The Los Angeles Kings have won their first Stanley Cup in their 45 year history. The Kings also did something that is unheard of in professional sports today, they won Lord Stanley’s cup as the number 8 seed. in destroying the Eastern Conferences 6 seed, the Kings finished their unbelievable run having beat the West’s #1 seed the Vancouver Canucks in 5 games, the number two seed the St. Louis Blues in 4 games, and the number three seed Phoenix Coyotes in 5 games.
In backstopping the Kings to the cup, Jonathan Quick became the 3rd American to win the Con Smythe trophy which is given to the playoff MVP. He joins Brian Leetch (1994) and Tim Thomas (20011) in that exclusive club. In another great thing the captain of the L.A. Kings Dustin Brown joins Darien Hatcher as the only 2 American born captains to ever win the Stanley cup.
The game was never close after a vicious boarding call 10:10 into the first period led to a 5 minute major that had the Kings scoring 3 goals. “I wish I could take that play back,” said journeyman forward Steve Bernier. “I didn’t want to hurt my team. I wanted to help them. This is extremely hard. It’s been a long playoff run for us. To finish on that note, it’s not fun for sure. But there’s nothing I can do now.” They added a fourth goal in the second period and a fifth goal with the goalie pulled in the third period. The Kings also tied a record in only losing 4 games in route to the oldest trophy in North America.
The Kings shot out to an early 3-0 series lead before losing two straight elimination games. “You never know. You get to the dance, you never know what’s going to happen,” Captain Dustin Brown said. “We calmed down after losing two. It was the first time we had done that all playoffs, and we finally got off to a good start.”
“We never lost our confidence,” Goalie Jonathan Quick said. “We had to take it on the chin to keep moving, losing two, and we looked at it as, ‘Hey, we still have to win one game to win a championship. And we have two chances.’ Finally, we were able to do it at home.”