Crowning achievement: Kings rip Devils, win Stanley Cup

Special to the Phanatic

The City of Angels has a new star in town.

Thanks to a goal and two assists from Dustin Brown, two goals each from Trevor Lewis and Jeff Carter and 17 saves from Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Quick, the Los Angeles Kings took a 6-1 win over the New Jersey Devils in Game 6 on Monday to win the Stanley Cup for the first time in franchise history.

The first eighth seed to win the Cup, the Kings had held a 3-0 lead in this series after a pair of wins in New Jersey then one at home, but the Devils had won Games 4 and 5 to force a Game 6. It was the first time since 1945 in which a team that was down 3-0 in the finals made it to a sixth game.

There would be no seventh game, though, as Los Angeles scored three times in the first period thanks to a major penalty from New Jersey to take command of the game and Quick took it from there.

The third American-born player to win the Conn Smythe as MVP of the playoffs, Quick finished the postseason with a mark of 16-4 along with three shutouts. He posted a league-best .946 save percentage and a 1.41 goals-against average in the playoffs.

New Jersey was in the Cup Finals for the first time since 2003 and was looking for its fourth championship in team history, but it was not to be as the team failed to rally from the hole it had dug itself in.

Martin Brodeur, a four-time Vezina winner, gave up five goals on 24 shots while Adam Henrique scored the only goal of the game for the Devils, who were in the Cup Finals for the fifth time since 1995.

The five-minute power play in the first period was awarded to the Kings as Steve Bernier was given a major and misconduct for boarding defenseman Rob Scuderi.

Scuderi was playing the puck behind his own net when Bernier came charging in and slammed him face-first into the boards. Scuderi was bleeding from a cut on his nose after the hit and the Kings power play went to work at the 10:10 mark.

The first goal came less than a minute later as a Drew Doughty shot from the left point was redirected past Brodeur by Brown in the low slot.

The Kings continued to skate on the advantage and made it a 2-0 game with 7:15 to play in the period. The puck was chipped down low and Los Angeles won the battle deep to the left of the net. Mike Richards was able to slip it to the low left circle for Brown, who cut to the front and snapped a wrister that Carter tipped past Brodeur for his seventh of the playoffs.

In the final seconds of the power play, Dwight King rushed the puck down the left wing and charged the net. He lost control of the puck, but it slid over to the right and Lewis was able to slam it home with 4:59 left in the period.

New Jersey wasn't able to generate much offensively in the first period and Quick stopped all four shots he faced. The Kings, though, did benefit from the right post late in the frame when Patrik Elias' shot from the slot rang off the iron.

It took just 90 seconds for the Kings to make it a 4-0 game in the second period. A turnover behind the New Jersey net saw Brown come away with the puck and skate it to the boards at the left circle. He snapped a pass to the slot where Carter wristed the puck home for his second of the game.

At the six-minute mark, Bryce Salvador was given a double-minor for high sticking and the Kings peppered Brodeur with shots, but he turned all of them aside to keep the game from becoming even more lopsided.

New Jersey avoided another bullet as Los Angeles was unable to take advantage of another power play when Ryan Carter was called for roughing and given a misconduct at the 14:23 mark.

The Devils got some life with 1:15 to play in the second when a left-circle faceoff win saw the puck come to the net and Henrique jam it in for his fifth of the playoffs.

A roughing call on LA's Dustin Penner with 16.1 seconds to play in the second period gave New Jersey a power play that carried over into the third, but the team was unable to take advantage.

Much of the third period played out without much fanfare as the Kings were intent on holding off the New Jersey attack that managed just eight shots in the final period.

The Devils pulled Brodeur with around four minutes to play in a desperate attempt to rally, but Lewis sealed the win with the empty-netter at the 16:15 mark and Matt Greene scored 15 seconds later on Brodeur and the building began the celebrations.

Notes: Quick joined Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins in 2011 and Brian Leetch of the New York Rangers in 1994 as the only Americans to win the MVP trophy...The 2006 Edmonton Oilers were the only other team to make the Cup Finals as an eighth seed. They lost in seven games to the Carolina Hurricanes...Los Angeles' Anze Kopitar had an assist in the game and finished the playoffs with 20 points to lead all skaters. He finished one point ahead of New Jersey's Ilya Kovalchuk...It was the largest margin of victory in a Cup clinching game since 1991 when the Pittsburgh Penguins took an 8-0 win in Game 6 over the Minnesota North Stars...The Kings are the 18th active franchise to win the Stanley Cup...The last championship for the city of Los Angeles was in 2010 when the NBA's Lakers defeated the Boston Celtics in seven games...LA lost a five-game Finals to Montreal in 1993...New Jersey was the third team in NHL history to push a series to six games after losing the first three. The 1945 Detroit Red Wings rallied for three straight but lost a game seven to the Toronto Maple Leafs, while the 1942 Maple Leafs turned the trick against the Red Wings, winning the final four games to become the only team to rally from a 3-0 hole in the finals.

