lead in front of their fans, well that's just fitting isn't it? Even Marty knew this was too much for him to handle, that while his probable last Stanley Cup Finals was impressive, it was going to end on a sour note. Jeff Carter went top shelf on him midway through the third period and Marty lay exasperated, overwhelmed and probably downright confused on how he and his teammates found themselves tied to the tracks as an Acela train from Los Angeles not Detroit, Colorado or any other traditional West power came barreling toward them. The game wasn't mathematically or even realistically over, there were 15 minutes left and crazier things have happened. But let's be serious, this game was over, this series was over and Marty's career probably had just ended.
Last night was simply the last stab in the Devils'(and the rest of the league's) heart. The Kings were going to win this series all along, and as much as we thought it would be historically correct to doubt them(since no eighth seed has ever lifted Lord Stanley) we were completely wrong. No one was ready for this, yet everyone should have known.
A team that goes 16-2 in the playoffs doesn't just come out of nowhere, this was all premeditated, it just took some people with balls to believe it. You'll find those people in the Kings dressing room, behind the bench and in their front office.
0 comments:
Post a Comment