Friday (Unassisted): Final Thoughts on the Kings

When the Philadelphia Flyers won back to back Stanley Cups in 1974-75 they celebrated with their fans to the tune of 2,000,000 voices at the championship parades. I mention this because Kings star center and post-season hero Anze Kopitar had this to say via twitter last Thursday: "250.000 fans in la to share the cup with.... Doesn't get much better than that!!!! #bestfansintheworld." It's not so much Anze's initial statement that bothers me; I'm not going to bring down a man who has just won the best trophy in sports whose excitement is certainly justified. The hashtag however gets me- an overstatement that has come to embody the Kings entire postseason run. While acknowledging the stark differences between the LA sports scene and the Philadelphia sports scene, and ignoring the fact that the Broadstreet Bullies endeared themselves to the fans arguably more than any team in history, two million to a quarter of a million is still a gargantuan gap especially considering the exponential increase in sports exposure over the almost forty years since the Broadstreet era. I don't want to say that Philly has the best fans nor do I really want to say that any one city has the undisputed top fans. It's far too difficult an argument to support because it comes down to defining best. Attendance figures could help but they can be heavily influenced by the economic health of an area. Some may say the loudest fans are often the best fans but again some fans cheer loudly for the sake of being loud.
But I digress. The "best fans in the world" proclamation  comes off as hyperbolic. Like the Kings themselves the fans came out of nowhere. Against the Canucks in the first round the Kings drew some of the lowest local tv ratings of the opening round. Granted, both the Clippers and Lakers were still in the midst of closing their playoff bound seasons when the Kings eliminated the Canucks. But nothing says fairweather fan like rooting for your hockey team only after your basketball teams have been beaten. By the end of the playoffs Kings games had become raucous affairs, drawing celebrities and the common man alike to "LA Live" area surrounding the Staples Center. Kings sweaters started popping up everywhere in both their adolescent purple and gold and their current black, silver, and white. As LA's run grew more impressive so too did their fan base which has painted Angelos, in black and white terms, as a bandwagon group.
We tend to tire of bandwagon fans quickly, but in reality, we grew tired of the Kings in general. Their emphatic dismissal of the top three teams in the West had us singing their praises far before they lifted the ultimate prize. We exhausted the storylines, we wrote paeans to all the heroes to the point where no one was left unsung. After their 12-2 start everything was complete save for the cup presentation. Even Jonathan Quick had already skated away with the Conn Smythe Trophy. The question was besides Quick, who could win the Conn Smythe instead of who will win the Conn Smythe? The Kings earned every compliment they received; they maximized all the excitement they could for a Southern Californian hockey club, and for that, we give them immense credit. They lifted the Stanley Cup with the joy of school children released for the summer: the outcome was never in doubt but they celebrate just the same. 
-Dill Friday

Friday (Unassisted) on the Stanley Cup Final

It takes four wins to take a series. Teams utter this cliche throughout the playoffs but it comes out even more in series of three-zero deficits. After watching their 4-0 demolition of the Devils tonight, the Kings appear to have refuted the cliche completely. The Devils look dead after three games. In all lopsided series, especially in hockey where parody reigns, we tend to get caught up on what is the losing team doing wrong rather than what is the winning team doing right. Let's not take anything away from this Kings team, whose dominance is quickly transforming from surprising to historic. Should they win game four the Kings will complete the postseason with a 16-2 record, tied for the best in league history with the hall of fame laden 1988 Edmonton Oilers. Kopitar, Brown, Carter, Richards, Williams, Doughty, and Quick will forever be linked with Gretzky, Messier, Kurri, Anderson, Tikanen, Coffey, and Fuhr. Let those names sink in while also considering that the Kings started all four of their postseason series on the road where they have yet to lose. Their unblemished road record may vault the Kings over the Oilers for the most impressive postseason run in NHL history. If anything, cheer for the history.

As for the Devils- It's no secret that Ilya Kovalchuk is laboring through every shift. His back flared up earlier in the playoffs forcing him to sit out game two against Philadelphia, and it's likely that a recurrence of the injury has limited his effectiveness. While we can explain away Kovalchuk's struggles, the absence of any sort of attack is concerning for the Devils. Zach Parise has yet to register a point during the Stanley Cup, and he was badly outworked by Anze Kopitar on this pretty passing play.

