This post is a bit late. It took me a while, as a Devil fan, to cool off from Game 6. I got out all of my aggression here and this post will be dedicated solely on the Los Angeles Kings.
It took 45 years, but the Los Angeles Kings have finally won the Stanley Cup.
Wayne Gretzky, Rogie Vachon, Luc Robitaille Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer, and other stars of the past all looked on as the Kings of today accomplished what they couldn't.
Win the Stanley Cup.
Sure, we kid about the terrible media coverage in LA or the bandwagon fans there, but this teams' history is as deep as many others. When you see signs in the stands that read "The Kings won the Stanley Cup, Now I can die in peace", you know how important this team is to so many people in Cali and for them to see this team win the Cup is something special for them.
Read this article about Kings' TV announcer Bob Miller and try telling me this team isn't historic or special. Miller has been the broadcaster for the last 39 seasons and has seen it all with that team. As he said to peers after the game, "This is for you Kings players and Kings fans wherever you may be. All the frustration, the disappointment of the past is gone. The 45-year drought is over. The Los Angeles Kings are indeed the kings of the National Hockey League, the 2012 Stanley Cup champions."
This embodies what it's like for this team to win the Cup. We saw it the last two years with Boston and Chicago, respectively. Fans had to go through frustration year after year. But once your team lifts the Cup, it's the sweetest feeling imaginable.
When you look at this Kings team, you see a team that's as close to perfect as possible (aside from the couple of F-bombs dropped afterwards). For the past few years, we've been told what teams needed to win championships. After Boston won, we were told that you needed a big, physical team to win the Cup. With Chicago, we were told you need a powerhouse up front to win it all. This has been going back for a while that it seemed you needed a specific type of team if you wanted a chance to hoist the Cup.
But when you look at this team, you don't see too many prominent categorizations. This team possessed everything you want in your team. They were solid up front and deep offensively. Their defensemen were tough and fast. Their goaltending was impeccable. Although their powerplay was weak early on, they heated up at the end, making their special teams incredibly impressive.
You name it, the Kings were dominant at it.
More importantly, the Kings were just so likeable. I speak for many Devils fans when I say that we don't have THAT much hatred for LA (unless, of course, they take Zach Parise from us this Summer). True, Dustin Brown has his character flaws, but these guys work hard and are just nice people.
Everyone fell in love with Darryl Sutter's cutely awkward press conferences.
Everyone fell in love with the story of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, in addition to Dustin Penner's.
And how cute was Jonathan Quick's two year old daughter during his post-game 6 press conference.
Another story that Puck Daddy wrote about (I keep linking his stories. The dude's great with this hockey blogging thing) is just another great thing about the Kings that we all should be happy for. This story was the icing on the cake for this Stanley Cup team.
The night before game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, a game where most people expected the Kings to finish the sweep and skate around with the Cup, the Kings organization donated a sum of $50,000 to help find the murderer of a 14 month old infant.
What company or organization would have the presence of mind to do something so right and pure for others while all the attention is on them. Everyone was talking about the Kings. They were the topic of discussion. But then they contributed to this amazing cause. Once I saw that, I almost WANTED the Kings to be given the Cup right then and there. Truly unbelievable.
Here's the story: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/eve-potential-stanley-cup-final-sweep-kings-donate-025257385.html?bcmt=1338953674387-132e7056-3e7b-418e-9b93-a95acecf8a97&bcmt_s=u#ugccmt-container-b
After game 3's victory, I posted an in depth post about the Kings' success. I'll echo some of the main points from that, but I suggest you take a look at it here:
http://robinsnest-yoro.blogspot.com/2012/06/can-anybody-stop-la-kings.html
As many of you know, coach Darryl Sutter came in the middle of the season for the Kings. He completely turned their season around and with his system and attitude, never looked back. He fueled their passion and connected with their spirit and the combination made them almost unbeatable.
So they've got a coach who is pretty much the ideal coach. He's hard on them when he needs to be and he gets the most out of their team.
In addition, they have a captain who'll put in as much effort as possible to win a game.
It took 45 years, but the Los Angeles Kings have finally won the Stanley Cup.
Wayne Gretzky, Rogie Vachon, Luc Robitaille Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer, and other stars of the past all looked on as the Kings of today accomplished what they couldn't.
Win the Stanley Cup.
Sure, we kid about the terrible media coverage in LA or the bandwagon fans there, but this teams' history is as deep as many others. When you see signs in the stands that read "The Kings won the Stanley Cup, Now I can die in peace", you know how important this team is to so many people in Cali and for them to see this team win the Cup is something special for them.
Read this article about Kings' TV announcer Bob Miller and try telling me this team isn't historic or special. Miller has been the broadcaster for the last 39 seasons and has seen it all with that team. As he said to peers after the game, "This is for you Kings players and Kings fans wherever you may be. All the frustration, the disappointment of the past is gone. The 45-year drought is over. The Los Angeles Kings are indeed the kings of the National Hockey League, the 2012 Stanley Cup champions."
