The Current Conundrum Of The Los Angeles Kings

“The Playoff Kings”

A repeat of the polar opposite performances (regular and playoffs) happened again last season when the Kings were stuck in a certain purgatory of third place due to the recent playoff format changes the NHL adopted at the beginning of that 2013-14 season. The California/Pacific division rival Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks were too far ahead in points to reach and pass (to secure home ice advantage) while the Kings themselves were too far to reach for the other divisional/conference teams to catch up to. This led to an epic 7 game series in San Jose, where the Kings defied the odds once more and came back from a 3-0 deficit against the San Jose Sharks to eliminate them in game 7. They became only the fourth team in NHL history to do so (and the second team to do it with Mike Richards and Jeff Carter on the roster).

After winning the first 2 games of the next series, the Kings dropped another 3 straight games against the Ducks. In Hollywood fashion, The Kings still came back and beat Anaheim in their own barn in that game 7 as well. That led to a heavyweight rematch battle between the defending 2013 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference finals that had the Kings do virtually the impossible and defeat Chicago after being down by 2 goals TWICE in that game 7 and eliminating them thanks to the overtime heroics of Kings defensemen Alec Martinez.

By the way, did I mention that the game was also played ON THE ROAD IN CHICAGO?! Hollywood screenwriter and director Quentin Tarantino couldn’t have written a better script.

The Kings went on to defeat the New York Rangers in 5 entertaining games to win their second Stanley Cup in franchise history (with defenseman  Alec Martinez outdoing himself with a double overtime winning shot that Ranger goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is still having nightmares about). With further inspection, common sense logic and basing everything on the general lack of quality performance by the Kings in the regular season, there was simply no way to predict that the Kings would’ve been able to go all the way again, especially on an even more challenging and dangerous route to win another Stanley Cup. It has been said by many hockey analysts that this could possibly have been the HARDEST route for a team to win the Cup in the Stanley Cup’s long and illustrious history. So how did they do it….again?