The goal proved especially deflating for a team whose success has come from their work ethic and tight checking.

More on Parise- For a guy who so often falls in the underrated category I'm starting to think that Zach Parise might be overrated. He never stops moving his feet, he forechecks like a mad man, and he drives the net with abandon. No one can question Parise's heart. However, he misses a large portion of the chances he creates. Parise often finds himself close in on the goalie but fails to capitalize. As snipers like his teammate Kovalchuk and even his opposing Captain Dustin Brown fire for the corners of the goal, Parise seems content to just get the puck on net and work for the rebound. He has eleven shots in the three games thus far, but few have produced great saves from Jonathan Quick with the exception of a sharp pad save on a tip attempt early in game three. His talent is obvious, but frankly, Parise should score more than he does. On the tip effort Parise stood virtually unmarked at the edge of the crease with Quick scrambling to get back into position. It was a great save, but the great scorers find the back of the net in those circumstances. If you're a Devils fan credit Parise for being in the right spot as he so often is, but criticize him for not burying a greater percentage of his opportunities. The Devils need him to capitalize if they hope to extend this series beyond four games.

4th Line Problems? As we talked about in our last post, the Devils have relied heavily on the timely scoring of their unheralded fourth line. That trend continued into the final with Ryan Carter grabbing the team's only goal in a game two loss. Here's where the problem comes in: the better they play, the more they play and in doing so they take minutes from the Devils' star offensive players. The fourth line has overachieved but on some level they're still a fourth line. Steven Gionta spent the majority of the season in the AHL and both Bernier and Carter missed games as healthy scratches. Although they contributed a goal to the cause, both Carter and Gionta defended in vain as Drew Doughty cut through the Devils on this splendid coast-to-coast effort in game two:

The trio also ended the night in dejection as Jeff Carter scored the winner in overtime with the fourthliners on the ice. It may be tough to sit down or split up his hottest group, but Pete DeBoer may have to do just that in order to take this series back to Newark. 

Martinez's Opening goal- I can buy the argument that bad goals or blown calls, or in this case a combination of the two can change the momentum of a game. They tend to deflate the victimized team altering the course of the game or even the series. I'll say this: Martinez's goal should have been disallowed. Martin Brodeur has a right to be furious with the officials. He clearly pins the puck underneath his pad as he sustains repeated whacks from first Dwight King and then the goal scorer Alec Martinez.  

However, for the Devils to look back at the goal as a turning point in the game is to admit defeat completely. It merely serves as an excuse for a team who couldn't thwart the more powerful Kings attack. It's the Stanley Cup Final, if you don't have have the character or the drive to overcome a controversy you probably don't deserve to lift the chalice. 

Rivalries playing a role? On paper the Kings may have had the tougher road to the cup. Indeed they eliminated the top three seeds in the West in a mere fourteen games. Still, their cup run lacked the physical and emotional beating that the Devils faced at the hands of their two most fierce rivals. Because they rely so heavily on an unrelenting, aggressive forecheck, any drop in energy disrupts the system. It's entirely possible that the Devils exhausted themselves in dispatching the Flyers and Rangers respectively simply because of the high level of emotion associated with the matchups. On the other side, the Kings battled with the Blues and Coyotes, not exactly intimidating hockey hotbeds. Their lack of a rivalry may hinder the excitement surrounding the team in the regular season but the Kings and their fans will certainly accept that absence if they hoist the cup because of it. 

Conn Smythe Watch- For the second straight year it looks like an American goaltender will take home Conn Smythe honors as playoff MVP. Jonathan Quick has been superb and beyond for the Kings and is the obvious choice for the award. However, I'd like to see Doughty or Kopitar take home the prize. Goalies win far too often for my liking, and I'd like to see the writers vote a little more creatively for a Kings team that has been great at all aspects of the game. Doughty drives their success from the back line, while Kopitar leads the attack with eighteen points. I guess what it comes down to is the Kings have several worthy candidates, a mark of a great team. 

-Dillon Friday aka Third Generation Slovenian-American. Distant cousin of Anze Kopitar? Perhaps