Season over for Flyers fans' divisiveness with Kings

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor 

No matter how you feel about Mike Richards or Jeff Carter or Simon Gagne (though public sentiment is overwhelmingly in the third name's corner as opposed to the first two), I hope you recall their initial foray into the glory that is the Stanley Cup Finals ended like this:

That was two years ago tonight.

For many of us, it qualifies as the worst ending to a Flyers season in our lifetimes, and it doubles as a hail of blows to the solar plexus because it was a sequence of events which blew up the club's hopes to stay alive in the finals, in sudden-death overtime, in front of the ever-hopeful home crowd.

Add to that the fact that nobody outside of Patrick Kane and Patrick Sharp -- not the television personalities of NBC and CBC and least of all the radio crews in both cities -- knew what really transpired for moments afterward, you have the makings of a memory where time seems to stop, stand still and then warp like taffy beyond anyone's control.

Worst of all, you never could shake the feeling that once everyone came to their senses and put the pieces together, the true outcome would never be favorable.

Had Kane's shot been somehow squeezed off between Michael Leighton's pads, or had gone through only to trickle out to the far side of the net, there were no guarantees the Flyers could score thereafter to win it. Even less certain, the possibility of riding that wave to a Game 7 victory in Chicago, where the Blackhawks tallied 15 goals in winning their first three tries in the series at United Center.

So, when you add up all the transgressions, real or imagined, particularly of the Terror Twins both on and off the ice while they roamed Philadelphia, know that there's a slight karmic debt that has to be paid by the hockey gods for living through that nightmare.

It's going to happen whether you like it or not, so all the haters should find some place in their souls to heal and to forgive. You only have three more opportunities: tonight, Monday and Wednesday.

It's time to forget, because you have to realize, none of the ex-Flyers on the Los Angeles Kings really care if you wish them ill. It may even ease the burdens you carry from witnessing the thing that dare not be mentioned, which occurred at either 4:06 or 4:10 or 4:06 of the extra session on June 9, 2010.

Ask yourselves if there ever any time in your lives while playing sports you wish you had back because things beyond your influence conspired against your team?

Making that bucket to put your school ahead, only to see the other side drain a winning three as time expired. Hitting a line drive sure to score two when you're behind by one in the championship, only to see the shortstop make a lunging grab? And yes, thinking you have an open net only to see the goaltender dive across in time at point-blank range.

I've had enough of the endless blather between fan pitted against fan trying to prove who's a fan and who's not or who's got the high ground dissing the Carter/Richards binary star for whatever reasons. Though I hate telling people who invest their hearts, minds and dollars in their favorite pastimes how to react on a visceral level, I'm excepting myself this once because I see how some commenters love to do it to my colleagues:


Get over it. With 60 minutes of winning hockey standing between three ex-Flyers and their first Stanley Cup, you're either all in or all out. And I strongly suggest you go all in.

Carter sacrificed feet and a leg and saw all but one of his playoffs here shortened. Richards had two torn labrums three years ago and could barely take a faceoff, remember? Their failures as "leaders" are less their own than by management that each year has a plan in place, then won't hesitate to jump the line and go for broke at the slightest sign of progress. Richards is even on the cusp of becoming a member of the exclusive Triple Gold club among North Americans.

Both players now exist in the best of all possible worlds -- seasoned veterans, healthy, asked to be part of the mix instead of the spoons that must whip it all together.

Gagne suffered through concussion issues and groin issues and the insult of being a pawn in Paul Holmgren's Good Soldier game, then more concussion issues this year. You can't keep a good man down, even after shipping him to Tampa Bay. I don't need to list all his accomplishments, but he has Game 6 in OT against the Bolts in 2004 and Games 4 and 7 in 2010 against the Bruins to his credit and that's more than sufficient.

All are deserving equally of success that's just within grasp.

Same goes for LA assistant GM Ron Hextall, who as a player we last remember a shot by Rangers defenseman Chris Tamer from center ice slipping from his grasp in 1999, and a handful of bad goals in the 1997 Finals against Detroit. I guess 15 years is too long to recount the flambe his name endured from the masses after one too many long-range biscuits cost the Orange and Black.

You weren't for him then, and you're for him now? Don't waste time being so contrarian, so...Philadelphian about it.

Throw down your (verbal) arms, release the burden and enjoy the moment for what it is. Or don't, but steer well clear and stew in it while the rest of us bask in the warmth of some reflected glory.

Kings' broom not quite big enough, but history still on their side

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor

They say the fourth win is the hardest to get, especially so when you're up 3-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals.

I don't know where "they" came up with this, or why others parrot what "they" said, but as usual, the "they" who spout a lot of supposed conventional wisdom are totally off base.

So the Los Angeles Kings failed to sweep away the New Jersey Devils at home on Wednesday night, dropping a 3-1 decision which means they'll get another chance to win it all on the road -- where, coincidentally they're 10-0 and have a shot to break the all-time NHL record for road victories in one postseason -- this coming Saturday in Newark.