This embodies what it's like for this team to win the Cup. We saw it the last two years with Boston and Chicago, respectively. Fans had to go through frustration year after year. But once your team lifts the Cup, it's the sweetest feeling imaginable.
When you look at this Kings team, you see a team that's as close to perfect as possible (aside from the couple of F-bombs dropped afterwards). For the past few years, we've been told what teams needed to win championships. After Boston won, we were told that you needed a big, physical team to win the Cup. With Chicago, we were told you need a powerhouse up front to win it all. This has been going back for a while that it seemed you needed a specific type of team if you wanted a chance to hoist the Cup.
But when you look at this team, you don't see too many prominent categorizations. This team possessed everything you want in your team. They were solid up front and deep offensively. Their defensemen were tough and fast. Their goaltending was impeccable. Although their powerplay was weak early on, they heated up at the end, making their special teams incredibly impressive.
You name it, the Kings were dominant at it.
More importantly, the Kings were just so likeable. I speak for many Devils fans when I say that we don't have THAT much hatred for LA (unless, of course, they take Zach Parise from us this Summer). True, Dustin Brown has his character flaws, but these guys work hard and are just nice people.
Everyone fell in love with Darryl Sutter's cutely awkward press conferences.
Everyone fell in love with the story of Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, in addition to Dustin Penner's.
And how cute was Jonathan Quick's two year old daughter during his post-game 6 press conference.
Another story that Puck Daddy wrote about (I keep linking his stories. The dude's great with this hockey blogging thing) is just another great thing about the Kings that we all should be happy for. This story was the icing on the cake for this Stanley Cup team.
The night before game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals, a game where most people expected the Kings to finish the sweep and skate around with the Cup, the Kings organization donated a sum of $50,000 to help find the murderer of a 14 month old infant.
What company or organization would have the presence of mind to do something so right and pure for others while all the attention is on them. Everyone was talking about the Kings. They were the topic of discussion. But then they contributed to this amazing cause. Once I saw that, I almost WANTED the Kings to be given the Cup right then and there. Truly unbelievable.
Here's the story: http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/eve-potential-stanley-cup-final-sweep-kings-donate-025257385.html?bcmt=1338953674387-132e7056-3e7b-418e-9b93-a95acecf8a97&bcmt_s=u#ugccmt-container-b
After game 3's victory, I posted an in depth post about the Kings' success. I'll echo some of the main points from that, but I suggest you take a look at it here:
http://robinsnest-yoro.blogspot.com/2012/06/can-anybody-stop-la-kings.html
As many of you know, coach Darryl Sutter came in the middle of the season for the Kings. He completely turned their season around and with his system and attitude, never looked back. He fueled their passion and connected with their spirit and the combination made them almost unbeatable.
So they've got a coach who is pretty much the ideal coach. He's hard on them when he needs to be and he gets the most out of their team.
In addition, they have a captain who'll put in as much effort as possible to win a game.
Dustin Brown is pretty much the complete package. He does
just about everything right. We've seen him score multiple big, beautiful
goals in these playoffs, we've seen him throw big
(clean) hits and lay out opponents, and most importantly, we've seen
him utilize the lead-by-example role that he's so good at. His team see's him
doing it all out there on the ice and they follow suit.
And how about that Jonathan Quick.
Like I mentioned, he looked like, at times, the only player on the Kings who gave a damn during the regular season. He single handedly put them in a position to make the playoffs when they finally turned it on and got things going. His play in the regular season even has earned him a chance to win the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goalie.
His playoffs goals-against average of 1.41 is the best by any Stanley
Cup-winning goalie since Jacques Plante's 1.35 GAA in 1960. His save-percentage
of .946 is the best by any goaltender in NHL playoff history with at least 10
starts. For as great as Quick was during the regular season, he was even better
in the playoffs.
The dude carried his team throughout the playpoffs and occasionally made saves he had no business making. He was playing so well that he was getting all the breaks and made things look easily. The best example of this happened in game 3 against the Devils.
In a scoreless game, Ryan Carter found the puck on his stick right in front of the net. Jonathan Quick had lost sight of the rebound and left much of the net open.
But when Ryan Carter lifted it, the puck somehow managed to find Quick's right shoulder and deflect out of harms way.
At that moment, you just had this feeling that Quick could never be beat. We (the Devils) worked so hard to try to generate offense for 3 games and we were incredibly frustrated by the stone wall we faced. And here was a perfect opportunity to score and it just seemed that this was a sign of what was to come.
He was just too good.
So this team is something special for hockey. They're young. They're fast. And they're great.
Plus, this team should be around for several more years, based on contracts and stuff.
So for the next few seasons, watch out for these guys also.
So congrats to Los Angeles and congrats to the Kings. You guys deserve this one.
Soak it all in.
No comments:
Post a Comment