The degree of difficulty in closing out the terminal series after holding your opponent winless while you've won three straight can be argued. What can't be, is that it's apparently not so tough to pick up that fourth win in succession for the Stanley Cup.

Since the dawn of the expansion era in 1967, there have been 15 Finals which saw one club take the first three games and have the opportunity for a sweep. Twelve of those series ended in the fourth game:

1968  Montreal vs. St. Louis
1969  Montreal vs. St. Louis
1970  Boston vs. St. Louis
1976  Montreal vs. Philadelphia
1977  Montreal vs. Boston
1982  Islanders vs. Canucks
1983  Islanders vs. Oilers
1992  Penguins vs. Blackhawks
1995  Devils vs. Red Wings
1996  Avalanche vs. Panthers
1997  Red Wings vs. Flyers
1998  Red Wings vs. Capitals

Only the Islanders in 1981 against the North Stars and the Kings this year have failed to do so. New York, which lost Game 4 in Bloomington, eventually returned to Nassau Coliseum and closed out Minnesota in Game 5 for their second straight title.

The 1988 Oilers were the victims of a technicality, as power failure at the Boston Garden in the second period of Game 4 forced the postponement of a 3-3 tie and forced Edmonton back home, where it was triumphant in Game 5.

To steal from Pete Townshend, the Kings are all right. There's a long way to go before the approach to the fate which befell the 1942 Detroit Red Wings.

Poetic justice for ex-Flyers in Stanley Cup Finals

by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor

While revenge may be a dish best served cold, redemption is more like a buffet, best walked through slowly, to be savored in its warming glow.

And as the Los Angeles Kings arrive at their first Stanley Cup Finals since 1993, there are a whole host of ex-Philadelphia Flyers players throughout the organization who find themselves on the cusp sooner than anyone expected.

Chief among them, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, whose whirlwind years began with their shocking departure from Philly roughly 11 months ago. Then there's Simon Gagne, troubled again by concussion issues, who played the good soldier in allowing himself to be deleted from a Cup Finalist roster two Julys back in a trade to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

All three were integral parts of a Flyers team that made their own surprising title run before falling short to Chicago.

Richards, once portrayed in the same light as Bobby Clarke, looking every bit the grizzled vet with beard in tow, ever the work-hound, author of "The Shift." Carter, his light-footed but heavy-handed comrade, always the goal-hound. Nowhere was that complementary relationship revealed than at the end of Game 5 in the Eastern Finals, Richards chugging away like he wanted to end it all and Carter picking up the garbage and scoring into the empty net.

Gagne, 11 years a Flyer, whose beginning and end in Philadelphia book-ended heartbreak. His reward may be extra sweet given the timing: finally cleared for contact just as the fourth of four rounds is set to commence next week. The man who kept the season alive with an overtime strike in Game 4 of the Eastern Semifinals against Boston, then tallied the winner in Game 7 of an epic comeback deserves some more positive karma.

Let's not forget Justin Williams.

So what if he already won once, thanks to help from another ex-Flyer in Rod Brind'Amour at Carolina six years ago? The native of Cobourg, Ontario is, by all accounts, one of the more genial and accessible players, so why not cheer for him again to stick it to the organization who traded him for the illustrious Danny Markov?

All three may also be able to put a damper on one of the most unlikely playoff heroes in NHL history, one who prevented the Flyers from advancing twice -- Ruslan Fedotenko.

If the Rangers end up being LA's opponent, and if the Kings win it all, then Fedotenko will be denied his third (yes, read that right, third) Stanley Cup. Remember how Rusty (the man who scored one of the two goals for Philly in 2002 against Ottawa) tore up the Orange and Black in '04 with Tampa Bay, netting the winner in Game 7? Remember how he was on the Penguins three years back?

Finally, there's Ron Hextall. A man most of us never thought would turn management. He who sweat, and made countless others bleed, in pursuit of winning: a Flyer through and through. He may be employed by LA but his heart is still here, probably still aching that he couldn't do enough to help us take it all.

Even though Hexy no longer has the immediate control of his crease, a win will erase at least some of the pain from an extraordinary 1987 and a forgettable 1997. That his chance comes again, after rising to the rank of assistant GM, on significant anniversaries can't be ignored.

You think there's some place deep down where he wishes to get one over on Clarke, Holmgren et al. if for nothing else than having the wrong bust presented during his "night" in 2007?

I floated the crazy idea prior to last season that perhaps Flyers West is nothing more than a breeding ground for future Flyers East. Richards and Carter shipped out, one day to return as more mature persons and players. Hextall to serve his apprenticeship before eventually taking over for Holmgren.

Winning a Cup will likely make that path an easier, and clearer one. It's not going to be easy for fans who feel jilted, but there's no reason not to wish your former favorites well. They're gonna play either New York or New Jersey, after all -- two franchises this year's Flyers couldn't overcome.